J Kēhaulani Kauanui
Biographic Data
| ID | 105772 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Kēhaulani Kauanui |
| GIVEN NAMES | J Kēhaulani |
| FAMILY NAME | Kauanui |
| SIGNATURE | KAUANUI J K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Wesleyan University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2903-8155 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 149 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
The Rebel Dread, ‘still a work-in-progress’: Don Letts in conversation
This interview features black British film director, disc jockey and musician Don Letts, conducted in person in January 2026 after an extended DJ set he did at Hot Box in Chelmsford, Essex, England. The conversation addresses the current political moment in the United Kingdom and resonances with the early roots of post-punk given the climate of fascistic white nationalism, and his take on counterculture and music today
Aloha Nō and the Power of Healing in Contemporary Hawaiian Art: An Interview with Meleanna Aluli Meyer and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu
In a three-part interview, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui engages multimedia artist, visual poet, and educator Meleanna Aluli Meyer, and scholar, curator, and writer Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu. They discuss the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025 (HT25): Aloha Nō , the state’s largest thematic exhibition of contemporary art in Hawaiʻi, the Pacific, and beyond. In the first segment, Kauanui engages Kahanu and Meyer regarding their connection through friendship, related kin ti…
Enduring Palestine: Critical Interventions in Native American and Indigenous Studies
Anarcho-Indigenism: Conversations on Land and Freedom
False dilemmas and settler colonial studies: Response to Lorenzo Veracini: ‘Is Settler Colonial Studies Even Useful
In his provocative commentary, Lorenzo Veracini suggests that the relationship between the fields of postcolonial studies and settler colonial studies ‘is predicated on filiation, not opposition’.1
Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism
In Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty J. Kēhaulani Kauanui examines contradictions of indigeneity and self-determination in U.S. domestic policy and international law. She theorizes paradoxes in the laws themselves and in nationalist assertions of Hawaiian Kingdom restoration and demands for U.S. deoccupation, which echo colonialist models of governance. Kauanui argues that Hawaiian elites' approaches to reforming and regulating land, gender, and …
Afterword: A Response Essay
This response addresses aspects of biopolitical regulations by Canada, El Salvador, Australia, and the United States, as critically analyzed in the special issue. Each piece offers much to illuminate different modalities of regulating Indigenous lifeways and Indigenous peoples' resistance to them on myriad grounds, and this response engages three particular themes that emerge from these articles: (1) structural genocide in settler-colonial states…
Indigenous Hawaiian Sexuality and the Politics of Nationalist Decolonization
Thinking with Melissa Gniadek and Beenash Jafri
Response to Melissa Gniadek and Beenash Jafri on original essay by J Kēhaulani Kauanui, "A Structure, Not an Event: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity," published in Lateral 5.1
Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity
Tracing Historical Specificity:Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In October 2016 I attended a lecture by Frank B. Wilderson III sponsored by Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities. I had read his book Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms, along with select articles and interviews—but had yet to hear him present his work. The talk was titled "Afro-Pessimism and the Ruse of Analogy." I…
Sovereignty: An Introduction
the day of Donald J. Trump's inauguration as president, anthropologists across the United States organized a series of read-ins.The chosen text?One of Michel Foucault's lectures from Society Must Be Defended (see Jaschik 2017).Paige West and J. C. Salyer (2017), who initiated the effort, explained that they had decided on this text because "it demands we simultaneously consider the interplay of sovereign power, discipline, biopolitics and concept…
“A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity
A response to the forum, “Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities,” edited by Chris A. Eng and Amy K. King. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui discusses the distinctive shifts toward examining Patrick Wolfe’s theory of settler colonialism as 'a structure, not an event.' Kauanui argues that a substantive engagement with settler colonialism also demands a deep rethinking of the associated concept of indigeneity–distinct from race, ethnicity, cultu…
Imperial Ocean: The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies
Imperial Ocean:The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In responding to the central question of this forum, “On what terms might the intersections of (currents between) American studies and Native Pacific studies be most productively engaged?,”1 I turn to a discussion of my syllabus for a course I teach undergraduates at Wesleyan University, “The United States in the Pacific Islands.” I begin with the course…
A Sorry State: Apology Politics and Legal Fictions in the Court of the Conqueror
Queer Critique and Federal Indian Policy
Queer Critique and Federal Indian Policy J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. By Mark Rifkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 440 pages. $99.00 (cloth). $35.00 (paper). Many American studies scholars are familiar with the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823), which held that private citizens could …
