Kamehameha Publishing released Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Native Hawaiian Well Being, Vol. 11 No. 1 in November 2019. Co-edited by Dr. Erin Kahunawai Wright, Assistant Professor in the College of Education Department of Educational Administration (EDEA), and Dr. Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Chair of the Department of Political Science, this special issue marks the first time Kamehameha Publishing allowed guest editors for Hūlili. The title of the issue is “No Ka Pono o ka Lāhui” (for the good of the nation), and it also features the writing of EDEA graduate student Kawehi Kina (pictured on left with Dr. Wright).

In the title of her 1992 landmark book, Native Land and Foreign Desires, Dr. Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa posed a pointed question that has motivated much of the research on Hawaiian well-being over the past two  decades:  “Pehea lā e pono ai?” (how shall we be pono?). This volume highlights how Kānaka Maoli and our allies are striving, across disciplines and our pae ʻāina, for justice and balance for our lāhui. The theme of this special issue foregrounds this work in our communities to restore pono to our people and ʻāina. Conventional academic articles and creative nonfiction pieces reveal ways that Kānaka struggle with and build alternatives to historically rooted systems of power – whether in research practices, environmental regulatory frameworks, or refusals of structures that harm ancestral relationships.