J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology.  She earned her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 2000.

Kauanui’s first book is Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press, 2008).   She is currently embarking on two new book projects.  The first is Thy Kingdom Come? – a critical study on gender and sexual politics and the question of Hawaiian indigeneity in relation to state-centered Hawaiian nationalism.  The other is a project titled, Hawaiian New England: The Grammar of American Colonialism.

Kauanui is the producer and host of a public affairs radio program, “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” now in its 7th season, which airs each Tuesday from 4-5pm on W.E.S.U., Middletown, CT.  Past episodes are archived online: www.indigenouspolitics.com.  The program is syndicated several Pacifica-affiliate stations and airs across seven states.

Kauanui has co-edited three special issues of the following journals: “Women Writing Oceania: Weaving the Sails of the Waka,” Pacific Studies (2007) with Caroline Sinavaiana; “Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge,” The Contemporary Pacific (2001) with Vicente M. Diaz; and “Migrating Feminisms,” Women’s Studies International Forum (1998) with Kalpana Ram.

Besides having chapters over her work published in several books, her work appears in the following journals: South Atlantic Quarterly, American Studies, Comparative American Studies, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, American Indian Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Mississippi Review, The Contemporary Pacific, The Hawaiian Journal of History, `Oiwi: Native Hawaiian Journal, and Social Text.

She also sits on the following editorial boards: American Indian Quarterly; Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism; Hulili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being; Journal of Pacific History; and Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific.

Kauanui served as the 2008 President of the New England American Studies Association.

From 2005-2008, Kauanui was part of a six-person steering committee that worked to found the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (N.A.I.S.A.).  From 208-2009, she served as an acting council member.  In May 2009, she was  elected as a council member for a three year term.