Hawaiian Nationhood, Self-Determination, and International Law
Assault on the Hawaiian Nation: A Twenty-First Century Colonial Land Grab
Shannon Speed is contributing editor of "Human Rights Forum," the AAA Committee for Human Rights column in Anthropology News
Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity
Colonialism in Equality: Hawaiian Sovereignty and the Question of U.S. Civil Rights
This essay focuses on the case study of Native Hawaiians and the backlash against sovereignty struggles by neoconservatives who appropriate civil rights rhetoric to claim “reverse racism” in order to dismiss indigenous national claims as exclusionary. For indigenous peoples in the United States, along with those in the U.S. territories who may or may not be indigenous, the political project of civil rights throughout the last forty years has alwa…
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies Andrea Smith and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui Building on previous work that problematizes U.S. settler colonialism and the development of a U.S. empire, this forum aims to make a critical intervention in the field of American studies by centering the analytical categories of both gender and indigeneity. This forum originated partly as a series of roundtables presented at the ASA in 2006 and will be further develo…
Native Hawaiian Decolonization and the Politics of Gender
Unbeknownst to most Americans—and even those within American studies—there is a thriving independence movement taking place in the Hawaiian Islands today. It was borne out of an unlawful U.S.backed overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, and is currently in opposition to a proposal for U.S. federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity, which would transform Hawaiians’ political status in damaging ways. U.S. senator Daniel Akaka (D…
Asian American Studies and the “Pacific Question”
Precarious Positions: Native Hawaiians and US Federal Recognition
This essay examines the politics of the controversial proposal for US federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. It explores a range of historical and legal issues that shed light on the multiple claims that constitute the complex terrain of Hawaiian sovereignty politics. The article provides a historical overview of the events that impact the current situation and then discusses a particular set of contemporary conditions that serve as key elemen…
Contradictions and Celebrations: A Hawaiian Reflection on the Opening of NMAI
Decision, Decisions I almost did not attend the celebration of the grand opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). I had been wading through a range of political questions about my own and other Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) participation and struggling with ambivalence on a number of levels. As the museum opening approached, my anxieties increased because I anticipated the Kānaka Maoli contingency comprising almost entirely …
The multiplicity of Hawaiian sovereignty claims and the struggle for meaningful autonomy
There are multiple Hawaiian political claims and entitlements. Is independence appropriate for Hawai'i? Is it appropriate for Hawaiians? These two questions are not one and the same. In the movement today, there are multiple levels of ambiguity about these two claims – the right to indigenous self-determination under US domestic law and Hawai'i's right to self-determination under international law – as evidenced in the strategic invocation of bot…
Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge
THIS SPECIAL ISSUE features work by Native and nonnative Pacific scholars that seeks to triangulate the arenas of "native studies," "Pacific studies," and "cultural studies." 1 We will return to what we mean by triangulation shortly. These invited works were presented at a two-day symposium, "Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge," held on 11-12 February 2000 at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The event was sponsored by the univ…
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies Andrea Smith and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui Building on previous work that problematizes U.S. settler colonialism and the development of a U.S. empire, this forum aims to make a critical intervention in the field of American studies by centering the analytical categories of both gender and indigeneity. This forum originated partly as a series of roundtables presented at the ASA in 2006 and will be further develo…
Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism
In Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty J. Kēhaulani Kauanui examines contradictions of indigeneity and self-determination in U.S. domestic policy and international law. She theorizes paradoxes in the laws themselves and in nationalist assertions of Hawaiian Kingdom restoration and demands for U.S. deoccupation, which echo colonialist models of governance. Kauanui argues that Hawaiian elites' approaches to reforming and regulating land, gender, and …
The Politics of Blood and Sovereignty in Rice v. Cayetano
Sovereignty: An Introduction
the day of Donald J. Trump's inauguration as president, anthropologists across the United States organized a series of read-ins.The chosen text?One of Michel Foucault's lectures from Society Must Be Defended (see Jaschik 2017).Paige West and J. C. Salyer (2017), who initiated the effort, explained that they had decided on this text because "it demands we simultaneously consider the interplay of sovereign power, discipline, biopolitics and concept…
Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity
