The Mauna Kea Global Community

The members of the Mauna Kea Social Media Information Community are vast and diverse and are spread across the globe. The most empowering and unique aspects of this community is that it encompasses people from different social and cultural backgrounds, age ranges, and geographical locations, a remarkable blend of members. They all feel pulled to learn more about and/or become part of the Mauna Kea movement and the Hawaiian culture. The foundation of this community is built upon access to social media and other online platforms which have perpetuated its growth. Live video feeds of movement activities, recordings, virtual presentations, digital documents, and postings from key leaders have been key in filling the information need of this community.

It was slightly challenging to consider issues this community may face on a global scale since it is already part of that scope. However, there are some things to consider. Although social media and the online world have connected humans in remarkable ways, there are down sides to this type of interaction and learning. For instance, members of the Mauna Kea social media community were invited daily to protocol ceremony that involved hula (dance), mele (song/chant), and pule (prayer) that was live streamed. Although this method reached the community globally, the nuances and in-depth spiritual connection entailed in these cultural practices can be lost amongst the digital realms.

These learning activities speak most to the mind and heart when a member can experience them in-person. The true power and effect of this can sometimes be lost on social media. Similarly, the global information community faces the pragmatic issues of confrontation and disagreement for the simple nature that the community was developed under… a controversy. This controversy is complex and involves deep rooted issues of injustice, settler colonialism, and the oppression of cultural identity and lifeways. International members of the community may still face challenges in filling information needs like fully understanding the many intricate aspects and historical events that underline the situation. Again, this is because the social media alone cannot impart nuances spiritual connectedness. Another issue the community may face is time zone differences. While an immediate action may be occurring on the ground at the movement site, there could be many members unaware of the happenings simply because they are sleeping. Although posts and recordings can serve to update those members, it may take them longer to research and understand just what happened.

One of the ways I feel Mauna Kea movement leaders and activists have been so successful in fostering a large online community is in their efforts to be transparent and real, with stories from the people themselves. Although the controversy could be described as an environmental justice issue, the underlying and complex historical issues previously mentioned make it a social one as well. When Native Hawaiians raise their voices in opposition (in their own homeland), they are often looked down upon by the state as a nuisance. In Lauersen’s article (2019) “A Million Stories – how libraries can foster integration of refugees through culture and storytelling” he shares about a collaboration of libraries who established the A Million Stories project. This digital library consisting of refugee’s telling their stories and experiences with their own voices brings social justice issues to light. While the Mauna Kea social media community has used social media to bring social justice issues to light for Native Hawaiians, the idea of creating a digital library focused on it, as A Million Stories has done, is intriguing and could be a highly beneficial to my information community as well as the world. Lauersen writes that the digital library was created to “foster respect and understanding for intercultural diversity and the human behind the refugee label by creating references we can all recognize from our own everyday lives through storytelling” (2019).

This aligns very much with Native Hawaiian views and practices, especially as an oral culture and in hula (which is a form of storytelling), and therefore closely aligned with the Mauna Kea social media community. The idea that stories from the movement, cultural leaders, and elders collected in a digital library is absolutely intriguing to me! In some ways, the foundations for one have already begun to be built!

References
Lauersen, C., (2019, August 7). A million stories – how libraries can foster integration of refugees through culture and storytelling. The Library Lab. https://christianlauersen.net/2019/08/07/a-million-stories-how-libraries-foster-integration-of-refugees-through-culture-and-storytelling/