Power is the marrow in my bones, and, as my kūpuna (ancestors) know well, these bones speak fluently and incessantly of war and politics. I am Alyssa Nicole ʻĀnela Purcell. My life’s mission is to devise pathways to power that ground Kānaka Maoli in the chaos and confusion of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s cultural bomb (1994), center our distinctly-Hawaiian worldviews, and spur our bones to action. As I am an Archivist-in-the-making, my objective is not only to restore my people’s agency over our own materials but also to transform memory institutions into spaces where Kānaka are respected, represented, and connected. Informed by my background in Hawaiian Studies and Library & Information Science (LIS) as well as my Graduate Research Assistantship at the Hawaiʻi State Archives, my research frames the M-93 Queen Liliʻuokalani Manuscript Collection (M-93) at the State Archives as a relative of the Hawaiian people, deconstructs archival practices that neglect the kinship between M-93 and Kānaka Maoli, and re-centers liberatory practices and decolonizing methodologies that strengthen such a bond. I speak more on this in “A Weapon and a Tool: Decolonizing Description and Embracing Redescription as Liberatory Archival Praxis,” an article I recently co-authored with LIS Professor and Researcher Tonia Sutherland for the International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion (2021).

 

Upon entering the program, my philosophy of librarianship encompassed the core values of aloha, ʻohana, and kuleana. Since then, I have deepened my commitment to those values as well as grown to develop and embody the elements of Kāpala, Papamū, and Muliwai. The Kāpala is my voice, designed to assert my people’s rights over our own language, narratives, and lands and to challenge colonial forces that threaten those rights. My voice is loudest in my research as demonstrated through my membership and work with the Initiative for the Study of Underrepresented Cultures and Ethnicities Hawai’i, a research and community engagement laboratory (housed in UHM’s Department of Information and Computer Sciences) that engages with underrepresented cultures and ethnicities. The Papamū exists in my mind that conceives strategies and in my hands that actualize them. This element is especially prominent in my leadership role as Vice President of Nā Hawaiʻi ʻImi Loa Hui Haumāna, a student organization that serves and uplifts the Hawaiian community by strengthening our presence and capacity in the LIS field and by engaging directly with Kānaka Maoli in order to understand our distinct needs and to enact real, meaningful change. My Muliwai is consecrated in the love and blood of my kūpuna, and it expands through connection. In my Graduate Research Assistantship, I connect with my ancestors (who live on through archival collections) by arranging and describing their materials and by translating various content into ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi and English. I connect with Kānaka Maoli patrons by constructing Finding Aids and other discovery tools that center our distinct needs and ways of learning and knowing. In an archivist's role, my Muliwai will expand into an ocean that feeds and connects the world as I intend to create archival systems and tools that facilitate and support this connection and expansion.

 

As the first in my family to attend college, I constantly ask myself, “How did I get here?” But just as persistently, I answer, “Standing on the shoulders of my ancestors. Listening to the power ingrained in my bones.” It has taken generations for me to reach this point, and this is only the beginning.

​

References

​

Sutherland, Tonia. & Purcell, Alyssa. (2021). A Weapon and a Tool: Decolonizing Description and Embracing Redescription as Liberatory Archival Praxis. International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 5(1), 60-78. https://doi.org/10.33137/ijidi.v5i1.34669

 

wa Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ. (1994). Decolonising the mind: The politics of language in African literature. East African Educational Publishers.