« Nowadays everyone is hanai ». Child Exchange in the Construction of Hawaiian Urban Culture - article ; n°1 ; vol.100, pg 201-219

Judith Modell

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Journal de la Société des océanistes - Année 1995 - Volume 100 - Numéro 1 - Pages 201-219
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: JOURNAL_DE_LA_SOCIETE_DES_OCEANISTES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1995
• Nombre de lectures: 42
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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Judith Modell
« Nowadays everyone is hanai ». Child Exchange in the
Construction of Hawaiian Urban Culture
In: Journal de la Société des océanistes. 100-101, 1995-1-2. pp. 201-219.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Modell Judith. « Nowadays everyone is hanai ». Child Exchange in the Construction of Hawaiian Urban Culture. In: Journal de
la Société des océanistes. 100-101, 1995-1-2. pp. 201-219.
doi : 10.3406/jso.1995.1964
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jso_0300-953X_1995_num_100_1_1964« Nowadays everyone is hanai »
Child Exchange in the Construction of Hawaiian Urban Culture
by
Judith MODELL*
Introduction tegy » (Howard 1974) for a population beset
by poverty, drug abuse, and crime (State of
In this paper I argue that through the prac Hawaii Office of Children and Youth 1990 ;
tice and interpretation of hanai, urban henceforth OCY).
Hawaiians are engaged in constructing a cul The people I interviewed in 1989 conside
ture. In other words, a practice of child red hanai « traditional ». They explained this
exchange is an essential ingredient in the pro by saying the practice of child exchange had
ject of making culture1. links with the past and that it represented
The setting is urban. It includes neighbo « being Hawaiian ». Hanai is also a crucial
rhoods both inside and outside the city of strategy for surviving in an urban environ
Honolulu that are subject to institutions loca ment : it is a way of taking care of children, of
ted in Honolulu. People in these neighbo rescuing a child from a « bad » situation, and
rhoods deal fairly regularly with urban inst of distributing duties, obligations, and
itutions and in doing so confront their charact resources within a network of individuals.
eristic values and judgments2. In my paper, It was clear from my interviews, too, that
then, « urban » refers to a place (the « city and as a practice deemed traditional, hanai has
county of Honolulu » as defined by the United absorbed developments consequent upon a
States Census), an institutional context, and a two-century history of contact. Current per
culture (« urbanism » ; cf. Mayo 1987 ; Han- ceptions of hanai reflect a steady American
nerz 1990). If, in Jourdan's phrase, « socio-cul- izing of the context in which children are
tural creolization » characterizes an urban set moved from parent to parent. What people
ting (Jourdan mss), hanaii as practiced by said and did showed the impact of the laws,
policies, and « papers » of an American state. individual actors becomes the basis for esta
Thus I will also argue that a traditional practi- blishing a distinct dialect. I also suggest that
hanai - Hawaiian - style child exchange - ce-/iamz/-works with and not simply in oppos
ideally suits the purposes (though it may not ition to « outsider » assumptions about child
be purposeful) of a « culture-making project » exchange, parenthood, and kinship. I mean to
(Giddens 1979). Hanai at once represents tra break down a too-sharp dichotomy beetween
« self » and « other » by suggesting how the dition and provides an essential « coping
* Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University.
1 . The term « child exchange » is used in writings on adoption, forestage, and transfers of children in Pacific Island
societies and I follow that usage ; Carroll (ed.) 1970 ; Brady (ed.) 1976.
