Archipelagic rhetoric: remapping the Marianas and challenging militarization from "A Stirring Place"

Engaging critical rhetorical fieldwork in the Mariana Islands archipelago, this article destabilizes colonial naming projects and US federal control that dispossess island places from Indigenous peoples. On Euro-American and military maps, archipelagoes are depicted as distant, tiny, empty, or merel...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication and critical/cultural studies Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 4 - 25
Main Author Na'puti, Tiara R.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 02.01.2019
Subjects
archipelagic rhetoric
colonialism
Indigenous
place
remapping
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Summary:Engaging critical rhetorical fieldwork in the Mariana Islands archipelago, this article destabilizes colonial naming projects and US federal control that dispossess island places from Indigenous peoples. On Euro-American and military maps, archipelagoes are depicted as distant, tiny, empty, or merely (is)lands for US geostrategic control. I argue for a remapping of the Marianas as expansive, oceanic sites of resistance to colonial cartographic violence and US militarization. Fieldwork in the Marianas demonstrates how Indigenous epistemologies function as archipelagic rhetoric enacted through a Chamoru sense of place. I examine these fluid relational connections to place and their implications for decolonization.
ISSN:1479-1420
1479-4233
DOI:10.1080/14791420.2019.1572905