Decolonizing Heritage Management in Hawai ‘ i

Hawai‘i struggles with many issues confronting heritage management programs globally. While some State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs) regularly engage in long-term planning and public outreach, the Hawai‘i SHPO often struggles with regulatory backlogs, staff reductions, and frequent staff turn-over. Nevertheless, grass roots efforts to better manage Hawaiian cultural sites are becoming more prevalent. We summarize key trends that have affected Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in Hawai‘i since the 1960s and address how the relationships between CRM professionals and indigenous communities have transformed over that time. One of the largest obstacles to the decolonization of heritage management in Hawai‘i has been the under-representation of CRM professionals from descendant communities. A contributing factor is a common perception that CRM (as it is often manifested in archaeological studies prior to development) is antithetical to Hawaiian values. A second factor is that state regulations require principal investigators in CRM firms to obtain graduate degrees in anthropology or closely related fields, but opportunities for graduate training in Hawai‘i are limited. Here, we make the case that community-based archaeology is a vital aspect of Hawaiian cultural revitalization, and that the extension of graduate programs in heritage management to predominantly indigenous communities is essential to decolonization efforts.


Introduction
In 1935 the Historic Sites Act established a new category of historic properties in the United States known as National Historic Landmarks (NHLs).This designation was intended to provide stewardship and funding for historic properties of special significance across the nation, and NHLs remain a highly significant part of US federal historic preservation efforts.One of the seven National Historic Landmarks on Hawai'i Island is Mo'okini Heiau, which is a monumental Native Hawaiian stone ritual site associated with the famous voyager Pa'ao, who arrived in Hawai'i many generations before Captain Cook reached the islands in 1778.The roughly rectangular stone-walled enclosure, approximately 3000 m 2 with walls up to four meters high and three meters thick, was once surrounded by an expansive chiefly residential complex that continued for at least a mile to the south of the heiau (Cordy, 2000).
The site is an atypical tourist stop.It sits in a remote location along the northern coast of Hawai'i Island in the midst of old sugar plantation fields, which have erased many of the features of the chiefly complex.The 4-wheel drive track which runs past the site, is usually pocked with muddy pools deep enough to float a small rent-a-car and submerge the radiator grills of pick-up trucks.Consequently, most visitors wend their way around the mud pits on foot for about a mile from the last section of paved road.The land is managed by Hawai'i State Parks, which mows a grass lawn surrounding the heiau, but no em-ployees are on permanent duty.On a typical day, anyone who ventures to Mo'okini Heiau will be in solitude, with nothing but the sun and wind to contend with while strolling around the site.In the winter months, humpback whales are usually visible from the site, breaching amidst the white-caps off the North Shore.For anyone sensitive to the colonial environment which has rendered this ancient cultural site into a quaint and isolated scenic adventure often taken by non-culturally affiliated tourists, the very act of visiting Mo'okini evokes an uncomfortable sense of misappropriation.The solitude, lack of shade, and constant wind can close in on one's senses, disengaging visitors from the frenetic pace of the surrounding world, and creating an anachronistic sense of being in the past, or in a post-apocalyptic future, or both.The illusion of timelessness in the sparsely inhabited landscape is only interrupted by the presence of a single bronze plaque mounted on a small boulder outside the heiau entrance.It is embossed as follows: What is particularly noteworthy about the bronze plaque is that someone has nearly pounded the embossed words "UNITED STATES" and "US" into oblivion.The sustained effort necessary to obliterate these words would have been an emotional catharsis, likely expressing contempt for the US government that helped overthrow the indigenous Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.The act reclaimed Mo'okini for Hawaiian people as a significant part of indigenous heritage, and rejected its imperialist appropriation as heritage of the United States.The symbolism of this act is poignant and emblematic of the global themes represented in this volume.As anthropologists engaged in heritage management, we are uncomfortably aware of how anthropology and heritage management can contribute to colonialism.The Historic Sites Act was intended to preserve and commemorate cultural heritage for the benefit of the nation, but the history of the United States is filled with nationalistic hegemony and indigenous resistance, and heritage management is frequently an embattled stage on which these contests play out.Although the bronze plaque was probably placed at the site in good faith and with good intentions, the language on the plaque was clearly offensive for understandable reasons.
A successful post-colonial heritage management system in Hawai'i has to recognize these contested histories in order to overcome the colonial past and help decolonize the present.From a distance, one might assume heritage management professionals and indigenous communities are united by a shared opposition to colonial perspectives and rampant development, but the portrayal of anthropologists and archaeologists as a manifestation of the colonial enterprise in Hawai'i remains quite common.Others envision archaeology as part of a process to eliminate indigenous people from the landscape entirely, in what is called "settler colonialism" (Kauanui, 2008;Kelly, 2009;Ratner, 2011).Hawai'i is clearly undergoing a crisis in heritage management.The Hawai'i State Historic Preservation Division, underfunded and understaffed, has been unable to meet federal standards for historic preservation review, prompting the National Park Service to issue a report detailing the shortcomings of the office in March of 2010 (National Park Service, 2010).Frequently, development plans continue to destroy and encroach on Hawaiian burials, exacerbating perceptions of heritage management as a superficial approval process, "rubber stamping" development projects, while providing little meaningful protection to cultural sites (Collins, 2010;Kawelu, 2007, in press).
Despite these ongoing crises, a number of recent developments demonstrate substantial indigenous engagement within archaeology and heritage management in general, and here we focus on some of the positive changes taking place in Hawai'i.To contextualize the current situation, we review some of the major transformations that Hawaiian heritage management has undergone since the 1960s.

1960s: Heritage Management without Preservation Legislation
The governmental infrastructure that offers some limited protection for Hawaiian cultural sites from modern develop-ment was largely non-existent until the 1970s.The National Historic Preservation Act (16 USC 470) passed by the US Congress in 1966 established a preservation program for federal undertakings, but with a few notable exceptions, it took several years for the act to have much impact in Hawai'i (Kirch, 1999), and companion state legislation had not yet been drafted.
A condominium development project in Kahala, on the outskirts of Honolulu, O'ahu serves as an anecdotal representation of the 1960s era.Most archaeology in Hawai'i at that time was research-oriented, and conducted through the Bernice P. Bishop Museum (established, 1889) in Honolulu.In August of 1963 Bishop Museum archaeologist Robert N. Bowen excavated a human grave in Kahala, after it had been accidentally exposed.
From the coffin and associated moepu (grave goods), Bowen estimated that the individual died in the 1820s-1840s (McManamon, 1998).The property where the grave was found was owned by Bishop Estate, a private land-trust (and separate entity from the Bishop Museum) founded in 1883 through the will of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the great granddaughter of King Kamehameha the Great, and dedicated to creating "educational opportunities in perpetuity to improve the capability and well-being of people of Hawaiian ancestry" (Kamehameha Schools, 2010).The name of the trust was changed to "Kamehameha Schools" in 2000, and it is currently ranked as the 13th most wealthy private trust in the world with a net endowment estimated at 7.2 billion dollars (Accuity, 2012).
Over the next three years, despite the presence of the burial, Bishop Estate proceeded with plans to convey the land to the Kahala Beach Corporation, a private developer intending to construct a condominium complex.No state laws in 1966 required Bishop Estate to search for additional burials, and construction workers began grading the site with heavy equipment in preparation for the proposed development.Within the first week of January 1966, three more human burials were exposed, and archaeologist Robert Bowen again returned to the site, and organized a small team of volunteer archaeologists from the Bishop Museum to salvage what they could.The construction schedule was briefly halted, and over the month of January, twenty-five coffin burials were excavated and documented by Bowen, as well as other well-known Bishop Museum archaeologists including Lloyd Soehren, Yosi Sinoto, Peter Chapman, and William Kikuchi.Dates of associated grave goods ranged from the early 1800s to the early 1900s, and the "discoveries" were regularly featured in the local newspaper, the Honolulu Star Bulletin.The headlines described the cemetery as a "significant archaeological find," and positively portrayed the archaeologists as community servants salvaging Hawaiian history from the inevitable effects of modern development.By February 7 the developers hired Greenlawn Funeral Home, Ltd. to begin removing any remaining burials with heavy equipment.Over the next two days, an undetermined number of burials were exhumed in fragments or graded over, but a total of 33 individuals from the cemetery ended up in Bishop Museum collections.These remains spent three decades at the Bishop Museum, and were eventually repatriated under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) in 1998 (McManamon, 1998).
As the story unfolded in the Honolulu Star Bulletin over the months of January and early February 1966, one woman of Hawaiian ancestry came forward and reported that several members of her family had been buried in the cemetery as recently as 1922, including her father, her sister, and her husband.
