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Dr. Kamanamaikalani Beamer, is a full professor at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa with a dual appointment in the School of Hawaiian Knowledge and Richardson School of Law. While pushing for local change and inspired by international knowledge exchange, his recent work explores how aloha ʻāina and the Circular Economy can inform each other to enact systemic change.
Kamanamaikalani Beamer, PhD, is a full professor in the Hui ʻĀina Momona Program at the University of Hawaiʻi-Mānoa. He serves a dual appointment in the Hawaiʻinuiākea School of Hawaiian Knowledge and in the William S. Richardson School of Law as part of Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. Dr. Beamer’s research interests and publications focus on indigenous agency, governance, Native Hawaiian land tenure, Hawaiian resource management, and land and resource law of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Dr. Beamer has an ongoing international collaboration in the study of the Circular Economy (CE) in partnership with colleagues from the University of Augsburg. This international knowledge exchange has guided recent work exploring how aloha ʻāina as an indigenous philosophy, and the CE as a modern economic approach, can inform each other in enacting systemic economic change and transitioning to a more sustainable and equitable society.
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.
Dr. Beamer is the President and one of the fourteen co-founders of ʻĀina Aloha Economic Futures (AAEF), an initiative with the goal of uplifting Hawaiian values to guide economic recovery efforts. By prioritizing community-centered engagement, AAEF has advised economic development strategies centered around aloha ʻāina since April 2020.
In June 2021, he concluded two consecutive terms as a Commissioner on the Hawaiʻi State Water Resource Management Commission. After eight years of service, accomplishments include the restoration of water for forty-five streams across Hawaiʻi. Dr. Beamer was also an inaugural member of the Mauna Kea Stweardship and Oversight Authority and served from Sept. 2022 through June 2024.
In August 2021, Dr. Beamer began serving a five-year appointment as the inaugural Dana Naone Hall Endowed Chair in Hawaiian Studies, Literature, and the Environment. In this position, he will continue to advance aloha ʻāina locally–and at an international level–through research, policy, and community partnerships that address food systems and waste, water resources, and Circular Economies.
He has previously served as president and chief executive officer of The Kohala Center, director of ‘Āina-Based Education at Kamehameha Schools, and director of Stanford University’s First Nations Futures Institute.
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. His second book, “Islands and Cultures How Pacific Islands Provide Paths to Sustainability,” an edited volume in collaboration with Dr. Peter Vitousek of Stanford University, and Dr. Te Maire Tau of the University of Canterbury was published in 2022 with Yale University Press.
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!
