Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer is a Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) scholar born in Honolulu and raised between/across Hawai’i and the San Francisco Bay Area. She holds the endowed May Treat Morrison Professorship in American History, and is Program Head of Ethnic Studies and interim Director of the graduate program in Educational Leadership in the School of Education at Mills College at Northeastern University in Oakland, CA.
Dr. Bauer taught in Bay Area public schools for eight years before completing her doctorate in Social and Cultural Studies at U.C. Berkeley. In addition to her primary scholarly focus on the role of white female teachers in white settler colonialism, she also conducts participatory action research with Bay Area teachers on the implementation of ethnic studies curriculum in K-12classrooms and its potential to foster transformative learning among students of all backgrounds. |
Dr. Bauer's book, Tender Violence in US Schools: Benevolent Whiteness and the Dangers of Heroic White Womanhood deploys Indigenous methods of knowledge, specifically storytelling and genealogy, to present a fresh perspective on the problem of the over-disciplining of Black and Native students. The provocation underlying the book is this: how have white women (the majority of US teachers) understood their roles as "heroes" in public schools, while simultaneously participating in the disciplining of nonwhite student bodies in service to the white settler colonial State? She unpacks this paradox by constructing a genealogy of heroic white womanhood, which she calls “benevolent whiteness,” through a nuanced and meticulous analysis of archival writings of and about white missionary women in the 19th century as well as popular representations in the 20th and present day. Toward this end, the manuscript positions indigenous methodologies as a lens to deconstruct whiteness, not only as a way of understanding Native realities. In its conclusions, the book considers possibilities of Native futurities as an antidote to the education crisis.
In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Bauer collaborates with the Polynesian feminist collective Hinemoana of Turtle Island, is a parent of two brilliant tweens, and is training for her black belt in Kajukenbo Kung Fu. https://berkeley.academia.edu/NataleeKehaulaniBauer |