Kūkā Kīkī: A Podcast for Queer(ed) Kānaka

About Kūkā Kīkī: A Podcast for Queer(ed) Kānaka

Kūkā Kīkī is a queer(ed) Kanaka podcast of deep talk and quick thinking. Its inaugural season features contributors from "No ka Pono o ka Māhūi," the forthcoming special issue of Hūlili, dedicated to Kanaka articulations of sex, gender, intimacy, and erotics (Kamehameha Publishing, launch: early 2026). Beginning in Honolulu Pride month and culminating on Lā Kūʻokoʻa, these conversations honor the māhūi’s past, present, and future—unlearning colonial harm, relearning ancestral pilina, and moving together toward ea—collective life, breath, and liberation.

Publisher

Kanaeokana

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

17 Oct 2025

Latest episode

29 Nov 2025

Latest episodes

9 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Nov 2025

   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

2. 

   26 Nov 2025

   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

3. 

   19 Nov 2025

   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

4. 

   12 Nov 2025

   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

5. 

   6 Nov 2025

   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

6. 

   30 Oct 2025

   Episode 4: Of Ka-Miki and Ancestral Consent | Kūkā Kīkī: A Podcast for Queer(ed) Kānaka

   Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist)Guest: Kamalani Johnson (Scholar, Translator, Educator)Work Featured: He Moʻolelo mai nā Kūpuna: Ancestral Lessons of Liberation in J. W. H. I. Kihe’s “Kaao Hooniua Puuwai no Ka-Miki”Theme: Hoʻopāpā, pilina, and the ancestral ethics of consentListen & Learn:What might ancestral ethics of pilina teach us about honoring boundaries and practicing consent in the present?*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_artArt design: Sara Saffery @sarasafferyMusic: “Pua Līlīlehua,” Mokihana Flood, Tree of LifeFollow the podcast on IG: @kukakikipodcast

7. 

   28 Oct 2025

   Episode 3: Kūkā Kīkī—An Origin Story | Kūkā Kīkī: A Podcast for Queer(ed) Kānaka

   Hosts: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina (Host, PhD student, Scholar & Artist) & Ākea Kahikina (Producer, Writer, Director) Description: Co-creators Ākea and Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina talk story about how Kūkā Kīkī came to be. They discuss why they chose to feature “No ka Pono o ka Māhūi,” the forthcoming Hūlili special issue co-edited by Ākea and Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, and how the podcast was envisioned as a space for queer(ed) Kānaka to be seen, safe, and sovereign. Together, they reflect on storytelling as ea—breath, voice, and liberation. Listen & Learn: How can conversation itself be a form of ceremony, resistance, and renewal for the māhūi? Work Featured: “No ka Pono o ka Māhūi” (forthcoming special issue of Hūlili) Theme: Building a home for queer(ed) Kanaka storytelling *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

8. 

   24 Oct 2025

   Episode 2: “MVPFAFF+” Politics & Performance—A Conversation Through the Moana

   Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina Guests: Tatiana Kalaniʻōpua Young, Sami Akuna, and Phylesha Brown-Acton Works Featured: Four Principles of Māhū Leadership and On MVPFAFF+ Theme: Māhū and QTPI become leaders by sitting at the feet of our elders Description: This episode bridges Hawaiʻi, Niue, Aotearoa, and the greater Moananuiākea as Kaʻimi sits with māhū and QTPI leaders Tatiana Kalaniʻōpua Young, Sami Akuna, and Phylesha Brown-Acton. Together, they explore how the principles of māhū leadership—leʻaleʻa, aloha ʻāina, kuleana, and ʻohana—and the Pasifika-born term MVPFAFF+ reframe how Indigenous queer(ed) communities build networks of care and resistance across oceans. Listen & Learn: What can māhū and QTPI leadership teach the world about sitting at the feet of our elders—to raise, nurture, and guide the next generation of leaders? *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

9. 

   17 Oct 2025

   Episode 1: He Lei Moana

   Host: Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina Guest: Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu Work Featured: “Ahuwale ka paekiʻi: He lei moana nō ia” (an oral history) Theme: Māhū is not an identity—it is a kūlana and a kuleana. Description: In this episode of Kūkā Kīkī, host Kaʻiminaʻauao Kahikina sits with Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu to reflect on Ahuwale ka paekiʻi, the oral history Kaʻimi recorded of Hina. Together, they revisit her formative years and the ways her kūpuna continue to shape her today as a leader, educator, and cultural bearer. Their conversation explores how the terms haʻa and hoʻo illuminate the movement between kāne and wahine energies—revealing that māhū is not an identity to be claimed, but a living kūlana and kuleana to be embodied. Listen & Learn: What happens when we understand māhū not as category, but as practice—a balance of energies that sustains our people and our ea? Art concept: Ka’imina’auao Kahikina Art design: Sara Saffery Music: “Pua Līlīlehua” Album: Tree of Life

Reach and audience

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.