Professor J. Kehaulani Kauanui

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui (Kanaka Maoli/Native Hawaiian) is a writer, scholar, radio producer and art curator who situates her work in critical Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and anarchist studies. She is Eric and Wendy Schmidt Professor of Indigenous Studies and Anthropology at the Effron Center for the Study of America, Princeton University. Kauanui is the author of two monographs: Hawaiian Blood (Duke University Press 2008) and Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (Duke University Press 2018). She also has an edited book, Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders (University of Minnesota Press in 2018). Kauanui co-edits a book series with Jean M. O’Brien called “Critical Indigeneities” for the University of Carolina Press, and recently guest-edited a special issue of Native American and Indigenous Studies focused on “Enduring Palestine: Critical Interventions” (Spring 2025). Kauanui’s next book (in-progress) is provisionally titled “Hawaiian Decolonization and the Question of Feminism.” She is one of the six original co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (established in 2008) and is the recipient of the 2022 American Indian/Indigenous History Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western History Association.