Tracing Historical Specificity:Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In October 2016 I attended a lecture by Frank B. Wilderson III sponsored by Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities. I had read his book Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms, along with select articles and interviews—but had yet to hear him present his work. The talk was titled "Afro-Pessimism and the Ruse of Analogy." I…
Native Hawaiian Decolonization and the Politics of Gender
Unbeknownst to most Americans—and even those within American studies—there is a thriving independence movement taking place in the Hawaiian Islands today. It was borne out of an unlawful U.S.backed overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, and is currently in opposition to a proposal for U.S. federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity, which would transform Hawaiians’ political status in damaging ways. U.S. senator Daniel Akaka (D…
Imperial Ocean: The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies
Imperial Ocean:The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In responding to the central question of this forum, “On what terms might the intersections of (currents between) American studies and Native Pacific studies be most productively engaged?,”1 I turn to a discussion of my syllabus for a course I teach undergraduates at Wesleyan University, “The United States in the Pacific Islands.” I begin with the course…
False dilemmas and settler colonial studies: Response to Lorenzo Veracini: ‘Is Settler Colonial Studies Even Useful
In his provocative commentary, Lorenzo Veracini suggests that the relationship between the fields of postcolonial studies and settler colonial studies ‘is predicated on filiation, not opposition’.1
Colonialism in Equality: Hawaiian Sovereignty and the Question of U.S. Civil Rights
This essay focuses on the case study of Native Hawaiians and the backlash against sovereignty struggles by neoconservatives who appropriate civil rights rhetoric to claim “reverse racism” in order to dismiss indigenous national claims as exclusionary. For indigenous peoples in the United States, along with those in the U.S. territories who may or may not be indigenous, the political project of civil rights throughout the last forty years has alwa…
The multiplicity of Hawaiian sovereignty claims and the struggle for meaningful autonomy
There are multiple Hawaiian political claims and entitlements. Is independence appropriate for Hawai'i? Is it appropriate for Hawaiians? These two questions are not one and the same. In the movement today, there are multiple levels of ambiguity about these two claims – the right to indigenous self-determination under US domestic law and Hawai'i's right to self-determination under international law – as evidenced in the strategic invocation of bot…
Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Literature
Same-Sex Sexuality in Pacific Literature
Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge
THIS SPECIAL ISSUE features work by Native and nonnative Pacific scholars that seeks to triangulate the arenas of "native studies," "Pacific studies," and "cultural studies." 1 We will return to what we mean by triangulation shortly. These invited works were presented at a two-day symposium, "Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge," held on 11-12 February 2000 at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The event was sponsored by the univ…
The Politics of Blood and Sovereignty in Rice v. Cayetano
Asian American Studies and the “Pacific Question”
Precarious Positions: Native Hawaiians and US Federal Recognition
This essay examines the politics of the controversial proposal for US federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. It explores a range of historical and legal issues that shed light on the multiple claims that constitute the complex terrain of Hawaiian sovereignty politics. The article provides a historical overview of the events that impact the current situation and then discusses a particular set of contemporary conditions that serve as key elemen…
Contradictions and Celebrations: A Hawaiian Reflection on the Opening of NMAI
Decision, Decisions I almost did not attend the celebration of the grand opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). I had been wading through a range of political questions about my own and other Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) participation and struggling with ambivalence on a number of levels. As the museum opening approached, my anxieties increased because I anticipated the Kānaka Maoli contingency comprising almost entirely …
The multiplicity of Hawaiian sovereignty claims and the struggle for meaningful autonomy
There are multiple Hawaiian political claims and entitlements. Is independence appropriate for Hawai'i? Is it appropriate for Hawaiians? These two questions are not one and the same. In the movement today, there are multiple levels of ambiguity about these two claims – the right to indigenous self-determination under US domestic law and Hawai'i's right to self-determination under international law – as evidenced in the strategic invocation of bot…
Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity
Colonialism in Equality: Hawaiian Sovereignty and the Question of U.S. Civil Rights
This essay focuses on the case study of Native Hawaiians and the backlash against sovereignty struggles by neoconservatives who appropriate civil rights rhetoric to claim “reverse racism” in order to dismiss indigenous national claims as exclusionary. For indigenous peoples in the United States, along with those in the U.S. territories who may or may not be indigenous, the political project of civil rights throughout the last forty years has alwa…
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies
