This project examines social movements in Guåhan (Guam) and activism within this unincorporated territory of U.S. Two assumptions guide this work. First, Guåhan is the site of rhetorical struggle over identity, indigeneity, and Americanness. Second, indigenous Chamoru (Chamorro) struggles must be examined within the historical context of colonial projects, which have established a political economy of stratification. Thus, the complexities of social movement organizing might be better understood when historicized with political and economic realities. To get a more complete understanding of how indigenous social movements and activism in contemporary Guåhan are shaped by understandings of national identity, colonization, and military buildup, I analyze three sets of artifacts: (1) testimonies at United Nations from 2005-2012; (2) the texts and activities of the group We Are Guåhan and its legal action against the Department of Defense (DOD) regarding the U.S. military buildup; and (3) interviews with social movement members and organizers regarding activism in Guåhan and contending with American influence. The project argues that resistance takes place through social movement efforts centered on the issues of ancestral land, language and cultural revitalization, and self-determination for Chamorus; and these moments occur primarily through actions that both depend upon and reinforce communicative channels directed against the U.S. nation-state. This phenomenon is articulated through the rhetoric of both/neither that demonstrates complex and contradictory identities positioned as both part of the U.S. while simultaneously remaining exterior to it. / text

plan B / Pacific Islands Studies

Answering the call to decenter whiteness and coloniality within communication studies (#RhetoricSoWhite), this project attempts to reclaim space for indigenous knowledge and to serve decolonial struggles. Written as a project of love for my fellow indigenous scholars and peoples, I expand upon Tiara Na'puti's conceptualization of "Indigeneity as Analytic" and chart how indigenous Pacific Island decolonial resistance operates through a paradigm of decolonial futurity. By recognizing Guåhan (Guam), as well as Chamoru, bodies as (de)colonial borderlands, I demonstrate the radical potential of indigeneity through three different case studies. First, I name indigenous feminine style as a strategic mode of public address adopted by Governor Lou Leon Guerero to resist the spread of COVID-19 by US military personnel on the island of Guåhan. Second, I showcase how the process and practice of indigenous Pacific Island tattooing delinks away from coloniality. Finally, I demonstrate how the celebration of a Chamoru saint, Santa Marian Kamalen, provides a spatial-temporal intervention that articulates an indigenous religion and enacts a decolonial futurity.

No description available.

Globalization asserts increasing pressure on marginalized cultures and languages. While faced with the pragmatic, often economic, need to communicate via global languages such as English and Chinese, communities of non-dominant language users struggle to maintain or reestablish their own cultural and linguistic practices. This thesis considers three areas of theory to further inquiry into how revitalization contexts may operate within an increasingly borderless world. The specific focus is the CHamoru/Chamorro revitalization context on Guåhan /Guam. First, readers enter the discussion through the conduit of narrative theory which focuses on how legends spanning generations may lend insight into how the dispositions of local inhabitants developed. Second, affect theory is considered to illustrate how narratives are constructed about the future through fear and anxiety. Third, revitalization rhetoric and the emergent theory of translingualism are addressed as they lie at the intersection of narratives about the past and future. The thesis works to initiate conversations between theories which previously worked apart from one another in a context infrequently considered in an effort to establish a foundation for future research and activism on the the island of Guåhan