Two years later, on 4 January 1968, the woman and her son filed suit against the Bishop Estate Trustees, Kahala Beach Corporation, Pacific Construction Company, and Greenlawn Funeral Home for desecrating the cemetery.The suit claimed that although Bishop Estate owned the land around the cemetery, they did not own the burial plots, and had no right to sell them in fee simple in a conveyance to Kahala Beach Corporation (Honolulu Star Bulletin, 5 January 1968).This case is not unique for that time, but serves as a benchmark for the nature of development as well as community perceptions of archaeology and archaeologists in relation to unmarked burials.Although two lineal descendants sought redress for the desecration of their relatives' graves, the general lack of community protest is noteworthy, as are the observations that the archaeologists were presented in a benign light in the newspaper stories, and were not named as defendants in the lawsuit.

1970s-1990s: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back
In 1976, the Hawai'i State legislature passed Chapter 6E of Hawai'i Revised Statutes that established a review process for development projects conducted under the purview of the state and counties.Although the implementation of legislation is rarely as ideal as the language expressed in the statutes, the statement of intent in Chapter 6E is worth quoting: The legislature declares that the historic and cultural heritage of the State is among its important assets and that the rapid social and economic developments of contemporary society threaten to destroy the remaining vestiges of this heritage.The legislature further declares that it is in the public interest to engage in a comprehensive program of historic preservation at all levels of government to promote the use and conservation of such property for the education, inspiration, pleasure, and en-richment of its citizens.The legislature further declares that it shall be the public policy of this State to provide leadership in preserving, restoring, and maintaining historic and cultural property, to ensure the administration of such historic and cul-tural property in a spirit of stewardship and trusteeship for fu-ture generations, and to conduct activities, plans, and programs in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of historic and cultural property (Hawai'i Revised Statutes, 1976).
With the passage of Chapter 6E and the establishment of a regulatory process to implement the National Historic Preservation Act, a bureaucratic infrastructure was established to identify and hopefully protect "significant" cultural sites from the effects of modern development.Additional funds were set aside to assist the one-person State Historic Preservation program first administered through the Division of Hawai'i State Parks, which grew in to a separate division, Hawai'i State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD), with an expanded professional staff by 1990 (Collins, 2010).As the SHPD began to regularly require developers to complete archaeological inventory surveys of their project areas, many cultural sites on the Hawaiian landscape began to be identified.While the first projects were largely completed by Bishop Museum archaeologists and state employees, the volume of development in the state created opportunities for numerous new private archaeological consulting firms (Kirch, 1999).By the 1990s, over 26 of these private firms were regularly operating in Hawai'i, and continue to operate today.
Concurrent with these developments, there was a major resurgence in Hawaiian cultural revitalization in the 1970s, manifested through the reintroduction of Hawaiian language and culture in educational settings and in daily practice.Issues pertaining to the preservation and restoration of Hawaiian cultural sites featured prominently in the movement.Kathleen Kawelu (2007) summarizes three flash-point events in this era.One was the effort to end the use of Kaho'olawe Island for US military bombing practice, and the return of its management to Hawaiian cultural practitioners.A second was the State's expenditure of over 17 million dollars through the early 1990s to contract Bishop Museum to excavate sites in the way of a proposed federal highway project (H-3 freeway, O'ahu), with little chance to re-route the highway around highly significant sites.The third event, initiated in 1986, was the excavation of over 1000 burials from a known burial dune site at Honokahua, Maui in order to construct a resort.Unlike the Kahala condominium project, the excavations at Honokahua were accompanied by large protests on Maui and at the State Capital on O'ahu.As a consequence, the excavations were belatedly stopped, the human remains were re-interred, and the resort was redesigned, but the public image of archaeology in Hawai'i was badly damaged.
Unlike the Kahala project in the 1960s, the conduct of private consulting firms on high-profile projects such as H-3 Freeway and Honokahua justifiably facilitated the perception of archaeology and archaeologists as an exploitative manifestation of cultural violence perpetrated as a "bus-stop to development" (Kawelu, 2007, in press).Following such high-profile debacles, it was not surprising that most college students of Hawaiian ancestry were not attracted to the field of archaeology, and archaeologists working at universities in Hawai'i found it easier to conduct their research elsewhere (White & Tengan, 2001).By 1997 archaeologist Patrick Kirch voiced his concerns on these matters at the annual Society for Hawaiian Archaeology conference.Although he noted that some students of Hawaiian ancestry were still engaged in archaeological studies, he was concerned about the general lack of archaeological engagement with descendant communities (Kirch, 1999).
