UH Manoa student wins Soroptimists award

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
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Posted: May 22, 2007

HONOLULU - University of Hawai‘i student RaeDeen Keahiolalo-Karasuda, a doctoral candidate at the Mānoa campus in political science, has received a $10,000 award from the Soroptimists International.

Keahiolalo-Karasuda received the Founder Region Fellowship Award earlier this month in San Ramon, California. It is a monetary fellowship award recognizing her work in a field of social significance. She is one of six award winners from the Northern California-Hawaii region and the only one from Hawai‘i.

Her dissertation examines the consequences of mass incarceration in Kanaka Maoli families and communities. Beginning with Queen Liliuokalani‘s imprisonment, Keahiolalo-Karasuda links the neocolonial project of over-incarcerating contemporary Kanaka Maoli to her analysis of the political economy of the war on drugs, use of private out-of-state correctional facilities by the state, and media representation which enables the native identity to be criminalized.

Keahiolalo-Karasuda formerly worked as a community educator and victims‘ advocate in the anti-domestic violence area before enrolling in Maui Community College in 1993.

The Soroptimists is an international women‘s organization with 211 members in Hawaii and about 90,000 worldwide.