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(2003: 7). This is particularly relevant to Hawai`i, and its possibility as a tropical setting
in which biodiversity is extremely valuable. As a side note here, it is interesting to
recognize that one of the words that make up the term “home garden” is the word
“home,” a term traditionally associated with women. Thus, it is easy to see why
women’s work in this sphere would easily be devalued. This is particularly interesting in
the Hawai`i case, where access to land by indigenous peoples is very scarce so that home
gardening is no longer an option for many people. Thus women lose out on one of their
traditional spheres of influence and repositories of knowledge and diversity, whether
valued or not. Because of this lack of access to the land, to the `aina, I want to listen and
learn from the women who have agreed to speak to me. I know that as an outsider both
to the Hawaiian and the ethnobotanical community, I could be considered to be
wandering where I do not belong. However, as I have shown, many of the women
involved in ethnobotanical work do not recognize the value of women’s knowledge
themselves. I hope to be the outsider who plays the role of helping to preserve
knowledge that is fading before it ever really came to light in the first place.
Narrative Interpretation
One of the first things they both said to me, after I met with both Dr. Abbott and
Dr. Chang individually, was: “where are you going to get money for this?” Not having
thought about it either the first, or second time around (I really should have been more
prepared the second time), I realized that these were both consummate academics who
knew the lay of the land, and I was the naïve one in the room.
Convention