• PhD, Urban Planning and Politics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• MA, Social Sciences, University of Chicago
• BA, Philosophy and Study of Religion, University of California - Los Angeles

Kevin is Chamoru from Guåhan (Guam), the southernmost of the Mariånas in the Western Pacific Ocean. Trained as a political sociologist and urban planner, his research concerns contemporary Indigenous politics in comparative and global perspective. Driven by the goal of analyzing and strengthening Indigenous social movements for self-determination and sovereignty, Kevin’s current research focuses on (1) Chamoru anticolonial nationalisms in the Mariånas (particularly in Guåhan); (2) Pacific Islander social movements in the continental United States; and (3) Indigenous Oceanic political thought, often in collaboration with political theorist Josh Campbell. His work is deeply informed by long-term, ongoing participatory action research projects with Pacific Islander leaders in Oregon and the Mariånas, which have also generated long-standing interests in bridging Indigenous methodologies with standard social-scientific methods.

Kevin’s research has received awards from the American Sociological Association’s Indigenous Peoples and Native Nations Section and the Western Political Science Association, as well as funding support from the American Political Science Association, Labor Research and Action Network, UB Gender Institute and the U.S. Fulbright Program—among others. For more information on his research and teaching, see kevinlujanlee.com. 

Indigenous politics, political sociology, social movements, migration, anticolonialism, methodology

• IDS 101: Introduction to Indigenous Studies
• IDS 362: Indigenous Data Sovereignty
• IDS 450/550: Decolonial Participatory Action Research
• IDS 501: Key Theories and Concepts 

Lee, Kevin L., Seumalu Elora Raymond and Sarah Soakai. Forthcoming 2027. “Pacific Islander Housing Distress in the Continental United States: Toward Trans-Indigenous Alternatives to Settler-Colonial Commodification in Los Angeles County.” Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and the City.

Campbell, Josh and Kevin L. Lee. Forthcoming 2027. “Pacific Worlds, Immobile Natives: Epeli Hau’ofa’s Theorization of Oceania as Mobile Indigeneity.” Global Intellectual History.

Lee, Kevin L. and Alyshia Alohalani Macaysa-Feracota. Forthcoming 2026. “Pacific Data Sovereignty in Turtle Island: Pacific Islander Self-Determination Struggles Against Imperial Diminishment in Oregon, 2010–Present.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

Lee, Kevin L. and Josh Campbell. Forthcoming 2026. “Settler Political Negations: How Sovereignty-Blind Policies Discipline Indigenous Sovereignty Movements.” South Atlantic Quarterly 125(4).

Lee, Kevin L., and Josh Campbell. 2026. “Planning Against Imperialism: Towards a Transnational and Global Indigenous Planning.” In Progressive Planning Practice: Transforming Communities of Color, edited by Sean Robin. New York, NY: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003568209-11.

Lee, Kevin L. 2025. “Gai’ase’: Trans-Indigenous Refusal and Global Indigenous Solidarities from the Mariånas to Palestine.” Amerasia Journal 51(3): 466-485. https://doi.org/10.1080/00447471.2026.2657758.

Lee, Kevin L. 2023. “Indigenous Futurisms as Research Methodology: Chamoru Projections of Indigenous Presence into Environmental Futures in Guåhan.” Wíčazo Ša Review 38(1-2): 1-35. https://doi.org/10.1353/wic.2023.a965093.

Lee, Kevin L., Daniel L. Engelberg, yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, eds. 2023. “Planning Just Indigenous Futures.” Projections: The Journal of MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning 17. https://projections.pubpub.org/17-planning-just-indigenous-futures.  

Lee, Kevin L., Ngoc T. Phan, Nolan Flores, Josiah Gabriel Mesngon, Aria Palaganas, Chauntae Quichocho, Nikki Aubree San Agustin. 2023. “Decolonial Subjectivities in Participatory Action Research: Resident Researcher Experiences in the 2021 Guåhan Survey.” Environment and Planning F: Philosophy, Theory, Models, Methods and Practice 2(1-2): 264-280. https://doi.org/10.1177/26349825221142286.

Thomsen, Patrick, Lana Lopesi, and Kevin L. Lee. 2022. “Contemporary Moana Mobilities: Settler-Colonial Citizenship, Upward Mobility and Transnational Pacific Identities.” The Contemporary Pacific 34(2): 327-352. https://doi.org/10.1353/cp.2022.0055.