Nourishing the land

As Aja Grande, PhD ’24, arose for her volunteer days on Oahu, Hawaii, she joined community members in giving thanks to the mountains, waters, and people as they grounded themselves in ‘āina, the Hawaiian word for land. “It’s often glossed as ‘that which feeds or provides,’” Grande explains. “It refers to the land as a source of both physical and spiritual sustenance.” In 2022, while doing fieldwork for her dissertation, Grande explored the concept of ‘āina momona, or “an abundance of that which feeds,” studying how local island practices can promote more efficient, sustainable cultivation of edible and medicinal crops.

Now, as associate director of development at the University of Hawai‘i Foundation, based at Kapi‘olani Community College, Grande is applying her knowledge to help make the islands more self-sufficient. Growing up on Oahu, she was always very connected to the ocean and mountains—bodyboarding, surfing, hiking, and representing Hawaii as a competitive swimmer. Though her family is not Native Hawaiian, she has deep ties to this place and people.

GRETCHEN ERTL

One of the world’s most isolated landmasses, Hawaii imports almost 90% of its food. After earning a degree in science, technology, and society from Brown University, Grande came to MIT to explore how nonprofits could combine island knowledge with innovation to foster independence. “I was interested to learn from the people who have held and are restoring long-term relationships with ‘āina,” she says. 

For her dissertation, Grande investigated Hawaii’s legacies of colonialism and militarization and learned about ancestral irrigation, fertilization, and harvesting techniques for kalo (also called taro), a traditional crop whose leaves, stems, and potato-like tubers are rich in nutritional and medicinal value. She discovered that abundance emerges not just from the land but from family and community bonds—a point driven home as she grew her own kalo and shared food and seeds with the extended community.

In her role at the University of Hawai‘i Foundation, she works to ensure that students have the financial and educational support they need. “I’m interested to provide students with the opportunity to earn a living wage in Hawaii while staying true to traditional Hawaiian values of place and community,” she says. She believes that traditional Hawaiian practices present an invaluable, global model for promoting sustainability through community cohesion: “We have to preserve this intergenerational knowledge to care for ‘āina, which provides for us physically, mentally, and spiritually.”