My name is ʻUlise Funaki and I was born and raised on the island of Hawaiʻi. My mother is Hawaiian Ilokano from Nakalei Camp in Paʻauilo and my father is Tongan from Fuaʻamotu. I currently reside with my wife, Sinamoni, and our two boys in Lāʻiewai ʻahupuaʻa in Koʻolauloa. I am currently a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at UH Manoa. My dissertation research looks at the contemporary kava practices of the Tongan and Hawaiian populations of Koʻolauloa. Over the past couple of years I have done ethnographic research amongst my own community and have come to observe many fascinating trends within the Tongan diaspora as well as amongst many Kanaka ʻawa practitioners. I have also been privileged to observe many traditions that have been perpetuated in this unique community on the North Shore. My research is mainly focused on kava practices in diaspora and encompasses the importance of ceremony and ritual amongst diasporic communities, Indigenous resistance and revival efforts, gender and kava, as well as kava practices as pedagogy and methodology. I am also an adjunct lecturer at Brigham Young University Hawaiʻi in the Faculty of Culture Language & Performing Arts teaching courses in history, anthropology and Pacific Island Studies.
This year I have been blessed to share my research and cultural practice at the invitation of different institutions. In April of this year I was invited with Dr. Lelemia Irvine of UH West Oʻahu by the newly established Indigenous Peoples of Oceania Club at Yale University where I co-hosted an ʻawa ceremony and teach-in. For the 2024 National Conference on Race and Ethnicity held in Honolulu in May, I was privileged to present together with Dr. Daniel Hernandez on “Kava Pedagogy.” In this presentation we challenged the dominant paradigms of western educational pedagogies by utilizing and showcasing the potential of an Indigenous educational system such as Tongan kava practices. I was also recently invited in September and in October to present on the importance of kava ceremonies and practices in diaspora amongst Tongan and Hawaiian communities at the Kalo and ʻAwa Festival at Waimea Valley and by the Hawaiʻi Public Library System at Kahuku High School.