As a negative reputation of archaeology gained traction resulting from projects like H-3 and Honokahua in the late 1980s and early 1990s, additional roadblocks increased the distance between heritage management professionals and descendant communities.In Hawai'i, state regulations require that principal investigators working for one of the 26 firms licensed to conduct archaeological research possess "a graduate degree from an accredited institution in archaeology, or anthropology, with a specialization in archaeology, or an equivalent field" (Hawai'i Administrative Rules, 2002).With archaeology's bad reputation in descendant communities, and lacking accessible graduate programs within financial, geographic, and philosophical reach of descendant communities, the state regulations served to exacerbate a disassociation between archaeologists and Native Hawaiians.
While Patrick Kirch praised the progress of the Hawai'i State Historic Preservation Division in 1997, he cautioned that staffing of the office might suffer as the "deregulation" trend swept through the American populace, which is precisely what happened in Hawai'i (Kirch, 1999).As early as 2002, there were vacancies in the O'ahu Island archaeologist position that remained open for years.By 2008, various bills before the State legislature sounded the alarm, such as Senate Bill 2906 that stated "The legislature finds that historic preservation in Hawai'i is presently in a condition of unprecedented confusion and disarray, making it nearly impossible for the State to meet its cultural obligations and legislative mandates to manage historical properties for the benefit of the various descendent communities.The discovery, identification, and preservation of archaeological sites, human burial sites, and other historic properties are increasingly threatened" (Hawai'i Senate Bill, 2008).Four years later, in 2012, the State Historic Preservation Division still struggled to meet the demands of a Federal "Corrective Action Plan" (National Park Service, 2012), necessary to sustain federal funding of nearly 50% of the agency's budget.The largest failure of the office is that many positions requiring graduate degrees remain unfilled.

Ongoing and Envisioned Solutions for Decolonizing Heritage Management in Hawai'i
The decolonization of Heritage Management in Hawai'i is undoubtedly a complex process, but it involves at least two major components: 1) envisioning and creating heritage management programs that engage directly with descendant communities; and 2) increasing opportunities in descendant communities for graduate education in heritage management.

Engaging Descendant Communities
In the last decade, there has been an explosion of new institutional and grass roots efforts in which descendant communities have taken on active roles in heritage management.Although Kirch's 1997 address stressed that some Native Hawaiians sought a moratorium on archaeology in Hawai'i, others have called for partnership with-and leadership from-descendant communities to do better archaeology (Cachola-Abad, 1999, 2013;Hall, 2013;Kawelu, 2013;Nāleimaile & Brandt, 2013).A unifying theme in the calls for improved archaeological practices in Hawai'i is qualitative improvements in the level of engagement with contemporary Hawaiian communities (Tengan, 2001).A shift in perspective is required, for example instead of viewing and interpreting "archaeological sites" as significant only for their data, these cultural sites should be viewed as vital parts of a living Hawaiian culture.
As examples, we highlight four community-based projects that began independently on different Islands.First, on the Kona side of Hawai'i Island, the for-profit arm of Kamehameha Schools (Kamehameha Investment Corporation) began restoring Hapaiali'i Heiau, a massive 15th-Century stone ritual platform, on their property which also included the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort.Local Native Hawaiian families were involved in planning the project, and the restoration work involved detailed plane-table and alidade mapping of the structure before reconstruction began.The mapping was mostly supervised by Keone Kalawe, a Native Hawaiian trained in anthropology at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, and who had gained experience in mapping while working with a private archaeological consulting firm.Through educational programs run by another cultural practitioner from Kona, Mahealani Pai, Kamehameha Schools students often helped with the mapping and reconstruction work and shared in the pride of having participated in restoring a significant monument of Hawaiian culture.The project was so successful that by 2008, restoration continued at another nearby heiau, Ke'eku, and in 2012, Dr.
Greg Chun with Kamehameha Schools began implementing a decision by the Board of Trustees of the Kamehameha Schools to close the Outrigger Keauhou Beach Resort and begin demolition of the hotel.In its place, Dr. Chun has been planning the establishment of a Native Hawaiian educational center that will make use of cultural sites in the Kahalu'u-Keauhou region as a long-standing educational program in cultural heritage (Kamehameha Schools, 2013).With the collaboration of the independent not-for-profit Kohala Center, a highly organized effort is underway to turn Kahalu'u Bay and the associated uplands into a cultural and environmental learning center (Kohala Center, 2013).
