"Kauanui’s study constitutes a significant addition to the existing anthropological and historical scholarship that engages with events taking place in the nineteenth century in the islands, and scholarship linked to the contepmorary sovereignty movement, complementing the existing scholarship in a nuanced and commanding way. There is no doubt that this study will be of interest to scholars in the field, and its varied insights will constitute an enduring gift to the decolonization movement and its undertaking, both in the islands and more broadly amongst Indigenous communities worldwide."
- Naomi Alisa Calnitsky (Anthropology Book Forum) "Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty is yet another highly significant and extremely well-researched and theoretically contextualized contribution to the rapidly growing body of literature by native Hawaiian scholars on their history, culture, and political struggles."
- Jonathan Y. Okamura (Journal of American History) "[Kauanu] is to be commended for her diligence in both scholarship and activism. The book is a fine example of scholarship demonstrating the intersectionality of nationality, ethnicity, and gender in a meaningful and robust manner."
- David Fazzino (Pacific Affairs) "In this deeply engaging book, J. Kēhaulani Kauanui unpacks paradoxes inherent in past and contemporary assertions of Hawaiian sovereignty. . . . While Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty is set in Hawai‘i, it will prove useful for anyone interested in the global politics of Indigeneity and settler colonialism-in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, the Pacific Islands, and Israel/Palestine."
- Tomonori Sugimoto (PoLAR) "An ambitious and provocative work of decolonial scholarship."
- Joshua Bartlett (American Indian Quarterly) “Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty is a much-needed, incisive, yet easily accessible addition to conversations in academia and activism alike. Kauanui’s work calls on Kanaka ‘Ōiwi to face the settler-colonial complexities and paradoxes embedded within our histories and our current political movements while also providing us with guidance toward reimagined futurities that are truly decolonized and free from the heteropatriarchal settler-colonial structures and mindsets.”
- Natalee Kehaulani Bauer (Native American and Indigenous Studies) "Kauanui draws on feminist and queer theory, and Foucault’s notions of biopolitics and biopower, to provide a fine-grained masterpiece problematizing state-centric notions of sovereignty."
- Michelle Nayahamui Rooney (Journal of Pacific History) “J. Kēhaulani Kauanui makes a brilliant case for the close historical analysis of political discourse and the grounding of
speculative futures in an understanding of the past. Kauanui . . . layers narratives of occupation and resistance, historiographical debate, political critique, and autoethnographical reflections in this powerful text.”
- Rose Stremlau (American Historical Review)
