Doctoral Dissertation: Decolonization Activities on Guam at the Nexus of US Colonialism and "Race"

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract 0001467 This project will investigate the social construction of race, ethnicity, and nationhood in the US Territory of Guam. The researcher will analyze how the indigenous Chamorro incorporate, negotiate, and resist colonial discourses in their current struggles to define their political identity vis a vis the United States. It will also analyze how "race" figures within this political identity and struggle. The three decolonization "task forces" that represent major political positions on the island will be the focus of the project. Methods include participant observation, structured interviewing, linguistic analysis of the talk and narrative of political activists, and social network analysis. An analysis of the written material of the activists will be used to reconstruct how identity is negotiated and "racialized" in this context. This project will contribute to our understanding of identity (including race) construction and political activism in the postcolonial world.