“Refusing Queer Paradise”: Mãhu Pedagogies of Queer Indigenous Re-memory in Hawai’i

1/26/26, 1pm-2pm

Interdisciplinary Building, room 1111

Based on close readings of a queer Native Hawaiian ‘zine and LGBTQ+ travel writing about Hawai’i, this talk develops the concept of “mãhu pedagogies to argue that while settler homonationalist tourism narratives enact cultural prostitution by figuring Hawai’i as a “queer paradise” absent of Native resurgence, mahu and queer Indigenous cultural workers refuse colonial narratives by centering queer indigenous relationalities that generate decolonial futures.

Dr. Pōmaika’i Gushiken is a Kanaka ‘Ōiwi and Uchinānchu educator and researcher from Nānākuli, Hawai’i. Currently a UC Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA, he holds a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego. His research focuses on decolonization, queer indigenous futurity, and the intersections of pedagogy, refusal in Hawai’i.