51吃瓜

Joined UVic Gender Studies in 2025

Katherine Achacoso (she/her/sija) is a queer daughter of the Filipinx and Surigaonon diasporas. She was raised in Tkaronto and has spent the past decade learning, organizing, and teaching in occupied Hawaiʻi. Katherine has areas of specialization in environmental justice, critical ecology studies, diaspora, gender and sexuality, and Critical Indigenous Studies/Indigenous feminisms. Her ongoing research examines the transnational history of North American mining on her ancestral homelands in Surigao, focusing on the insurgent ecological responses of Surigaonon communities at home and in diaspora. Katherine is also working on several collaborative projects on Asian settler colonialism and Indigenous politics in Asia, decolonial approaches to disability justice in occupied Hawaiʻi, and community curriculum on survivor-centered approaches to transformative justice. As a scholar-activist, Katherine remains committed to building community-engaged projects and pedagogy that work toward decolonization and transnational solidarities across the Philippines, Oceania, and Turtle Island.

Research Interests

• Surigaonon ecological knowledge, punahon (stories), and environmental politics
• Filipinx diasporas and land and water-based organizing and movement work in Oceania and Turtle Island
• Indigenous politics in Asia and Asian diasporas (with a focus on the Philippines and Philippine diasporas)
• Asian settler colonialism and the politics of solidarity
• Mapping the intersections between disability justice, radical care, and decolonization movements   
• Survivor-centered approaches to transformative justice
• Ocean feminisms: theory, praxis, and creative methodologies

Courses Designed and Taught

• Disability Justice
• Ocean Feminisms  

Selected Publications

Katherine Achacoso, Josephine Ong, Beenash Jafri, and Candace Fujikane (co-editors), "On the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Asian Settler Colonial Critique," Amerasia (forthcoming August 2025).

Katherine Achacoso, Josephine Ong, Beenash Jafri, and Candace Fujikane, "Introduction: Historicizing Asian Settler Colonial Critique," Amerasia (forthcoming August 2025). 

Malaya Caligtan-Tran, Marimas Mostiller, Megumi Chibana, and Katherine Achacoso, "On the Politics of Indigeneity and Settler Colonialism in Asia," Amerasia (forthcoming 2025).  

Katherine Achacoso, Christine Peralta, Michael Viola, and Joanna Poblete, "Connecting the Filipinx Diaspora and Environmental Histories," in Nature Unfurled: Asian American Environmental Histories., ed. Connie Chiang (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2024), 246-262.

Katherine Achacoso, Halena Kapuni Reynolds, and Trish Tupou, "Saltwater Archives: Transoceanic Feminist Meditations on Embodied Memories and Repertoires of Knowledge," Amerasia 48. no.2 (2022): 175-179.  (For the “Ocean Feminisms” special issue, edited by Nohelani Teves, Celia Bardwell, and Pualani Warren). 

Demiliza Saramosing, Katherine Achacoso, and Roderick Labrador (co-editors), "Toward an Oceanic Filipinx Studies," ALON: the Journal for Filipinx American and Diaspora Studies 2, no.3 (2022).  

Katherine Achacoso, Kahala Johnson, and leilani portillo, "Queer/diasporic/Filipinx/Kanaka Maoli relations," ALON: the Journal for Filipinx American and Diaspora Studies 2, no.3 (2022): 387.

Katherine Achacoso, "Is the Ocean a Metaphor?" ALON: the Journal for Filipinx American and Diaspora Studies 2, no.3 (2022): 388-394.

Community Pedagogy Projects

Katherine Achacoso, Leiana Naholowaʻa, and Noelle Kahanu, "On Consent and the Politics of Refusal: Indigenous Feminist Approaches to Teaching Tourism in Oceania," in Teaching Detours: Hawaiʻi and Guahan coming together for decolonial futures e-book, ed. Vernadette Gonzalez and Hōkūlani Aikau, Center for Pacific Islands Studies Teaching Oceania Series.

Vernadette Gonzalez, Aina Iglesias, Dean Saranillio, Bryant de Vecenica, Grace Caligtan, Marie Ramos, Katherine Achacoso, Kim Compoc, Demiliza Sarmosing, Malia Derden and Catherine Ulep, "Hoy get out of the sun! Why Black Lives Matter to Filipinx in Hawaiʻi," ALON: the Journal for Filipinx American and Diaspora Studies 2, no.3 (2022): 347-350.

Māhealani Ahia, Katherine Achacoso, Pōmaikaʻi Gushiken, Kahala Johnson, leilani portillo (co-editors), "The #MaunakeaSyllabus Project," Hawaiʻi Review (2021).

Dissertation: 

 “(Under)Mining Empire: Towards Dangerously (Re)membering Diasporic Surigaonon Stories of Lands, Rocks, and People that Move,” (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, 2023).