Ancestry of Experience

[The book] is as much a poignant, deeply personal quest for the author’s Hawaiian genealogy as it is an analytically sharp critique of the imposition of a foreign epistemic paradigm on an indigenous one. . . . Holmes carefully positions herself as an attentive listener, a learner subordinate to the elderly Hawaiian knowledge-bearer. In doing so, she prioritizes her identity as a Hawaiian descendent over that of an academically trained researcher. Her stylistic choice to present dialogues and elders’ oral reflections as standalone narratives that are deliberately not framed within her own analyses or encumbered with theoretical flourish retains the original sequence and intactness of their speeches. It compels the reader to interpret Hawaiian expressions of Hawaiian cultural identity and epistemology independently of foreign theoretical frameworks such as political economy that Holmes finds inadequate for her task. . . . In sum, Holmes’s book advances our understanding of indigenous epistemologies and will be of interest to scholars examining the nature and construction of knowledge, colonialism and postcolonial theory, self-determination and the struggle for sovereignty, cultural revitalization, biculturalism, hybridity, identity formation and Pacific studies. It will also be a thought-provoking read for those investigating the politics of research methods and the relationship between researchers and those who are researched."" —Pacific Affairs; “In a time when dominant theoretical methodologies are increasingly being dismantled and/or modified to fit indigenous ways of knowing, Ancestry of Experience is a welcome addition to collective efforts of reframing perspectives, cutting through the currents of assumption. Holmes is generous in offering us ways to read her story. . . . By freeing the reader in this way, Holmes opens up a welcome opportunity to trace how one can simultaneously exist in multiple spaces.” —Honolulu Weekly; “Part memoir of a Kanaka academic in the diaspora searching for her ‘ohana, part historical and ethnographic celebration of Hawaiian culture, and part documentation of the reality of Kanaka ??iwi constant communication with our k?puna o ka p? (those who have passed into the p?), Ancestry of Experience is that rarity of rarities: an academic page-turner. Leilani Holmes’ book will bring readers to tears in its evocation of the enduring love and spiritual connection in an ?ohana that spans many generations, and make them gasp at the incredible series of ‘coincidences’ that leads to Leilani’s re-connection with her ?ohana.” —Noenoe Silva, professor of political science, University of Hawai‘i, and author of Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism