What does it mean to teach Pacific Studies in the current moment? What are the pedagogies, both old and new, that Pacific Islander scholars, activists, teachers, and performers are drawing on to educate and foster knowledge relevant to Pacific Islander people? With a host of guests, Pacific Islands Studies explored these questions in a two-part event in Spring Semester 2021.
The Pacific Islands Studies Spring 2021 Symposium: “Pedagogies for Indigeneity and Diaspora: Pacific Studies at Home and Abroad,” brought into dialogue scholars and community members from the Pasifika diaspora from as far north as Minnesota and all the way south to Australia. Symposium participants explored what it means to teach Pacific Studies in the current moment with special attention to the pedagogies, both old and new, that Pacific Islander scholars, activists, teachers, and performers are drawing on in order to educate and foster knowledge relevant to Pacific Islander people.
The first event, a roundtable titled “To Search for Roots is to Discover Routes”: Pacific Theories of Diaspora” sought to set the stage by sharing some important approaches to theorizing indigeneity and diaspora among Pacific Islanders. The second, two-day event deepened our conversations about Pacific Islander diasporas and pedagogies in relation to four key subthemes: gender and sexuality, the environment, education and health.
In each of these areas, we took special inspiration from the work of the late scholar and poet Teresia Teaiwa. Her work, which so creatively transgressed disciplinary boundaries, continues to offer a vibrant model of teaching Pacific Studies at home and abroad.
The symposium intended to support efforts to expand the course offerings associated with the newly launched undergraduate Certificate in Pacific Islands Studies and to contribute to the field of Pacific Studies by converting the panels into an iBook for the Teaching Oceania Series. The symposium is supported by grants from the Mellon Foundation and the University of Utah’s Global Learning Across the Disciplines.
Salt Lake City’s Pacific Islander population, which is one of the oldest on the continental US and one of the largest per capita, offers a unique opportunity to explore the intersections of the global and the local. Given our unique position, Pacific Islands Studies at the U focuses on connecting Indigeneity, defined as the relationship of autochthonous peoples to their homelands, languages, ceremonial cycles, and sacred histories, to migration, travel, and diaspora – global processes that structure contemporary Pacific Islander experiences and structure relationships to the past.
Our Speakers
Hōkūlani Aikau
University of Utah
“To Search for Roots is to Discover Routes”
Hōkūlani K. Aikau is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi associate professor in the Division of Gender Studies and the Division of Ethnic Studies at the University of Utah. Dr. Aikau is the author of A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawaiʻi (University of Minnesota Press, 2012), Feminist Waves, Feminist Generational Cultures: Life Stories from Three Generations in the Academy, 1968 – 1998 (co-edited with Karla Erickson and Jennifer L. Pierce, University of Minnesota Press, 2007), and with Vernadette Gonzalez, she has coedited Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi (Duke University Press 2019). Her next ethnographic project, Hoaʻāina: Returning People and Practices to Heʻeia, funded in part by UH Sea Grant, is a collaboration with Kākoʻo ʻŌiwi, a Native Hawaiian non-profit working to restore wetland taro farming on the windward coast of Oʻahu.
Juliann Anesi
University of California, Los Angeles
“Decolonization of S/Pacific Bodies”
Juliann Anesi is an assistant professor of Gender Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include disability and indigeneity, educational policies, and decolonial feminisms. As a community educator and activist, she has also worked with non-profit organizations and schools in American Sāmoa, California, Hawai´i, New York and Sāmoa. Juliann is currently at work on a book manuscript, Tautua: Women’s Activism and Disability Advocacy in Sāmoa.
Keith Camacho
University of California, Los Angeles
“Oceanic Fluidarities”
Keith L. Camacho is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also the author of Sacred Men: Law, Torture, and Retribution in Guam (Duke University Press, 2019), the editor of Reppin’: Pacific Islander Youth and Native Justice (University of Washington Press, 2021), and the former senior editor of Amerasia Journal. Elsewhere, Professor Camacho has facilitated educational workshops for the College of Micronesia, the Kutturan Chamoru Foundation, the National Pacific Islander Education Network, the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, and the PolyStrong Leadership Foundation, among other organizations.
