Talk By LeShae Henderson | Jan 14 | 3:00pm - 4:30pm

January 14, 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Business Administration Building (BUSAD) C102

Title: Negotiating Indigeneity: Constructing Native Hawaiian Identity in Hawaiʻi State Prison Abstract: How do prisons shape Indigenous identity? Scholars have long argued that prisons strip away individual identity; but in recent decades, incarcerated Native Hawaiians have found opportunities to connect with their indigeneity behind bars through practices like hula and Makahiki. Drawing on in-depth interviews with people who work or were incarcerated in Hawaiʻi prisons, ethnographic observations, legal documents, and reports from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, I find the Hawaiian category operates in three ways: as a culture, as an ethnicity, and as a religion. Prison officials treat Hawaiian as a culture and a tool for rehabilitation that they can leverage or withhold at their discretion. In their daily lives, paʻahao draw on ethnic rather than racial frames to identify themselves as Hawaiians. To gain access to cultural practices, however, incarcerated men rely on legal protections that frame Hawaiian as a religion. These findings challenge common understandings of racialization processes in prison by emphasizing the role incarcerated people play in shaping institutional categories. Moreover, the data reveal how the religious, ethnoracial, and political meanings encompassed by Indigenous categories provide a degree of flexibility that allows prisoners to reclaim—and, in some cases, discover for the first time—Hawaiian identity. Bio: LeShae Henderson is a Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at Columbia University (degree expected 2025). Through the sociologies of race, punishment, inequality, and Indigenous studies, she asks how the law and social institutions construct racial categories; how people navigate and experience those categories; and how those categories shape socioeconomic and health outcomes. Trained as a mixed methods researcher, her work seeks to uncover pathways to more equitable, just, and liberated communities. LeShae is an alumna of the Kamehameha Schools, Harvard College, and the Vera Institute of Justice. Her scholarship is deeply informed by her roles as a proud Black and Native Hawaiian daughter, big sister, aunty, and hula dancer.


Event Sponsor
Department of Ethnic Studies and Public Administration Program, Mānoa Campus

More Information
Department of Ethnic Studies, 808956806, esdept@hawaii.edu,

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