ABSTRACT
Critical medical anthropology (CMA) has long recognized that biomedical and enlightenment views fall short of crafting 'healthy' bodies. Baer, Singer, and Susser have noted that 'health is not some absolute state of being but an elastic concept that must be evaluated in a larger socio-cultural context'. The relationship between Native Hawaiian health and cultural identity pose intriguing questions about the naturalness of health, body, food, and land, and the politics of health inequities that are prevalent among most minority populations. The colonial view of the events is that Native bodies were unable to survive the rapid transformations brought to the islands. Health-seeking practices are similarly caught up in a dual discourse of health and body as a natural symbol. The motivational force of remembering historical events and ancestors coupled with economic and geographical constraints influenced the relative salience of health as a symbol of cultural identity for on- and off-islanders.
