This lecture focuses on the gendered dimensions of decolonization in relation to the contemporary movement to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom to independent nationhood. Kauanui will draw from her book-in-progress, Thy Kingdom Come? The Paradox of Hawaiian Sovereignty, which is a critical study of state-centered Hawaiian nationalism and the implications of its attendant disavowal of indigeneity. Examining the epistemological and ontological shifts that correlate to the transformations of indigenous Hawaiian sovereignty to the establishment of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the mid-19th century, the talk will explore how these historical adaptations especially affected the people’s non-proprietary relation to land, gender roles, and sexual norms and practices — and the conflicts and contradictions that arise today with regard to Hawaiian political claims.
J. KÄ“haulani Kauanui took her PhD in history of consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2000. She is an associate professor of American studies and anthropology at Wesleyan University, where she teaches on settler colonialism, indigenous issues, critical race studies, and anarchism. Kauanui is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press, 2008), and is currently writing her second book, Thy Kingdom Come? The Paradox of Hawaiian Sovereignty — a critical study of gender, sexuality, and statist nationalism. She is one of six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, established in 2008, and has also worked as producer and host of a public affairs radio program, “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” and an anarchist politics radio show, “Horizontal Power Hour.” She is a National Council member of the American Studies Association.
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