Understanding colonial cultural impacts on Indigenous ways of living have come to the fore in recent years as an important global issue. For example, in 2015, Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) researched the cultural impact colonisation has had on Canada’s Indigenous peoples. The TRC published 94 calls to action urging federal, provincial, territorial an Aboriginal governments to work together to change policies and programs in a concerted effort to repair the harm caused by colonisation. Similarly, since 2017 in Australia, Aboriginal groups and researchers have called on the government of Australia to acknowledge the frontier massacres of Aboriginal peoples by colonial governments. These are only two examples of similar initiatives being taken around the world. Such examinations and recognition of difficult pasts work towards advancing the process of reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. The recognition of colonial cultural impacts has also come to a head in the Mariana Islands of Micronesia, largely in response to the increased militarisation of the islands by the United States (U.S.) government. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Defense proposed to increase their military presence in the region and have moved towards usurping entire islands and surrounding waters for weapons testing and live-fire training ranges. Indigenous groups have organised to resist militarisation and raise awareness of their lack of land and sea rights in the region. Social science scholars have argued that in order to understand the current status of Indigenous peoples we need more detailed investigations of their colonial histories. Speaking specifically to the Asia-Pacific region, scholars have argued that, understanding Japanese and U.S. colonialism, in particular, is imperative for building transnational decolonisation and demilitarisation movements. Such studies provide a more nuanced awareness of the processes of colonisation and their legacy and, in turn, can assist Indigenous groups in negotiating rights and their efforts in self-determination. Using historical archaeological methods, this project seeks to answer the following primary question: What were the colonial cultural impacts of Japanese imperialism in the Mariana Islands from 1914 to 1945 and how did local Indigenous groups negotiate their cultural identities during this period?
Working with contemporary Indigenous groups, the project will seek to achieve the following project objectives: 1) to determine the use of Japanese materials by Indigenous groups over time from the Japanese Period to the present. 2) to understand Japanese imperialism from material remains and its application in the Mariana Islands. 3) to understand the connections, if any, between objects and contemporary communities. 4) to compare the colonial cultural impacts of Japanese imperialism on Saipan and Guam. This comparison will provide a better understanding of Chamorro experiences during the Japanese Period in the Pacific and how it may have differed on islands within the same region and at different points in history.
