New Member Feature: Leah Kuragano

Dr. Leah Kuragano is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg, where she teaches courses on race, culture, and society in the United States. Her research interests include U.S. settler colonialism and Indigenous politics in the Pacific, Asian diaspora and racialization, and the historical production of knowledge and culture in twentieth-century America. Her current project examines the production of settler colonial knowledge about Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians) in the postwar U.S. through the lens of surfing, tiki culture, and the police procedural television program Hawaii Five-O.

Learn more about Leah in the short interview below:

CRiCS: What are your areas of research interest? 

LK: My areas of research interest include cultural histories of the United States, settler colonial critique, critical race studies, and the politics of decolonization. 

CRiCS: Are there areas you would like to study or considered working on in the past, but probably won’t get to? Have you ended up doing research in an area that you didn’t expect to? 

LK: I remember when I started my undergraduate degree I was convinced that I would study literature and environmental justice. I thought that history was so boring! I ended up studying American art and music histories and then before I knew it I was a historian at the U of W. On the surface it seems like kind of a leap, but all of these areas of interest reflect my persistent curiosity about place-based belonging, the politics of knowledge, and the cultural ties that bind communities. I think I realized eventually that some of the answers could be found by looking into the past. Interestingly, I find myself now moving closer to my original interest in the environment as I start thinking more about how settler colonialism and diaspora complicate non-Indigenous migrant communities’ relationships to land. 

CRiCS: What research projects are you currently working on or plan to work on in the future? 

LK: My current main project is to turn my dissertation into a book. The focus of that book project is the production of U.S. settler colonial knowledge about Hawaiʻi and Kanaka Maoli (Indigenous Hawaiians) in twentieth century American popular culture. Going forward, I am hoping to pivot my work into more personal areas. I was drawn to thinking about Hawaiʻi because of how it seems to represent the mythical “Asia-Pacific” in the American imaginary. After years of study, I’m drawn to think more about Asian/Asian American belonging  and relationships to land under U.S. settler colonialism. Is it possible to envision a diaporic/racialized form of belonging that supports an Indigenous politics of decolonization? 

CRiCS: Why do you think it’s important to have intellectual community and the opportunities for research collaboration that CRiCS might offer? 

LK: I was drawn to cultural studies because it is rooted as much in a radical political genealogy as it is a scholarly one. I believe very strongly that meaningful intellectual engagements with violence and justice must take place in conversation and community. This is especially important within academic institutions that compel us to disengage and do our work in isolation. It has been so invigorating to be part of CRiCS this past year, and I’m so grateful to share space with other cultural studies scholars!