“Le brisement des vagues”.

Abstract

By tapping into ethnographic data, this paper discusses the Hawaiian representations of the ocean, and of the practice of surfing, before the colonization of the archipelago by the United States. The research question focuses on the relationships between humans and nature and uses three theoretical models : the sociological interpretation of collective representation, the historical analysis of sensibilities, and the philosophical understanding of ontologies. First, this paper shows that even though archival materials are crucial to our understanding of the Hawaiian society, they may not be representative of the Hawaiian collective representation. By reviewing the term “collective representation” and its epistemological debates, the authors argue for other theoretical inputs, including the notion of “practices” and “habitus” from the French school of thoughts called the history of sensibilities. Second, in reviewing the history of sensibilities and its key concepts, the authors posit that we may learn from practices and body technics of the Hawaiian to understand their relationships with the environment. However, few is learned about the cosmological and mythological understanding of the world and the analysis contends that the ontological turn cultural anthropology may help unveiling a renewed understanding of the relationships between the Hawaiians and their environment.

Keywords

• representations
• relationships
• history
• ontology
• Hawaii