J. Kēhaulani Kauanui is a scholar whose work centers on Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination, settler colonialism and decolonization, gender and sexuality, anarchist philosophy and activist praxis, as well as critical race theory. She earned her B.A. in Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (after transferring from Irvine Valley College) and took her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Kauanui is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press 2008); Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty: Land, Sex, and the Colonial Politics of State Nationalism (Duke University Press 2018); and editor of  Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders (University of Minnesota Press 2018), which features select interviews from her public affairs radio show “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” which aired on WESU from 2007-2013 (and was widely syndicated across a dozen states on Pacifica radio affiliate stations).

She has everal projects currently underway. She is guest-editing a special issue of Native American and Indigenous Studies, “Enduring Palestine: Critical Interventions in Native American and Indigenous Studies.” And she has a book-in-progress provisionally titled “Hawaiian Decolonization and the Dilemma of Feminism.” Kauanui is also the founding convenor of the Wangunk Studies Working Group (established in 2024) focused on the history of the Wangunk people Indigenous to central Connecticut. Kauanui co-edits a book series with Jean M. O’Brien called “Critical Indigeneities” for the University of Carolina Press. Kauanui also has a long-term research project, “Hawaiian New England: Christian Conversion and Colonial Grammar.”

Kauanui is one of the six co-founders of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).  After serving on the founding steering committee from 2005-2008, from 2008-2009, she served as an acting council member. From 2009-2012, she served as an elected member of the inaugural council.  She has also served as an elected member of the national council of the American Studies Association (2013-2016), and was the 2008 President of the New England American Studies Association.

Kauanui is the recipient of the 2022 American Indian History Lifetime Achievement Award by the Western History Association. She is an elected member of the American Antiquarian Society and has held fellowships from: the School of American Research (now the School of Advanced Research), the Woodrow Wilson Foundation (now the Institute for Citizens & Scholars), Smithsonian Institution, Rockefeller Archives Center, National Science Foundation, Fulbright (Māori Studies, University of Auckland), and Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury. And she has held an appointment as an Organization of American Historians (OAH) Distinguished Lecturer, as well as for the American Studies Distinguished Speakers Bureau.

Kauanui has published chapters in the following edited books, among others: Anarcho-Indigenism: Conversations on Land and Freedom, Eds. Edited by Francis Dupuis-Déri and Benjamin Pillet (Pluto 2023; reprint of L’anarcho–indigénisme, Lux Canada 2019); ); Maria Thereza Alves: Seeds of Change, Eds. Carin Kuoni and Wilma Lukatsch (Amherst College and Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School 2022); Allotment Stories: Narrating Indigenous Land, Eds. Daniel Heath Justice and Jean M. O’Brien (UMP 2022);  Keywords for American Cultural Studies, Eds. Bruce Burgett and Glenn Hendler (NYU 2020); Ethnographies of U.S. Empire, Eds. Carole McGranahan and John Collins (DUP 2018); Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Ed. Joanne Barker (DUP 2017);  Formations of United States Colonialism,  Ed. Alyosha Goldstein (DUP 2014); A Nation Rising: Hawaiian Movements for Life, Land, and Sovereignty, Eds. Noelani Goodyear-Ka’opua, Ikaika Hussey, Erin Kahunawaika’ala Wright (DUP 2014); Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles, and Indigenous Rights in the United States: A Sourcebook, Eds. Amy Den Ouden and Jean M. O’Brien (UNC 2013); Decolonizing Native Histories, Ed. Florencia E. Mallon (DUP 2011); Beyond the Frame: Women of Color and Visual Representation, Eds. Neferti Tadiar, and Angela Y. Davis (Palgrave Macmillan 2005); and Asian American Studies After Critical Mass, Ed. Kent Ono (Wiley-Blackwell 2005).

Her work also appears in the following journals: Humanity, Postcolonial Studies, Journal of Popular Music Studies, South Atlantic Quarterly, The American Quarterly, Cinema Journal, Politica & Società, American Studies, Third World Approaches to International Law, 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, American Indian Culture & Research Journal, Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being, and Social Text. Kauanui has also written on Hawaiian sovereignty politics for the Guardian UK, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu Advertiser, and The Honolulu Weekly.

Kauanui guest-edited a special issue of Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies, “The Politics of Indigeneity, Anarchist Praxis, and Decolonization” (May 2021); and a Retrospective on “Sovereignty” for Cultural Anthropology.  Additionally, she has co-edited three other 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.

She also currently serves on the editorial boards of Cultural Anthropology, The Journal of American History, AGITATE!, American Indian Quarterly and Hūlili: Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Well-Being.  She has also served on the editorial boards of Journal of Pacific History (2005-2010) and Settler Colonial Studies (2011-2017). Additionally, from 2007-2009, she served on the editorial board for the School of American Research (now the School of Advanced Research) Press. She also currently serves on the advisory boards of the Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism; and Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific. And from 2017-2020, she served on the advisory board for Island Studies Journal.

Kaunui joins the Princeton faculty after teaching at Wesleyan University (2000-2024), where she was appointed in American Studies and Anthropology. There she directed the Center for the Americas (2017-2019) and chaired the American Studies department (2016-2019), and was the founding convenor of the Indigenous Studies Research Network.