Aloha mai kāua. Ikaika and his ʻohana are from the ʻili of Mokauea, in the ahupuaʻa of Kalihilihiolaumiha, on the island of Oʻahu.

Ikaika's research concerns the political economy of how Kānaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiians) reproduce themselves as an Indigenous people. He examines the practices of grassroots groups and large elite Native institutions, paying particular attention to the contestations of social transformation in their political economic conditions. He also studies and actively participates in Indigenous media practice, and has done extensive community-based media work. An emerging area of his research is the encounter of Indigenous and western epistemologies in spaces of innovation and technology. Overall, his research explores how Indigeneity itself is contested in the practices of its own reproduction.

Ikaika holds an A.B. from Harvard University in social anthropology, with a language citation in Bahasa Indonesia. His research has been supported by the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Mellon Mays Fellowship, Kamehameha Schools Bishop Estate, and the Society for Visual Anthropology / Robert Lemelson Foundation.

Aside from his studies, each year Ikaika works with the Lānaʻi Culture & Heritage Center helping to lead a place-based cultural education program serving Lānaʻi youth.