Native Feminisms Engage American Studies Andrea Smith and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui Building on previous work that problematizes U.S. settler colonialism and the development of a U.S. empire, this forum aims to make a critical intervention in the field of American studies by centering the analytical categories of both gender and indigeneity. This forum originated partly as a series of roundtables presented at the ASA in 2006 and will be further develo…
Native Hawaiian Decolonization and the Politics of Gender
Unbeknownst to most Americans—and even those within American studies—there is a thriving independence movement taking place in the Hawaiian Islands today. It was borne out of an unlawful U.S.backed overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, and is currently in opposition to a proposal for U.S. federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian Governing Entity, which would transform Hawaiians’ political status in damaging ways. U.S. senator Daniel Akaka (D…
Assault on the Hawaiian Nation: A Twenty-First Century Colonial Land Grab
Shannon Speed is contributing editor of "Human Rights Forum," the AAA Committee for Human Rights column in Anthropology News
Hawaiian Nationhood, Self-Determination, and International Law
Queer Critique and Federal Indian Policy
Queer Critique and Federal Indian Policy J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) When Did Indians Become Straight? Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty. By Mark Rifkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. 440 pages. $99.00 (cloth). $35.00 (paper). Many American studies scholars are familiar with the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Johnson v. McIntosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823), which held that private citizens could …
A Sorry State: Apology Politics and Legal Fictions in the Court of the Conqueror
Imperial Ocean: The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies
Imperial Ocean:The Pacific as a Critical Site for American Studies J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In responding to the central question of this forum, “On what terms might the intersections of (currents between) American studies and Native Pacific studies be most productively engaged?,”1 I turn to a discussion of my syllabus for a course I teach undergraduates at Wesleyan University, “The United States in the Pacific Islands.” I begin with the course…
“A Structure, Not an Event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity
A response to the forum, “Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities,” edited by Chris A. Eng and Amy K. King. J. Kēhaulani Kauanui discusses the distinctive shifts toward examining Patrick Wolfe’s theory of settler colonialism as 'a structure, not an event.' Kauanui argues that a substantive engagement with settler colonialism also demands a deep rethinking of the associated concept of indigeneity–distinct from race, ethnicity, cultu…
Indigenous Hawaiian Sexuality and the Politics of Nationalist Decolonization
Thinking with Melissa Gniadek and Beenash Jafri
Response to Melissa Gniadek and Beenash Jafri on original essay by J Kēhaulani Kauanui, "A Structure, Not an Event: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity," published in Lateral 5.1
Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity
Tracing Historical Specificity:Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (bio) In October 2016 I attended a lecture by Frank B. Wilderson III sponsored by Wesleyan's Center for the Humanities. I had read his book Red, White & Black: Cinema and the Structure of US Antagonisms, along with select articles and interviews—but had yet to hear him present his work. The talk was titled "Afro-Pessimism and the Ruse of Analogy." I…
Sovereignty: An Introduction
the day of Donald J. Trump's inauguration as president, anthropologists across the United States organized a series of read-ins.The chosen text?One of Michel Foucault's lectures from Society Must Be Defended (see Jaschik 2017).Paige West and J. C. Salyer (2017), who initiated the effort, explained that they had decided on this text because "it demands we simultaneously consider the interplay of sovereign power, discipline, biopolitics and concept…
Afterword: A Response Essay
This response addresses aspects of biopolitical regulations by Canada, El Salvador, Australia, and the United States, as critically analyzed in the special issue. Each piece offers much to illuminate different modalities of regulating Indigenous lifeways and Indigenous peoples' resistance to them on myriad grounds, and this response engages three particular themes that emerge from these articles: (1) structural genocide in settler-colonial states…
Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism
In Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty J. Kēhaulani Kauanui examines contradictions of indigeneity and self-determination in U.S. domestic policy and international law. She theorizes paradoxes in the laws themselves and in nationalist assertions of Hawaiian Kingdom restoration and demands for U.S. deoccupation, which echo colonialist models of governance. Kauanui argues that Hawaiian elites' approaches to reforming and regulating land, gender, and …
False dilemmas and settler colonial studies: Response to Lorenzo Veracini: ‘Is Settler Colonial Studies Even Useful
In his provocative commentary, Lorenzo Veracini suggests that the relationship between the fields of postcolonial studies and settler colonial studies ‘is predicated on filiation, not opposition’.1
Anarcho-Indigenism: Conversations on Land and Freedom
Political science (17 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Asian American and Pacific Histories (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · History (12 works) · Colonialism (10 works) · Ethnology (9 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Law (9 works)