Leilani Chan
TeAda Productions
“We Sweat & Cry Saltwater, so We Know That the Ocean is Really in Our Blood”
Leilani Chan is Founding Artistic Director of TeAda Productions (teada.org); a nomadic theater of color based in Los Angeles. Chan is currently the Co-Chair of the National Asian American Theater Conference and Festival (#HICONFEST CAATA.net) to be held in Hawai’i in May 2022. TeAda’s Masters of the Currents, premiered in 2017 at the Honolulu Theatre for Youth and toured to Maui Arts and Cultural Center, University of Hawai’i – Hilo, Brava Theater Center and Pangea World Theater. The 2019/20 Santa Monica Artist Fellowship and Awards include: NEFA’s National Theater Project, MAPFUND, NEA, NET, 4 NPN Creation Funds & 2019/20 Santa Monica Artist Fellowship. Chan’s devised ensemble plays include: Global Taxi Driver, Refugee Nation.
David Chang
University of Minnesota
“To Search for Roots is to Discover Routes”
David A. Chang is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) historian of indigenous people, colonialism, borders and migration in Hawaii and North America, focusing especially on the histories of Native American and Native Hawaiian people. He is Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Chair of the American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota. His second book, The World and All the Things Upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration (2016), traces the ways that Kānaka Maoli explored the outside world and generated understandings of their place in it in the century and half after James Cook stumbled on their islands in 1778. The book draws on Hawaiian-language sources—stories, songs, chants, texts, and political prose—to reveal Kanaka Maoli reflections on the nature of global geography and their place in it. The World and All the Things Upon It received honors from the American Historical Association, the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, and the Western History Association. His first book, The Color of the Land, argues for the central place of struggles over the ownership of Native American lands in the history of racial and national construction by Creeks, African Americans, and whites in the Creek Nation and eastern Oklahoma. David is a former secretary of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.
Vicente Diaz
University of Minnesota
“To Search for Roots is to Discover Routes”
Vicente M. Diaz is Pohnpeian and Filipino born and raised in Guam, and educated in Hawai’i and California. He joined the faculty in American Indian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2015 after stints in American Indian Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (2012-2015), the Program in American Culture at the University of Michigan (2001-2012), and History and Micronesian Studies at the University of Guam (1991-2001). At Minnesota, Diaz heads the Native Canoe Program, which uses Indigenous water craft for community-engaged teaching and research on Indigenous water traditions, and the Digitizing Ancient Futures project that meld indigenous Micronesian seafaring knowledge and advanced visualization technology (virtual/augmented reality). Diaz’s research is on comparative Indigenous cultural and political resurgence in Oceania and the Native Great Lakes and Upper Mississippi River region, particularly through the lens of Trans-Indigenous theory and practice, which foregrounds Indigenous histories and technologies of travel and mobility and pan-Indigenous solidarity. He is also the former Coordinator of the Micronesian Seafaring Society, a co-founder of the Guam Traditional Seafarers Society and the utt (canoehouse) Sahyan Tasi Fachemwan. His major work include serving as the historian for the Chamorro Hale’ta publication series that rewrote Guam’s history and civics textbooks and curriculum for the island’s public school (K-12) system in the 1990s, the documentary Sacred Vessels: Navigating Tradition and Identity in Micronesia (1996), a co-edited volume “Native Pacific Cultural Studies on the Edge (special issue of The Contemporary Pacific, with J. Kehaulani Kauanui, 2001), and Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the Histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and Indigeneity in Guam (University of Hawai’i, 2010).
Jacob Fitisemanu
University of Utah
“Decolonization of S/Pacific Bodies”
Jacob Fitisemanu, Jr. was born in Wellington, New Zealand to Karen Dang (Kaimukī, O’ahu, Hawai’i) and Jacob Fitisemanu Sr. (Falefā, ‘Upolu, Samoa). Jake was raised in Honolulu, HI and Taylorsville, UT with a love of his vibrant Samoan, Chinese and Korean heritage. He graduated with honors in Social Science from Westminster College, where he also obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health. Jake co-founded the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition and has chaired the annual statewide Pacific Islander Health Week since 2012. He was appointed to the US Census National Advisory Council in 2014 and serves on the Board of Directors of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum and the Mana Academy Charter School. Earlier this year, Jake was appointed by President Barack Obama to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Jake is the Outreach Coordinator for the Utah Department of Health, Office of Health Disparities and lives in West Valley City with his wife Lucia and their two daughters, Moana and Lanuola.
