According to my understanding of SLO 5, diverse communities require engagement, cultural competencies, and research paradigms that align with their specific bodies of knowledge and ways of existing. Consisting of a Community Action Plan for LIS 630 Community Engagement, my artifact demonstrates my understanding of the social, cultural, and political context of information services and systems because it identifies and addresses the specific needs of Native Hawaiian researchers, who possess distinctly-Hawaiian worldviews, systems of knowledge organization, and practices that often collide with imperial views of appropriate access, use, and dissemination. While having been historically and presently excluded and oppressed by archival policies and practices, Native Hawaiians struggle to maintain their intrinsic and familial connection to the materials held at the State Archives as demonstrated by the feedback I’ve received from my community survey “Satisfaction Survey for Native Hawaiians at the Hawaiʻi State Archives.” This Community Action Plan centers community engagement and collaboration at the State Archives as it calls for the reconstruction of a digital archives that provides culturally-appropriate and respectful access to Hawaiian materials, supports and utilizes ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (the Hawaiian language), and seeks and engages with ongoing input from the community.

 

The artifact demonstrates several LIS principles in order to meet specific community needs. Because past and present colonial agents and institutions have forced Native Hawaiians to align with incompatible and problematic ideals and systems, I employed the ethic of non-interference while engaging with the Native Hawaiian research community, who has suffered enough under the illegal U.S. occupation of Hawaiian lands. The ethic of non-interference speaks to the idea that “to interfere in the interactions of others is actually to attempt to exert dominance over that other individual” and that “to correct behaviour would amount to interference in an individual's inherent right to autonomy in determining their own actions and decision-making process” (Prowse, 2011, p. 251). This ethic helps me avoid replicating the harm and control that colonizers inflict against Native Hawaiians. When soliciting feedback for my Community Needs Assessment and Community Action Plan from community members, I did not force any recommendations but presented some of the many possible paths to address our needs. This echoes the Hawaiian idea that power can be attained through a multitude of pathways, ranging from the god Lono’s pathway of love to the god Kū’s way of warfare. To remain true to this ethic, I also framed my findings as additional questions (rather than answers) about how such suggestions made them feel, whether they felt represented by them, and their levels of confidence in the feasibility and practicality of the suggestions. Their answers strongly informed my final artifact and helped me build a stronger overall dialogue and relationship with my community, whose needs are always evolving. 

 

Derived from early Confucianism, role ethics promotes “a relational conception of persons and employs this conception to emphasize how a person's roles and relationships are the source of her ethical obligations and ethical growth” (Ramsey, 2016, p. 235). In reflecting on the project, I could have exercised more role ethics, which consists of a system of interpersonal relationships and speaks to the interrelatedness of the Hawaiian universe. To make up for this, when soliciting feedback on the artifact, I asked community members about the familial-like roles with which they most identified in relation to archival materials. One community member compared her relationship with the materials to her relationship with the land, which (through the traditional metaphor of mālama ʻāina) is one ancestor of Native Hawaiians. Constantly centering and re-centering my ethics has helped me better engage with my community, has deepened our connection and overall relationship, and has enriched the insights I’ve gained from the research.

 

Throughout the project, I retained a list of 12 cultural competencies and community engagement practices that are composed in the Hawaiian language (utilizing proverbs, values, and personal insights) and are framed within Hawaiian understandings of research.  Some of these competencies include “I mohala no ka lehua i ke keʻekehi ʻia e ka ua,” “I ka ʻōlelo no ke ola, i ka ʻōlelo no ka make,” “ʻAʻohe hana nui ke alu ʻia,” “‘Aʻohe pau ka ʻike i ka hālau hoʻokahi,” “Hōʻihi,” “E nānā hou i kou mau kumu,” “Ka makapo wale no ka mea hapapa i ka pouli,” “He lawaiʻa no ke kai papaʻu, he pōkole ke aho; he lawaiʻa no ke kai hohonu he loa ke aho,” and “E haʻahaʻa, Mai mahaʻoi.” According to Researchers Cross, Bazron, Dennis, and Isaacs, cultural competency refers to a “set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations...[and] implies having the capacity to function effectively as an individual and an organization within the context of the cultural beliefs, behaviors, and needs presented by [participants] in their communities” (1989). Utilizing Indigenous research paradigms and decolonizing methodologies is not supplementary but paramount to serving Indigenous communities because they center the specific ways that those communities attain knowledge and exist in the world. For example, in order to understand the interrelatedness of the Hawaiian universe, it is necessary to embody the traditional metaphor of mālama ʻāina, which Native Hawaiian scholar and professor Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa defines as a relationship in which the land, taro, and chiefs are expected “to feed, clothe, and shelter their younger brothers and sisters, the Hawaiian people” and the Hawaiian people, in turn, are expected to reciprocate those actions (2012). As the descendants of Papa and Wākea and as the first and longest residents of the lands of Hawai’i, Native Hawaiians are intrinsically and genealogically tied to these islands. It is the type of belonging that exists between family members and is encapsulated in traditional metaphors and concepts that Western research paradigms don’t possess the capacity to understand fully.

 

Analyzing the diverse information needs within the same community had been a struggle for me and led to my burnout. To address this, I stepped back and practiced the Hawaiian concept of “makawalu,” which speaks to the process of breaking down complex ideas and vocabulary words into smaller and more digestable parts. I narrowed down the large group of Kānaka researchers to Kānaka researchers at the Hawai’i State Archives, where I have worked as a Graduate Research Assistant since Fall 2019. My experiences and perspectives as both a patron and staff member allow me to understand and relate to both groups, to bridge these groups amid past and present tensions, and to imagine what is possible in addressing community needs and devising community-based solutions. However, I realized another flaw in my design: I don’t know my community as much as I had thought. There were (and still are) gaps that I have yet to question and explore, and that beg the following questions: Who comprises my community?  What are our needs? And, considering concepts like “Role Ethics,” what is my position in this community and my role in helping to fulfill its needs? My artifact confronts these gaps through active listening and weekly data walks. 

 

This Community Action Plan demonstrates my effectiveness as an information professional because it demonstrates my ability to identify the many communities of which I am a part, to discern my roles and responsibilities in those communities, and to center and address needs their specific needs. As an information professional, I acknowledge the gaps in my knowledge and embody the determination and patience to listen and learn from my community.

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References

 

Cross, T., Bazron, B. Dennis, K., & Isaacs, M. (1989). Towards a culturally competent system of care (Volume I). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development, CASSP Technical Assistance Center.

 

Kameʻeleihiwa, Lilikalā. (2012). Native Land and Foreign Desires. Honolulu, HI: Bishop Museum Press. Kindle.

 

Prowse, Cathy. (2011). “Native Ethics and Rules of Behaviour” in the Criminal Justice Domain: A Career in Retrospect. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 1(5), 251-257. https://bit.ly/39zWUxU

 

Ramsey, John. (2016). Confucian Role Ethics: A Critical Survey. Philosophy Compass, 11(5), 235-245. https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12324