Kevin Lujan Lee

1. In recent decades, the Pacific Islands region has found itself increasingly mined as a theoretical wellspring and supranational historical unit of analysis that transcends the well-documented na...

As ancient Chamorus (Chamorros), our Nakba … was by the Spaniards when they moved all the Chamorus from all the islands and put them in Guåhan (Guam). There was so much loss of life during that tim...

From forecasting and projections to backcasting and visioning, urban planners have at their disposal an impressive array of tools to understand and analyze the future. While these tools offer instructive insights, they were not developed to serve Indigenous peoples. Indeed, they do not offer culturally competent modes of Indigenous community engagement, or honor the sovereignty of Indigenous nations, nor do they sufficiently attend to the constitutive role of Indigenous values, epistemologies or kinships in the formulation and enactment of more just Indigenous futures. This reflects a systematic disconnect between the formal tools of futures planning, and the more capacious tools of Indigenous-led, futures-oriented planning initiatives. To bridge this disconnect, it is critical for planning scholarship to more meaningfully engage the interdisciplinary, Indigenous-led field of Indigenous Studies, and for planning practice to more meaningfully align itself with the diverse Indigenous-led planning initiatives that so constitute contemporary movements for Indigenous resurgence, sovereignty and life. Projections Volume 17 starts from the premise that urban planners interested in serving Indigenous peoples must engage with Indigenous scholars, elders, community leaders and artists to understand the unique discursive terrain and material conditions within which Indigenous peoples are already formulating and enacting visions for a more just world. Bringing together artwork from six Indigenous artists, reflections from four Indigenous community leaders, and three article-length manuscripts from planning scholars working in Turtle Island, Oceania and Latin America, this volume seeks to highlight the value of relational dialogue across scholarship, practice and art, in service of realizing more just Indigenous futures.

Introduction: Resistance and Response in PlanningSusan S. Fainstein and John ForesterIndigenous Resistance as Multiscalar, Insurgent Planning under EmpireKevin Lujan Lee and Tiara R. Na’putiMoving ...

Scholarship on participatory action research (PAR) has come a long way since its foundations in Paulo Freire. However, it leaves much room to understand the personal transformations at stake in everyday residents’ participation in PAR—a key mechanism through which PAR contributes to long-term social change in local communities. This literature gap is particularly salient for decolonial PAR, which incorporates Indigenous communities at every stage of the research process, and which is explicitly committed to the political goal of decolonization (i.e. the repatriation of Indigenous lands and oceans). Borrowing heavily from feminist geographical PAR scholarship, we articulate the concept of “decolonial subjectivities” to capture the dynamic, embodied ways in which resident researchers in decolonial PAR connect their own knowledge, experiences, and relationships with ongoing local struggles for Indigenous sovereignty. We then elaborate on this concept through a qualitative analysis of four waves of weekly reflections from five resident researchers in a decolonial PAR project in Guåhan—a modern-day colony, unincorporated territory of the United States, and the southernmost island of Låguas yan Gåni (or the Mariånas archipelago). We find two distinct shifts in resident researchers’ decolonial subjectivities over time: (1) deepening embodied connection to decolonization through situating one’s role in decolonization within a broader set of familial and community relationships; and (2) deepening embodiment of role as decolonial researchers through affirming one’s expertise and power to effectuate change as a researcher supporting and facilitating the continued, ongoing struggle for Indigenous sovereignty.

Indigenous scholars have much to teach political scientists about recognizing and addressing the ways in which power, politics, and colonialism irrevocably shape the data-generating process. In this article, we present a methodological framework for a decolonial quantitative political science, outlining how it was operationalized in the design and execution of the 2019 Native Hawaiian Survey. We demonstrate the utility of this methodological framework through a descriptive analysis of Native Hawaiian respondents' self-identification. Aligned with the theoretical insights of kanaka (Native Hawaiian) scholars, we provide empirical support for the intertwined political relationship between Native Hawaiian identity and national identity––a finding that demands further empirical study among all Indigenous populations. This article offers two main contributions. First, it provides a methodological framework to guide quantitative political science research on Indigenous populations. Second, it adds empirically to the growing literature on Indigenous self-identification.

Higher education should be an institution of decolonization––one centered on the repatriation of land and ocean to Indigenous peoples. Quantitative methods are used to perpetuate the historical and ongoing processes of Indigenous dispossession. However, quantitative methods courses often fail to reckon with these colonial histories and are taught in ways that are inaccessible for Indigenous students. Drawing from the first author's experiences as a professor of political science in Hawai‘i, this chapter proposes three classroom-level interventions that educators can pursue to make quantitative methods relatable and empowering for Indigenous students: (1) designing lectures to center the experiences of Indigenous students, (2) designing assignments that invite Indigenous students to interrogate the settler-colonial and neocolonial structures perpetuating Indigenous dispossession, and (3) maintaining university-community partnerships that provide Indigenous students with opportunities to use quantitative methods to support Indigenous sovereignty movements.

(2020). The immigrant rights movement: The battle over national citizenship, by Walter J. Nicholls. Journal of Urban Affairs. Ahead of Print.

Background Transgender people and racial/ethnic minorities separately report poor healthcare experiences. However, little is known about the healthcare experiences of transgender people of color (TPOC), who are both transgender and racial/ethnic minorities. Objective To investigate how TPOC healthcare experiences are shaped by both race/ethnicity and gender identity. Design and Participants Semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews (n = 22) and focus groups (2; n = 17 total); all taken from a sample of TPOC from the Chicago area. All participants completed a quantitative survey (n = 39). Approach Interviews and focus groups covered healthcare experiences, and how these were shaped by gender identity and/or race/ethnicity. The interviews and focus groups were audio recorded, transcribed verbatim, and imported into HyperRESEARCH software. At least two reviewers independently coded each transcript using a codebook of themes created following grounded theory methodology. The quantitative survey data captured participants’ demographics and past healthcare experiences, and were analyzed with descriptive statistics. Key Results All participants described healthcare experiences where providers responded negatively to their race/ethnicity and/or gender identity. A majority of participants believed they would be treated better if they were cisgender or white. Participants commonly cited providers’ assumptions about TPOC as a pivotal factor in negative experiences. A majority of participants sought out healthcare locations designated as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-friendly in an effort to avoid discrimination, but feared experiencing racism there. A minority of participants expressed a preference for providers of color; but a few reported reluctance to reveal their gender identity to providers of their own race due to fear of transphobia. When describing positive healthcare experiences, participants were most likely to highlight providers’ respect for their gender identity. Conclusions TPOC have different experiences compared with white transgender or cisgender racial/ethnic minorities. Providers must improve understanding of intersectional experiences of TPOC to improve quality of care.