Melsihna Folau
Pacific Heritage Academy
“The Classroom as a Metaphorical Canoe”
Melsihna R. Folau [BS, MAELL expected 2021) come to us from Pelenekous, Pingelap, known as the “Island of the Colorblind”. Her homeland of Pingelap Atoll is part of the Pohnpei Islands’ archipelago, known as Pohnpei State, home of Palikir, the capital city of the Federated States of Micronesia. (Compact Of Free Association) COFA nation Federated States of Micronesia is comprised of one island of Kosrae, and three archipelagoes of Pohnpei State, Chuuk State, and Yap State), spreading across from the Eastern Caroline Islands to the Western Caroline Islands of the North Hemisphere of the Pacific Ocean.
She holds her heritage and her ethnicity sacred. She wears few roles. She is the mother of 4 grown-up adults and grandmother to the cutest grandson. She is a 2nd grade teacher at Pacific Heritage Academy and is one of the founding teachers of the unique charter school. In her spare time, she is involved with her Rose Park neighborhood and her Pingelapese community. Also, she is the founder and chairwoman of the United Micronesian Women (UMW) organization in Utah, a nonprofit 501©3 organization with a membership of 244 Micronesian girls, women and friends. UMW is the recipient of the OCA Asian Pacific Islander American Advocates, Utah Chapter’s “2020 Emerging Community of the Year Award”. UMW focuses on promoting, empowering, and educating through mentorship and connection in hopes to better the trajectories of Micronesian girls and women
Melsihna is also the co-Chair of the United Micronesian Coalition (UMC), which involves both male and female members of the Micronesian communities at large. She also co-founded Utah Pingelapese/Pohnpeian Organization (UPPO). She is also an active member of the PIK2AR family. She loves her family and food.
Josie Howard
We Are Oceania
“Decolonization of S/Pacific Bodies”
Josie graduated from Xavier High School in Micronesia and attended the Community College of Micronesia. She later transferred to the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo studying Biology, Anthropology, and Pacific Island Studies in 1989 making her one of the first Micronesians migrating under the Compact of Free Association Treaty. At the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, Josie Howard’s roles included student peer counselor, president of the International Students Association, student researcher at the Minority Biomedical Research Program, resident assistant at the student housing, president of the Chuukese Students Association, as well as chairperson for the Campus Ministry. Josie has over 10 years of servicing the community, with 8 years in the Department of Health Waiver program, 5 years in the Department of Education, and 5 years in program development, implementation, and piloting a one stop center model. Josie’s community involvement includes being the founder of the Young Voyagers, a youth club in Media with ‘Ōlelo, and co-founder of the Micronesian Health Advisory Council, and Micronesian Cultural Awareness Project. Recently Josie earned her Master in Social Work and is now working as a Coordinator/Facilitator at EPIC ‘Ohana Inc. and as a Social Worker at the St. Elizabeth Episcopal Church. Josie is most recognized for her contribution to the “Micronesian Voices in Hawaii Conference” where she participated as one of six steering committee members who worked with Micronesian Government leaders, community leaders, as well as Conference sponsors. She is also known for her work at Goodwill Industries of Hawaii Inc.’s “Imi Loa Program” where she worked with families and their adult children providing direct services as well as managing the programmatic and fiscal operation. She successfully managed and grew the program from a one hundred eighty thousand dollars grant to a one million dollar grant after four years in operation. Mrs. Howard is a native of Onoun Island in Micronesia and she speaks Chuukese, Onounese, and English fluently.
Makaio Kimbrough
University of Utah
“We Sweat & Cry Saltwater, so We Know That the Ocean is Really in Our Blood”
Makaio worked for the Ministry of Primary Industries in Aotearoa as an Intelligence agent during the Bonamia Ostrea parasite outbreak in 2017. He then graduated from Utah State University in 2018 with his BA in International Studies with an emphasis in Environmental Science. He then completed a graduate degree in GIS (Geographic Information Systems) in 2019 and then he was accepted into the Environmental Humanities program at the University of Utah. His thesis focuses on looking at environmental injustices through the lens of the Pacific. His special talent is that he can eat 15 musubi’s in one sitting.
Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu
University of California, Berkeley
“Oceanic Fluidarities”
Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu is a Tongan scholar, storyteller and community organizer. She received her doctorate from the Comparative Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, Berkeley in 2019 and she is a 2021 UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Native American Studies at University of California, Davis. She is working on two book manuscripts; The Mana of the Tongan Everyday: Tongan Grief and Mourning, Patriarchal Violence, and Remembering Va and a collection of creative non-fiction narratives titled, Looking For Hine Nui Te Po: Searching for Our Mother. Fui is a historian for the Sogorea Te Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that works to rematriate Indigenous lands. She hosts the popular Sogorea Te Land Trust “Seeding Hope” speaker series and in addition, she hosts the radio segment “From Moana Nui to California; Indigenous Women’s Stories of Land” on KPFA 94.1 FM. In Fall 2020, she co-curated with San Francisco Poet Laureate, Kim Shuck, Our Moana Nui; We are Pacific Islander Studies, a literary event sponsored by the San Francisco Public Library that featured and honored the life and work of Albert Wendt. This literary project as well as the up-coming Fall 2021 symposium examining the collaborations between the Black Panther Party with the Polynesian Panthers in Aotearoa/New Zealand connecting the legacies of these movements to contemporary and local Pacific Islander and American Indian movements in the Bay Area, California, for Black Lives Matters, sponsored by UC Berkeley and Stanford University, are conversations curated by Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu and they are a part of a series of projects advocating and expanding the scope of Pacific Islands Studies in the California Ethnic Studies curriculum.
Vili Nosa
University of Auckland
“Decolonization of S/Pacific Bodies”
Associate Professor Vili Hapaki Nosa is currently the Head of the Pacific Health Section, School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences. University of Auckland. Associate Professor Nosa has a Bachelor of Arts in Education & Sociology, Master of Arts (Hons) in Sociology. Associate Professor Vili Nosa dissertation examined “The Flight from the Homeland Niue: An Evaluation of the consequences for the Niuean Political Economy”. Associate Professor Nosa holds a doctorate in Philosophy in Behavioural Science at the University of Auckland. His PhD thesis entitled: The Perceptions and use of Alcohol among Niuean Men Living in Auckland. Associate Professor Nosa’s PhD was funded by a New Zealand Health Research Council Pacific Postgraduate Scholarship. Associate Professor Nosa is of Niue descent. He was born in Niue and immigrated to New Zealand as a pre-schooler. He was brought up and educated in Grey Lynn, Central Auckland and Mangere East, South Auckland. He was the first person from the Island of Niue to have graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy.
After completing his PhD he was employed as a research fellow in 2005. In 2006 he became a Lecturer in the Section of Pacific Health, School of Population Health, Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, University of Auckland. In 2010 he was promoted as a Senior lecturer. In 2016 he was appointed to Head the Pacific Health Section and in 2017 he was promoted to an Associate Professor in Pacific Health. In 2018 he received the Faculty of Medical Health Sciences Butland Award for Excellence in Research Supervision as he has supervised well over 100 students in summer students, Bachelor in Health Sciences (hons) Masters in Medical Sciences, Masters in Health Leadership, Masters in Public Health, Masters in Health Sciences, Doctoral of Philosophy and Post Doctoral students. In 2019 he was awarded the Pasifika Medical Association Group, Service Award 2019 for Outstanding Service to the Pacific Health Sector and Community. In 2020 he was awarded an Honorary Burnet Institute Senior Research Principal Research Fellow, Burnet Institute, Melbourne, Australia. In 2020 he won a prestigious Health Research Council of New Zealand Pacific project grant of $1.2 million to investigate Pacific peoples infant care practices in NZ, Niue and the Cook Islands. He is a Principal investigator and co-investigator for a number of Pacific health related research topics.
He is renowned for the number of Pacific students that have graduated under his supervision. His teaching background includes being the course co-ordinator for the Postgraduate programme of Pacific health. He also teaches on the certificate in health science, undergraduate medical programme, undergraduate and post graduate courses.
His scholarly interests are in Pacific health issues in New Zealand and the Pacific region. His specialists areas of research is in addiction research such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs and substance abuse. Internationally he has presented and worked in, Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin, and Brisbane Australia; Samoa, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Niue; and Hawai’i where he has been a key note speaker on these issues. Associate Professor Nosa has published widely in both national and international journals. Associate Professor Nosa sits on a number of boards and advisory committees in New Zealand and Internationally. He is married to Daniella Latoalevi-Nosa and they have 3 children Maya, Graison and Brennah.
Lenn Pereira
“Oceanic Fluidarities”
Lenn is currently a case manager in a reentry services program for adults on felony probation and previously mentored/case managed gang-identified minors and transitional-aged youth in a gang intervention/diversion program in Ventura County.
