Research

In the past, I have been interested in mele and moʻolelo of the 19th and 20th centuries, specifically how they serve as vehicles for Hawaiian thought. As demonstrated in my MA thesis in Indigenous Language and Culture Education, "ʻIkuā ka Leo o ka Hekili, He Noiʻina i nā Mele Malama o ke "Kaao Hooniua Puuwai no Ka-Miki," mele also serve as repositories—or in an Arendtian notion "fabrications of thought"—concerning the environment. As ethnoecological chants, they are products of a millennia of Kanaka Maoli life, observation, and brilliance.

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Currently, I am interested in Kanaka Maoli political thought of the early 20th century. I am currently looking at governmentality in the Territory of Hawaiʻi—how Kānaka Maoli were disenfranchised through juridical power relating to land, gender and sexuality, education, health, and labor, and Kanaka Maoli intellectual sovereignty counterposing said disenfranchisement.