April 7, 2:00pm: Malulani Castro in Conversation [Zoom]

Please join Honors at Oakton for a conversation with K. Malulani Castro, a first-year PhD student at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability where he works with Dr. Kyle Whyte. Malu's scholarly and professional work is broadly focused on organizational evaluation and planning. Specifically, he is interested in understanding how Indigenous communities have historically, traditionally, and contemporarily understood and implemented evaluation to support self-determination, sustainable living, and landback. He is currently working with kānaka ʻōiwi communities in Hawaii to organize a major landback initiative and community land use plan around an Indigenous human rights framework. Malu's ancestral kuleana (responsibility) is to be a steward of the land and those it feeds--even beyond the shores of his familial homes of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Students’ questions will be centered as we learn more about Castro’s projects, scholarship, and experiences as both a researcher and professional.

Malu has shared these videos about the community (Moloka'i) he comes from and works with:

• Historical context, Save Lāʻau movement: https://youtu.be/ceQQAZvtyds

• Return to Pono: https://youtu.be/KclJtYFawyw

• Community ownership: https://vimeo.com/679563174/8f94b0

• Our first community meeting: https://www.facebook.com/sustainablemolokai/videos/664232428230673/