Home > assh > JGI > Vol. 1 (2015) > Iss. 2
Abstract
The #ProtectMaunaKea movement started long before social media but with these new platforms a once remote audience has the opportunity, and option, to engage with a global audience. The newest Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) has been met with great opposition due to the decentralization of storytelling through social media outlets, #TMTshutdown. The Protect Mauna Kea movement is an amalgamation of individual pursuit, family recognition, and organizational support that is truly based in aloha, aloha ‘aina and kapu aloha, our foundational values. Through still and moving pictures sacred songs, chants, ideas and stories are being transmitted to persons around the world with space available to discuss these ways of being. As the Mauna Kea petitioners have just had their case heard in the Hawai‘i Supreme Court it would be hard to believe that as many people would be aware of this issue, so central to our people, if it were not for individual and organizational engagement of the people through social media.
Bio: Katie Leimomi Kamelamela was born and raised on Oahu and currently lives in Hilo, Hawaii conducting field research for her PhD. Her academic focus is on ‘Quantifying Cultural and Economic Value of the Forests throughout Hawaii’. She has been surrounded by the #ProtectMaunakea movement for the past year due to her roommates involvement and dedication to the mauna. Through this connection she was approached to help monitor and provide relevant posts for the @ProtectMaunakea Instagram, Facebook and Twitter social media pages. Her use of social media has reduced over the past 6 months, due to focusing in on research progress, but she continues to educate herself about these processes through social media engagement as well as ‘talking story’ with persons who are dedicated to the #ProtectMaunakea movement in multiple capacities. She understands the #ProtectMaunakea movement to be an extension of the on going efforts of self-determination for Native Hawaiians in our homelands of Hawaii. Follow us: @protectmaunakea, #ProtectMaunakea, #TMTshutdown, #WeAreMaunaKea, #KuKiaiMauna and on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/protectmaunakea/
Recommended Citation
Kamelamela, Katie, The Protect Mauna Kea Movement: Since Before the Overthrow in 1893, Journal of Global Indigeneity, 1(2), 2015.Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss2/5