On Maui in 2006, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Kawewehi Puyndyke began a two-year long "Lo'iloa Project" to restore the stone-terraced taro cultivation fields (lo'i) in Iao Valley State Park.Over 100 community members were regularly involved in clearing overgrowth and stabilizing the ancient walls, and again archaeological documentation of the original features was incorporated into the overall project.The project was featured in a documentary film, Ho'okele wa'a: Turning the Canoe-Navigating a Sustainable future for Maui (Miller, 2010) which won the Audience Award at the Maui Film Festival in 2010.
On O'ahu, Ross Cordy, the former head of the archaeology branch at the State Historic Preservation Division, moved from his regulatory job into a teaching role at the University of Hawai'i, West O'ahu, where he has now spent over a decade working with predominantly local students on applied archaeological projects.In the late 1990s, he and his research partners began the Wai'anae Valley Archaeological Field Project that engaged with local high school students and college students to teach science, local history, and survey skills that students could then use to obtain jobs (Cordy, 2001(Cordy, , 2002)).Similar to the Lo'iloa Project on Maui, the archaeological research combined with larger community efforts to restore ancient terraced agricultural fields for taro cultivation, through the Ka'ala Cultural Learning Center (Ka'ala Farm, 2013).
On Kaua'i a not-for-profit community organization Nā Pali Coast 'Ohana was formed to care for cultural sites on the remote northern shore of the island (Nā Pali Coast 'Ohana, 2013).Their main initial focus has been on Nu'alolo Kai State Park, which is well known for its deeply stratified sites where salt spray from the surf contributed to the excellent preservation of organic items such as bark cloth and pandanus mats located in a fishing village under an overhanging cliff.The sites at Nu'alolo Kai were being damaged by shoreline erosion, goats, and human activities.Nā Pali Coast 'Ohana organized teams to clear invasive vegetation, plant native flora, and document various archaeological features.Team members work closely with Hawai'i State Parks archaeologists in these endeavors, and regularly presented the results of their work at the annual Society for Hawaiian Archaeology meetings.In 2010, the organization received the first ever "Hawai'i Cultural Stewardship Award," granted jointly by the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology and Nāki'i ke Aho (2013), an independent organization of archaeologists of Native Hawaiian ancestry (Nāk'ikeaho, 2013).

Increasing Opportunities for Graduate Education
The brief list of ongoing activities mentioned above clearly demonstrates that descendant communities are actively engaged at a grass-roots level in managing their heritage, and in many Copyright © 2013 SciRes.
cases they are working with archaeologists or as archaeologists on their projects.But, as previously mentioned, state regulations require that principal investigators in heritage management hold graduate degrees in the field.As faculty at the University of Hawai'i at Hilo, the authors recognize that many of our undergraduate students are of Native Hawaiian ancestry, and hope to obtain leadership positions in archaeology or related fields, so they are not just volunteering for grass-roots organizations or working for low wages as field laborers.An essential counter-point to those who have portrayed anthropology and archaeology as being inherently colonialist is that it depends on who is practicing archaeology and anthropology, and for whose benefit.To be certain, the world of cultural resource management cannot simply be separated into good indigenous cultural resource managers and bad colonial non-native professionals.Cachola-Abad ( 2013) recently summarized many of the key issues and conflicts of interest that have plagued cultural resource management in Hawai'i, and without a strong State Historic Preservation Office to regulate the quality of research, it is difficult for contracted archaeologists operating in a competitive-bidding world to regulate themselves, much less address the larger heritage management issues.
Despite these challenges, many of our Native Hawaiian students are intent on transforming the field of heritage management in Hawai'i; they feel a responsibility to the culture and the kūpuna (elders, ancestors) to map and document cultural sites to protect them, or minimally at least document them before bulldozers arrive.Instead of leaving these tasks to non-native archaeolo-gists with fewer personal connections to the heritage, and who may or may not feel that same responsibility, they have chosen to enter a discipline held suspect by many in their communities.The problem remains that there is limited access to graduate level education in Hawai'i.Many local undergraduate students regularly work in entry level positions at private archaeological consulting firms or for government agencies, but they hit 'glass ceilings' that do not allow them to open their own firms or to advance in the institutions that they work for.
