Documenting community: Activist videography in Hawaii.

Abstract

This dissertation historicizes the development of an independent activist documentary video movement in Hawai'i and investigates the ways a multi-ethnic community of political activists, most of whom are women, have employed the tool of documentary video in a politics of resistance. Over more than twenty years, this community of activists has produced a large body of video documentaries that critique local and, to a lesser extent, national public discourses about Hawai'i's history, primarily focusing on the history of American control over Hawai'i; has attempted to impact the pace and nature of social and political transformations in the islands, particularly in terms of resistance to Hawai'i's continued and increased incorporation into the American political, economic, legal and cultural systems; and has supported the linked movements for Native Hawaiian political sovereignty, Native Hawaiian cultural revival and environmental protection. These concerns have been not only the matrix for but often the subject of locally-produced activist documentary videos. Understanding the social contexts in which this activist community produces provides a more thorough understanding of the historical conditions its members critique, the systemic oppressions they contest and the contemporary struggles they support. Individuals, community and movement all reflect and are embedded in profound restructurings of the social order in contemporary Hawai'i. Discerning the relationships among the video community, their activist movement and large-scale social change is one of the primary goals of this work. In addition, this study models a feminist, collaborative research and writing methodology in its historical and ethnographic inquiry into this activist community. The text assesses the problematics of this methodology as a feminist, ethno-historical research modality for studies of multi-ethnic communities or movements for indigenous self-determination in American-dominated sites. It argues for this methodology's political necessity for American feminist researchers studying Hawai'i, given the current condition of on-going American political and cultural domination in the islands. This interdisciplinary dissertation utilizes feminist film theories in combination with narrative historical and ethnographic analytical methodologies.