2. Honolulu is located on the island of Oahu ; I did no fieldwork on what are referred to as the « outer » or neigh
bor islands. The results might have been different, though my hunch is that given the spread of Americanization,
modernization, and other « foreign » elements into all parts of Hawaii, the only likely exceptions would be isolated
rural villages on Niihau, the island from which non-Hawaiians are excluded. In other words, my interpretations of
hanai and Hawaiian cultural identity are applicable beyond the Honolulu area. SOCIÉTÉ DES OCÉANISTES 202
other serves as a resource for the maintenance appears in my text. Hawaiians themselves ta
lked about « custom » synonymously with « Haof genuinely Hawaiian-style behavior. In my
usage, « self » and « other » do not have a waiian-style », in neither case implying anything
psychological referent but rather serve to static or frozen in time, but rather a dialectic be
bring forward the issue of identity, in this tween Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian practices and
values. case, cultural identity. My point, to be develo
ped throughout the paper, is the extent to As Roger Keesing pointed out in « Crea
which Hawaiian people construct a cultural ting the Past » (1989), the process by which
non-Westerners respond to the « Western identity by borrowing from and negotiating
world » is complex. « Colonized peoples have with a culture that is fundamentally, and his
torically, non-Hawaiian3. not only incorporated and internalized con
ceptualizations and semiology of colonial diAnthropological theory increasingly reco
gnizes the importance of the colonizer to the scourse at the level of thought, ideology and
colonized's assertion of cultural identity. To political praxis, but through a less direct reac
date, the theory has been more frequently tive process they have valorized elements of
applied to Melanesian than to Polynesian cul their own cultural traditions-decontextualized
tures and to rural rather than urban settings. or transformed-as symbols of the contrast be
James Carrier, for instance, writes : « It may tween these traditions and Western culture »
be, in other words, that the importance of (Keesing 1989 : 28). Hanai, I argue, is one
such « element ». The content and the practipractices and customs that come to be mar
cal consequences of its « valorization » are kers of a particular way of life cannot be
explained without understanding the colonial evident in individual actions and accounts of
history that elevated them to salience and the these actions.
social processes that lead villagers to
construct themselves and their societies part
ly in opposition to what they see of, and how Hawaiian-style adoption
they interpret, the Western world that
« Hanai as it is most often used means a impinges upon them » (Carrier forthcoming :
22). In the case of hanai, urban Hawaiians child who is taken permanently to be reared,
have indeed « marked » a particular way of educated and loved by someone other than
natural parents » (Pukui, Haertig, Lee 1972 : life-that is, made a culture-by utilizing the
regulations, the ideologies, and the actions of 49)4. The child was a gift, the gesture one of
an impinging social system. generosity -aloha. « In this sense, aloha sug
Hawaiians do not have a word like the gests a kinship of substance with the other,
Melanesian kastom, but much of what is embed and a giving without the thought of immediat
e return » (Sahlins 1985 : 3). « Ties between ded in the practice and the interpretation of
hanai suggests that concept. It is therefore Hawaiians and their adopted children often
tempting to insert the word custom in my dis exemplify the ideals of aloha and solidarity
embedded in the metaphor of feeding... » cussion, despite its loss of favor in anthropology :
like kastom in Melanesian cultures (Keesing (Linnekin 1985 : 183). « Feeding » is a literal
translation of hanai (Sahlins 1985 : 7 ; cf. 1982), hanai is a practice that, according to
Hawaiian people, carries the past into the pre Levy 1973 discussing a similar concept in
sent and maintains « ancient usage » in an Amer Tahiti).
ican state. Inasmuch as custom implies a « res These quotations begin to explain why I
idue » of the past or an « old-fashioned », exotic chose hanai as a way of looking at the project
behavior, the word is inappropriate to the of making culture. Hanai is not « just » adop
Hawaiian situation ; regarded as a Hawaiian ver tion or, if it is that, it is adoption with resoun
ding significance. First, for an urban populatsion of kastom, however, it appropriately conveys
perceptions of hanai and under that rubric ion in the late 20th century hanai stands for
3. It is difficult to apply conventional language to the Hawaiian situation ; for instance, it would not be at all appro
priate to talk of Western/non-Western or of Euroamerican and « native » in a context in which Japanese and other
Pacific peoples play a large part in the « encounter ».
4. The definition appears in a book published by the Quenn Lili 'uokalani Children's Center. « Nana I Ke Kumu
('Look to the Source') is dedicated to the families and children of Hawaii. It is a source book of Hawaiian cultural
practices, concepts and beliefs, which illustrate the wisdom and dignity contained in the cultural roots of every
Hawaiian child ». (Pukui, Haertig, Lee 1972 : vii). NOWADAYS EVERYONE IS HANAI 203
« being Hawaiian ». « Families named the fo The rules established by one side become
llowing qualities as part of their " sources of strategy for the oth