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Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer is a professor at the Center for Hawaiian Studies in the Hui ‘Āina Momona Program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with a joint appointment in the Richardson School of Law and the Hawai‘inuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Beamer was the president and chief executive officer of The Kohala Center.
Beamer’s research on governance, land tenure, and Hawaiian resource management, as well as his prior work as the director of ‘Āina-Based Education at Kamehameha Schools, prepared him for his continuing service as a director of Stanford University’s First Nations Futures Institute, a resource management development program for indigenous leaders developed by Stanford, Kamehameha Schools, and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu in New Zealand.
Beamer has revitalized and maintained lo‘i kalo (taro ponds), providing him and his children opportunities to mālama ‘āina, deepen connections with cultural traditions, and derive leadership lessons from the land.
In 2013 he was nominated and confirmed to a four-year appointment on Hawai‘i’s Commission of Water Resource Management and was reconfirmed in 2017 for an additional four-year term.
In addition to numerous academic publications, in 2014 Beamer published No Mākou ka Mana: Liberating the Nation, which received multiple awards including the Samuel M. Kamakau Book of the Year Award from the Hawai‘i Book Publishing Association.
Dr. Beamer is an ‘Ōiwi, Aloha ‘Āina, farmer, author, songwriter, advocate of the Circular Economy, and now serves as the Dana Naone Hall Chair in the UH Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge.
In addition to numerous academic publications, in 2014 Beamer published No Mākou ka Mana: Liberating the Nation, which received multiple awards including the Samuel M. Kamakau Book of the Year Award from the Hawai‘i Book Publishing Association.
Dr. Beamer is an ‘Ōiwi, Aloha ‘Āina, farmer, author, songwriter, advocate of the Circular Economy, and now serves as the Dana Naone Hall Chair in the UH Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge.
When I was a kid, I envisioned the decade of 2020 would be utopian.
I’m pretty sure many of the keiki from my generation might have predicted some kind of place that included the Jetsons with flying cars — the emergence of a global society committed to love and peace in the likeness of the lyrics of John Lennon’s Imagine — and enough fish, poi, and pickled mango for us all.
But, like the jar of mango left to ferment for far too long, the harsh and bitter reality is that these are times of unprecedented crisis and unpredictable political change. At home and abroad, we face a collective problem. Our communities and planet are experiencing the convergence of multiple crises from unfettered capitalism, climate change, and social-economic inequality, to a global pandemic. Yet, in the midst of this chaos, I find strength and calm knowing one answer to these multiple crises is the same solution ʻŌiwi have been advocating for generations.
We must manifest aloha ʻāina in our world!
