Kūkā Kīkī: A Podcast for Queer(ed) Kānaka

Bonus Episode: Puana ke Mele Māhūi

Hosts: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist) & Ākea Kahikina (Producer, Writer, Director) Guest: Izik (Singer-songwriter, Musician) Works Featured: Reflections on No ka Pono o ka Māhūi and Izik’s album KōwāTheme: Liberation, celebration, and the collective voice of the māhūi Description: To close the inaugural season of Kūkā Kīkī, co-hosts Ākea and Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina reflect on the journey from Honolulu Pride to Lā Kūʻokoʻa, weaving insights from each episode into a single mele of reflection. Joined by musician Izik, they celebrate the collective voices that make up the māhūi—those who embrace, embody, and embolden beyond colonial constraints. Together, they explore how music becomes ceremony, joy becomes resistance, and how the māhūi’s song continues to reverberate across generations. The episode culminates in a live musical performance of Izik’s new album Kōwā, honoring māhū brilliance and the enduring rhythm of ea. Listen & Learn: How do we celebrate the māhūi not only through story, but through sound—and how does music help us remember that joy itself is a revolutionary act? *This episode engages Hawaiian worldviews and social contexts, and explores themes of sexuality, gender, and erotics. Some language and content may be considered strong or triggering. Viewer/listener discretion is advised.  Art concept: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina @mahucha_art Art design: Sara Saffery @sarasaffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of Life Follow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast

Episode 8: A Tale of Two Wāhine Koa

Host: Ākea Kahikina (Producer, Writer, Director) Guests: Jamaica Heolimelekalani Osorio (Scholar, Educator, Activist) & Leināʻala Mahi (Poet, Photographer, Activist) Works Featured: No ka Pono o ka Māhūi and An HonorTheme: Art, activism, and aloha ʻāina as the work of wāhine koa Description: Host Ākea Kahikina sits with co-editor Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio and poet Leināʻala Mahi to talk story about art, activism, and aloha ʻāina as interwoven practices of wāhine koa. Building from Osorio’s co-editorship of No ka Pono o ka Māhūi and Mahi’s poem An Honor, the guests discuss how poetry, protest, and motherhood shape their work and vision for liberation. Together, they reflect on how wāhine koa, in the fight for lāhui liberation, can serve as extensions of Hiʻiaka’s lightning-imbued pāʻū—the very hand of Kīlauea that births hulihia—and how wahine koa creations become a bodily extension of ea within the lāhui. Listen & Learn: How do wāhine koa lead through creativity, courage, and care—and what does it mean to craft art that both protects and provokes? *This episode engages Hawaiian worldviews and social contexts, and explores themes of sexuality, gender, and erotics. Some language and content may be considered strong or triggering. Viewer/listener discretion is advised.  Art concept: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina @mahucha_art Art design: Sara Saffery @sarasaffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of Life Follow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast

Episode 7: Confining and Queering Pilina ʻŌpio

Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist) Guest: Maile Arvin (Scholar, Historian, Educator) Work Featured: Practicing Pilina on Incarcerated ʻĀina: The Power of Queer Relationships of Kanaka Maoli Girls at the Kawailoa Training SchoolTheme: Reclaiming intimacy and care under confinement Description: Host Kaʻimi Kahikina chats with historian Maile Arvin to discuss research conducted with Eliana Massey on the Kawailoa Training School for Girls. Arvin and Massey reveal how Kanaka youth, confined within colonial institutions, forged colonially queered forms of pilina as acts of care, survival, and freedom. Their work unearths the violent systems that sought to sever Kanaka girls from one another—and honors the relationships that endured despite it. Listen & Learn: How can reclaiming stories of confinement open pathways toward collective healing and the restoration of pilina across generations of long-estranged ʻāina and kānaka? *This episode engages Hawaiian worldviews and social contexts, and explores themes of sexuality, gender, and erotics. Some language and content may be considered strong or triggering. Viewer/listener discretion is advised.  Art concept: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina @mahucha_art Art design: Sara Saffery @sarasaffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of Life Follow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast

Episode 6: Moe Kolohe—Criminalizing Pilina from the Kingdom through the Territory

Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist) Guest: Lani Teves (Scholar, Educator, Musician) Work Featured: Regulating Hawaiian Sexualities: Challenging Colonial Imposition to Reclaim Autonomy Theme: How colonial legal frameworks constrict pilina and desire Description: Host Kaʻimi Kahikina sits with scholar Lani Teves to unpack how 19th- and 20th-century laws in Hawaiʻi sought to regulate Kanaka sexuality, criminalizing the act of moe pū to become moe kolohe, a crime. Together, they examine how these laws reshaped Kanaka understandings of desire, morality, and belonging—and how these frameworks continue to influence our relationships today in coercive ways, urging us to recenter and celebrate our sexuality as the life force of our people since time immemorial.  Listen & Learn: How embedded are colonial laws in our relationships today—and what would it take to reimagine our pilina beyond laws made to constrain our populace, presence, and pulapula? *This episode engages Hawaiian worldviews and social contexts, and explores themes of sexuality, gender, and erotics. Some language and content may be considered strong or triggering. Viewer/listener discretion is advised.  Art concept: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina @mahucha_art Art design: Sara Saffery @sarasaffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of Life Follow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast

Episode 5: Poetry & Prose in the Muliwai

Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist) Guests: Noʻu Revilla (Poet, Scholar, Educator) & Kamakani Albano (Poet, Educator) Works Featured: poi mouth and Re-membering Māhū is a Love Letter to Creation Theme: Water as sanctuary, mentorship, and transformation Description: Poets Noʻu Revilla and Kamakani Albano join host Kaʻimi Kahikina to talk story about water as sanctuary—where wai and kai meet in the muliwai. They reflect on eroticism, emergence, and the mentorship that flows between kumu and haumāna. Through reflections on their poetic works, they explore how desire, devotion, and language blur the imaginary divisions between lover and land, guider and guided, creation and resistance. Listen & Learn: What lessons does the muliwai hold for how we nurture, teach, and aloha one another—especially those who exist in the spaces between? *This episode engages Hawaiian worldviews and social contexts, and explores themes of sexuality, gender, and erotics. Some language and content may be considered strong or triggering. Viewer/listener discretion is advised.  Art concept: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina @mahucha_art Art design: Sara Saffery @sarasaffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of Life Follow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast