The director of the Center for Oral History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has been recognized for her lifelong commitment to research, teaching and the community with an honorary doctorate from Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.
Davianna Pōmaika‘i McGregor, an ethnic studies professor in the College of Social Sciences, is one of 11 international winners in 2020 of the Honoris Causa Doctorate, which recognizes people “who do remarkable and exemplary things” in Laval University’s fields of endeavor.
McGregor is a co-founder of the UH Mānoa ethnic studies department, where she has been a faculty member since 1974. She was appointed director of the Center of Oral History in 2018.
As noted by Laval University, McGregor has a long, respected history of “reconnecting her Indigenous people, the Kanaka ʻŌiwi, to ancestral lands, culture and sovereignty,” and has played an important role in the “reappropriation of cultural practices long distorted by tourism, and in training a new generation of academics who are reasserting long-suppressed Indigenous voices.”
She was a steadfast campaigner for the restitution of the island of Kaho‘olawe, which was used starting in the 1970s as a U.S. military firing range. Her peaceful approach and relentless efforts proved effective leadership, resulting in the Navy’s cessation of bombing and return of the island to Hawaiʻi government in 1994.
In 2007, McGregor’s UH Press book, Na Kua‘āina: Living Hawaiian Culture, won the Kenneth W. Baldridge Prize for best book in any field of history written by a Hawaiʻi resident between 2005-2007, and was recognized by the Hawaiʻi Book Publishers Association with a Po‘okela honorable mention for excellence in Hawaiian culture.
She holds a master’s degree in Pacific Islands studies, and a doctorate in Hawaiian/Pacific history.