Originally from Carson California, Lenn had early gang affiliations with ethnic Samoan/Polynesian in the Harbor Area/South Bay of Los Angeles. Army veteran, four years active duty, fours years National Guard in Los Alamitos California. Overseas tour in South Korea for 14 months. Former meth addict for 12 years, struggled with alcoholism for more than two decades, entered the Dream Center Discipleship program as a diversion from extensive incarceration; sober since July 1st, 2012.
Olivia Quintanilla
UC San Diego
“We Sweat & Cry Saltwater, so We Know That the Ocean is Really in Our Blood”
Dr. Olivia Quintanilla recently defended her dissertation entitled, “Inafa’ maolek: Restoring Balance through Resilience, Resistance, and Coral Reefs: A Study of Pacific Island Climate Justice and the Right to Nature,” in the Department of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. Olivia’s family is from Guahan and she’s used her academic opportunities as a Chamoru scholar to research the unique histories and futures of Pacific island life. She is interested in climate justice, marine justice, Pacific underwater ecology, and coral reef activism. She serves on the board of directors for Chamorro Hands in Education Links Unity (CHE’LU), teaches Chicanx history at Mesa Community College, and teaches environmental racism at UC San Diego.
Damon Salesa
University of Auckland
“The Classroom as a Metaphorical Canoe”
Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa is a prizewinning scholar who specializes in the study of colonialism, empire, government and race. With a particular interest in the Pacific Islands, he also works on education, economics and development in the Pacific region, as well as in New Zealand and Australia. After studying at the University of Auckland, he completed his studies at Oxford University.
He is currently Associate Professor of Pacific Studies at the Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Auckland. Previously he was Associate Professor of History, American Culture, and Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Innocenta Sound-Kikku
TeAda Productions
“We Sweat & Cry Saltwater, so We Know That the Ocean is Really in Our Blood”
Innocenta Sound-Kikku is a community leader in Hawai’i originally from the beautiful island of Lukunor in Chuuk State, Federated States of Micronesia. With 10 years of law enforcement as her background, she is an active advocate, storyteller, interpreter, teacher, and cultural navigator with a particular passion for women and children. Innocenta is founder of the intergenerational youth program “Pacific Voices” at Kokua Kalihi Valley (KKV), and Vice-Chair of the Micronesian Health Advisory Coalition. She plays a key role in connecting her community to resources and cultural support and advocates for their rights to health and culture.
Tammy Tabe
University of the South Pacific
“We Sweat & Cry Saltwater, so We Know That the Ocean is Really in Our Blood”
Tammy Tabe is a Pacific Islands anthropologist who has worked widely in the Pacific Islands, specifically in Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tuvalu and Kiribati on marine protected areas, ecosystem based adaptation, and gender inequality, historical relocations of Pacific Islands people, identity and diaspora, and climate change induced migration and displacement. She received her Master’s Degree in Pacific Islands Studies from the University of Hawaii, Manoa (2011) and her Doctorate of Philosophy in Social Anthropology from the University of Bergen (2016). She currently works as a Lecturer at the Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development, at the University of the South Pacific, in Fiji. Her current research interests focus on historical relocations of Pacific Islands populations and how these cases can inform decisions and policies for future migration of Pacific Islands due to climate change; the notion of migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change and migration as displacement of Pacific Islanders; and the role of social capital in affecting the re-establishment and continuity of Pacific Islands communities who are likely to be displaced by climate change in the future.
Katerina Teaiwa
Australian National University
“To Search for Roots is to Discover Routes”
Katerina Teaiwa is Associate Professor and Deputy Director, Higher Degree Research Training in the School of Culture, History and Language, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University. She was born and raised in Fiji and is of Banaban, I-Kiribati (Tabiteueuan), and African American descent. She was founder and convener of the Pacific Studies teaching program at ANU, founder of the Pasifika Australia Outreach Program, and co-founder and co-chair of the ANU Family Friendly Committee. She is currently Chair of the Oceania Working Party of the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vice-President of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies and board member and trustee of the Pacific Cooperation Foundation in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her book Consuming Ocean Island: stories of people and phosphate (2015)is taught across several disciplines including Pacific Studies, anthropology, history, and geography. She also has a background in dance and the visual arts and is touring her multi-media exhibition Project Banaba to Auckland in 2021.
Finausina Teisa Tovo
College of San Mateo
“The Classroom as a Metaphorical Canoe”
Dr. Finausina Teisa Tovo is a Tongan-American scholar born and raised in East Palo Alto to Rev. Iunisi Tovo of Ma’ufanga, Kolomotu’a, and Fu’amotu. Working in the California Community College system for 10 years, Finausina coordinated the Mana Pacific Studies Learning Community which specializes in college navigation, retention and transfer success of Pacific Islander students. Finausina earned her Ed.D (Education Leadership: Community College Concentration) with the completion of her dissertation entitled: “Talanoa a Mana: Validating Oceania Voices in a Pacific Studies Learning Community” in May 2020. Dr. Tovo’s research has been recognized by the American Education Research Association, the U.S. Pacific Islander Studies Association, Tonga Research Association, and the Ministry of Education in Tonga. Currently, Finausina is the Mana Learning Community Coordinator and a Professor in Counseling Success & Pacific Studies at the College of San Mateo. Additionally, Finausina is the coordinator of the California Community College (CCC) Mana Network which she consults community colleges who wish to support their support towards the NHPI student community. Additionally, Dr. Tovo serves on the Pacific Studies curriculum planning committee in the U.S. higher education system, a member of the Tonga Research Association, San Mateo County Pacific Islander Initative and a member of the Bay Area Regional Pacific Islander Task Force. She is a proud first generation college graduate of the University of California, Riverside (BA), San Jose State University (MA) & San Francisco State University (EdD) who puts her scholarship privilege into action to protect Mauna Kea, and Black lives. In collaboration with the Center for Pacific Studies at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Dr. Tovo is a contributing author to the Teaching Oceania Series Book.
Stephanie Nohelani Teves
University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa
“Oceanic Fluidarities”
Stephanie Nohelani Teves (Kanaka Maoli) is an Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa where she teaches courses on Indigenous feminisms and queer theory. Teves is author of Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance andco-editor of Native Studies Keywords.
Kēhaulani Vaughn
University of Utah
“The Classroom as a Metaphorical Canoe”
Kēhaulani Vaughn (Kanaka Maoli) joined the University of Utah in 2018 as an assistant professor of Pacific Island Education in the Department of Education, Culture, and Society and the Pacific Islands Studies Initiative. She also serves as the faculty advisor to the Pasifika Bridge Program—a higher education bridge program between the local Pacific Islander community and the U, as part of the Mellon Foundation’s grant to Transform.
As a scholar-practitioner, Dr. Vaughn’s teaching and research interests are in Pacific Island Studies, Indigenous epistemologies, higher education, and decolonial practices and pedagogies. Her book manuscript, Trans Indigeneity: The Politics of California Indian and Native Hawaiian Relations, is about the trans-Indigenous recognitions between Native Hawaiians living in the U.S. and California Indian tribes. An interdisciplinary ethnographic project, Trans Indigeneity utilizes a Native feminist praxis to forge new methodological, theoretical, and political directions for Indigenous recognition-based politics. Her recent work, “Sovereignty Embodiment: Native Hawaiians and Expression of Diasporic Kuleana was published in Hūlili Journal (Fall 2019), a leading journal in the field of Hawaiian Studies.
Tanjerine Vei
University of Utah
“Oceanic Fluidarities”
Tanjerine Vei is a Ph.D. candidate in Education, Culture, and Society, at the University of Utah. Their research focuses on the development of pedagogies that promote critical consciousness and healing, spiritual activism, and community building. A central focus of these pedagogical approaches is creating teaching and learning environments that take on a playful spirit that can facilitate dialogue across difference. Within this approach, artmaking, broadly defined, becomes a means for both generating personally meaningful creations as well as for engaging in collective processes of meaning-making as participants explore the personal and systemic complexities of current social issues. Their dissertation, titled “Spiritual Activism in Activist Education: Examining the Spirit of Transformative Pedagogies,” is a critical participatory action research project wherein the research conducted is in community with those for whom the research is intended. In this project, a team of activist educators utilizes queer phenomenology to trace the presence of underlying oppressive forces that can manifest in activist approaches to teaching and learning and seeks to turn toward spiritual activist and decolonial ideologies as guides for undoing and creating anew their educational practices in an ongoing process of studied change. Tanjerine is also an artist and gardener who enjoys creating visual art on paper and canvas as well as in living landscapes and they delight in making kombucha and taking care of their three cats with their partner.