20 Oct “Roots and Routes along Keaukaha’s Seashore: Tidalectic Repertoires of Place” with Halena Kapuni-Reynolds

The Center for Biographical Research presents:

“Roots and Routes along Keaukaha’s Seashore: Tidalectic Repertoires of Place”
Halena Kapuni-Reynolds, Doctoral Candidate, Department of American Studies, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
Cosponsored by the Departments of History, Political Science, and Anthropology, the Museum Studies Program, and Hamilton LibraryThursday, October 22 from 12PM to 1:15PM (HST) via Zoom

Meeting ID: 954 2305 5123
Password: EDV55r
Meeting Link: https://hawaii.zoom.us/j/95423055123

This presentation examines two documented huakaʻi hele (trips visiting storied places, known as wahi pana), led by Henry Nālimu and Mary Kaʻōulionālani Pahiʻo (Kaʻai) along Keaukaha’s seashore. Drawing from Caribbean poet and philosopher Kamau Braithwaite’s concept of tidalectics, as routed into the Pacific by literary scholar Elizabeth Deloughery, as well as performance studies scholar Diana Taylor’s concept of the repertoire, I consider the embodied and textual movement of these kūpuna (elders) across this beloved coastline.

Halena Kapuni-Reynolds was born on Hawaiʻi Island and raised in the Hawaiian homestead community of Keaukaha and the upper rain forest of ‘Ōla‘a. He is currently a doctoral student in museum studies and American studies at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa, and serves as the graduate assistant for the Museum Studies Graduate Certificate Program. In 2019, he published “Na Pana Kaulana o Keaukaha: The Stories Places of Keaukaha,” a chapter celebrating wahi pana (storied places) through huakaʻi hele (sightseeing tours) in Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi (Duke University Press, 2019).