Maile Arvin

Maile Arvin is a Kanaka Maoli feminist scholar and Assistant Professor at the Department of Ethnic Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Her research and teaching focus on Indigenous relationships to land, histories of race and settler colonialism in Hawaiʻi, Oceania, and the United States. Previously, she was faculty in History and Gender Studies at the University of Utah and founding director of the Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges.

• PhD in Ethnic Studies, University of California San Diego (2013)
• MA in Ethnic Studies, University of California San Diego (2009)
• BA in English, Swarthmore College (2005)

Her research examines:

• Colonial production of racial categories, particularly Polynesians as an 'almost white race' in historical social science
• History of incarceration of Native Hawaiian children in government institutions (1865–1960s)
• Intersection of settler colonialism and Indigenous feminisms
• Critique of eugenics and genomic studies in the Pacific
• Community-engaged memorialization projects in Hawaiʻi

Recent scholarly trends include analyses of Indigenous sovereignty, critiques of settler colonial whiteness, and interdisciplinary studies of race-gender dynamics. Arvin's publications explore Polynesian racialization, decolonial feminism, and the socioeconomic impacts of colonial institutions.

• NEH Chair's Grant for Nā Lei Poina ʻOle
• ACLS Digital Justice Seed Grant

Arvin leads Nā Lei Poina ʻOle (Beloved Children Never Forgotten), a community history project about reformatories and industrial schools in Hawaiʻi. In collaboration with Kawela Farrant and the North Shore Community Land Trust, this project uses archival and oral histories to confront the legacy of child incarceration. She also critiques the nonprofit-industrial complex's role in limiting Indigenous sovereignty.