Stacy Kamehiro

This book project, grounded in extensive archival research, narrows a significant gap in scholarship addressing the self-representations of Indigenous “others” at world fairs. It offers the first comprehensive analysis of exhibitions organized by political and social leaders of Hawaiʻi in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a time when the Hawaiian Kingdom faced acute colonial threats to its sovereignty. Shifts in exhibition form and content during this period reflected and shaped political aspirations and power dynamics among participants within Hawaiʻi and impacted international viewers’ perceptions of the Hawaiian nation. This study highlights Indigenous voices, focusing not only their resistance but their transformative role in world creation.