Kamalani M. F. H. Johnson (he/him) is a Kanaka Maoli political theorist, writer, and educator whose work redefines the intersections of archival refusal, jurisprudence, and relational sovereignty. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University—making history as the first scholar from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to receive this prestigious appointment.
Grounded in two decades of linguistic training extending from the Pūnana Leo immersion schools to his PhD in Political Science, Dr. Johnson’s mastery provides critical, direc…
Kamalani M. F. H. Johnson (he/him) is a Kanaka Maoli political theorist, writer, and educator whose work redefines the intersections of archival refusal, jurisprudence, and relational sovereignty. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University—making history as the first scholar from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa to receive this prestigious appointment.
Grounded in two decades of linguistic training extending from the Pūnana Leo immersion schools to his PhD in Political Science, Dr. Johnson’s mastery provides critical, direct access to the Hawaiian language newspaper archive (nūpepa), which he approaches as an insurgent philosophical space. His scholarship centers on the concept of pūkuʻi—a foundational Kanaka Maoli philosophy of binding knowledge, sovereign refusal, and ecological care. This theoretical intervention has been recognized by elite national bodies, securing the 2026 Law and Humanities Junior Scholar Award, the 2026 Biography Prize, where he was the first Political Science scholar in the award’s 45-year history to win, and he is also a 2026 Fellow at the Institute for Critical Social Inquiry (ICSI) at The New School.
His research on intellectual sovereignty, climate memory, and political futures appears or is forthcoming in Hūlili, Journal of World Philosophies, American Quarterly, and Biography, as well as volumes including Approaches to Hawaiʻi Philosophy, Moʻolelo: The Foundation of Hawaiian Knowledge, and Foundations and Futures. His current book manuscript, Insurgent Archives: Relational Refusal and Political Ontologies of Binding, demonstrates how 19th-century thinkers like J. W. H. I. Kihe encoded ceremonial opacity to maintain political autonomy. A committed community advocate, he serves on the board of Hoʻāla ʻĀina Kūpono, directs the storytelling platform Kīpuka Moʻolelo, and has spearheaded major translation and digital interactive projects for the ʻIolani Palace and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