In Western academia, there is often a misperception that the best graduate educations will always be obtained by concentrating the best faculty at the best schools where the best potential students will enroll.Given the social, economic and educational inequities that keep many indigenous peoples from attending the "best" schools, it is not surprising to find that Native Hawaiian students remain poorly represented at many elite academic institutions, and if those same institutions offer the only chance of obtaining leadership positions in Hawaiian heritage management, then colonial inequities will continue to dominate the field.By establishing localized training in heritage management, we seek to create more (and better) professionals who are well-versed in the specific heritage management issues that are most relevant to Hawai'i, and who are more trusted in descendant communities because they have familial connections to those communities.
There is one large "flagship" campus in Hawai'i (UH Mānoa) with an enrollment of approximately 20,400 students, of which 17% (3470) possess some Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, and it currently offers the only graduate degrees related to heritage management in the state.Since 2007, UH Mānoa has offered a Master's degree in Applied Archaeology that trains archaeologists for non-academic professional positions in Asia and the Pacific.On average, however, only two to three students are admitted in the Applied Archaeology M.A. program each year, some of whom are developing their areas of expertise in Southeast Asia.Because at least 200 individuals with graduate degrees in archaeology or anthropology regularly work in Hawai'i, many of those individuals have been trained outside of Hawai'i.A recent national study of the Cultural Resource Management profession has predicted that the number of archaeologists with graduate degrees will need to double to meet the expected demand in the next 25 years (Altschul & Patterson, 2010).Of an estimated total of 19,150 archaeological jobs, 85% will be filled with MA level archaeologists.In total, only three students of Hawaiian ancestry have obtained Ph.D.s in archaeology (Kawelu, 2013); clearly extant graduate programs have not dramatically changed the overall demographics of heritage management in Hawai'i, and we need to consider alternatives.
The immensity of the workforce needed for heritage management in Hawai'i and throughout the Pacific calls for more extensive graduate opportunities that will reach new pools of students.One partial solution would be to expand graduate opportunities to smaller campuses (Mills, 2001).The University of Hawai'i at Hilo is currently developing a M.A. program in heritage management.The campus on Hawai'i Island has 4000 students, and 30% (1200) identify as Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and approximately 50 -70 of those students will obtain undergraduate degrees in anthropology.Because many of these students are older or already have children, few are financially or logistically able to participate in graduate programs on other islands or on the US Mainland.The intent is to significantly expand the range of educational opportunities to train heritage management professionals, and more effectively reach target populations.Furthermore, a cultural impact assessment program has yet to be developed in the islands, so the curriculum will include ethnographic training as well as archaeology, and will be more directly focused on Pacific Islander communities.The anthropology department has also developed longterm collaborative relationships with the campus's College of Hawaiian Language, which developed the first M.A. and Ph.D. programs in the nation that awards degrees for research written and defended in an indigenous language.With the expansion of Kamehameha Schools' own K-12 focus on cultural heritage, UH Hilo has a ready and willing partner.Kamehameha Schools is encouraging UH Hilo's efforts to develop a M.A. program, by supporting our efforts to hire the faculty necessary to create the program.The authors envision launching the program with a cohort of nine students.Thus, the benefits of bringing a graduate program to a smaller campus offer qualitative improvements in the graduate experience that can overcome the quantitative differences in campus enrollments.

Conclusion
The State of Hawai'i drafted "Chapter 6E" with an eloquent statement of intent in 1976 that directed the State to take a leadership role in preserving, restoring, and maintaining the state's historic and cultural properties.Unfortunately, market forces and colonial infrastructure continue to disassociate modern descendant communities from their own heritage.High-profile failures in the heritage management regulatory process have contributed to a vicious cycle which fosters stigmatization of heritage management professionals as desecrators of the past.Many (but certainly not all) in descendant communities remain distrustful of professionals in heritage management, but luckily this is changing.Other issues persist such as high staff-turnover, poor-funding, and poor-morale for those in regulatory positions.This situation increases the likelihood that future high-profile failures will occur, and the viscous cycle will be repeated.
Despite these conditions, many grass-roots movements continue to foster working partnerships and positive educational experiences related to the care and protection of cultural sites.Herein, we recognize (as many have) that heritage management cannot function effectively as purely academic or regulatory exercises, but need to continually engage with descendant communities.Moreover, it is essential to remove the roadblocks of colonialism that have kept individuals in descendant communities from obtaining leadership positions in government, education, and private consulting related to heritage management.In order to accomplish this, we argue that the conventional model of establishing elite graduate programs in heritage management at the largest regional academic institutions (to the exclusion of smaller institutions) needs to be changed.As an alternative, we suggest redesigning and repositioning heritage management graduate programs to make them more accessible to descendant communities.
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