David Atienza

Durante mas de cuatrocientos anos los habitantes (chamorros) de las islas Marianas han sufrido un proceso continuo de globalizacion y resistencia adaptativa, que a nuestro juicio, se ha ido definiendo principalmente en la exhibicion del cuerpo – femenino, en las relaciones de parentesco; masculino, a traves del cuerpo fisico – como una matriz creadora de identidad y pertenencia. Siguiendo esta linea de interpretacion, queremos proponer aqui la nocentralidad de la experiencia colonial en la construccion corporal de la masculinidad a partir de una narrativa visual que emerge principalmente de la exhibicion del cuerpo fisico. Palabras clave: masculinidad, Guam, identidad, chamorros, islas Marianas Abstract For more than 400 years the inhabitants of the Mariana Islands, the Chamorros, have experienced a continuous process of globalization and adaptive resistence which has come to be defined mainly through exhibition of the body – feminine in kinship relations, and masculine through the ...

Partiendo de la nocion de espacio como (re)construccion social y cultural de la memoria colectiva, las islas Marianas forman parte de un area dinamica donde emerge una identidad local chamorra, no siempre coincidente, con las politicas de los poderes coloniales y postcoloniales (siglos XVII-XXI). nuestro objetivo en este trabajo sera analizar este proceso de decaimiento del legado colonial espanol en guahan como una forma deliberada de construir un presente amnesico. Vincular la decadencia de los vestigios arquitectonicos hispanos, por un lado, con la revalorizacion de las construcciones late (latte stones) y la figura del maga’lahi hurao, por el otro, como iconos fundacionales de la cultura (neo) chamorra, es otro de los objetivos de este ensayo.

Post-structural and post-modern theories have understood the concept of gender as a “fictitious” element rooted exclusively in a linguistic reality (see Butler, 1990), constituted by an illusory metaphysic of substances. Therefore, for these schools, “there is no gender identity behind the expression of gender” and consequently, gender is exclusively “performatively constituted” (Butler, 1990, 25), mainly as an “effect” of discursive practices. However, if we consider narrative in its wider anthropological sense, we should include not only non-verbal narratives, but also what the anthropology of experience name the “arguments of images” that may or may not have their source in language (see Fernandez, 1986, 164). We analyse this visual narrative through a consideration of Guam Chamorros’ constructions of masculinity.

Según la historiografía institucionalmente aceptada de las islas Marianas el indígena chamorro desapareció del archipiélago totalmente tras la brutal represión colonial española en el siglo XVII, dando paso a una cultura mestiza y campesina de origen filipino y español. Sin embargo, el análisis crítico de las fuentes primarias españolas presenta un panorama distinto que nos permite pensar en dinámicas complejas que apuntan hacia la continuidad y el cambio frente a la ruptura total. Encontramos en los textos históricos indicios de estructuras socioculturales indígenas durante gran parte el siglo XVIII que sin duda se integraron como parte del ser chamorro en los siglos posteriores.

Freedom, unity, and movement: the limits of chaos theory applied to the social sciences.
El impacto del postmodernismo en las ciencias sociales y la posterior caída del marxismo decimonónico generó un vacío epistemológico re-construido por ciertas corrientes intelectuales por medio de teorías físico-matemáticas como la teoría del caos o de los sistemas dinámicos no-lineales. Esta opción, ampliamente extendida hoy en el mundo académico, trata de rescatar la posibilidad de pensar en un centro epistemológico pero al mismo tiempo pone en duda la libertad humana proponiendo un nuevo modelo determinista. En este articulo presentamos la génesis de estas ideas así como un posible rescate metafísico-cristiano de la libertad, la unidad y el movimiento. PALABRAS CLAVE: teoría del caos, sistemas no-lineales, postmodernismo, libertad, cristianismo. The impact of the postmodernism in the Social Sciences and the fall of the 19th century Marxism generated an epistemological void that was reconstructed by some intellectual currents using physic and mathematic theories as the Chaos Theory or dynamic non-linear theories. This option, widespread today among intellectuals, is trying to rescue the possibility to think in an epistemological center but at the same time it challenge human freedom suggesting a new deterministic model. In this paper we introduce the genesis of these ideas and propose a possible metaphysical and Christian recovery of Freedom, Unity, and Movement.

Partiendo de la noción de espacio como (re)construcción social y cultural de la memoria colectiva, las islas Marianas forman parte de un área dinámica donde emerge una identidad local chamorra, no siempre coincidente, con las políticas de los poderes coloniales y postcoloniales (siglos xVii-xxi). nuestro objetivo en este trabajo será analizar este proceso de decaimiento del legado colonial español en guåhan como una forma deliberada de construir un presente amnésico. Vincular la decadencia de los vestigios arquitectónicos hispanos, por un lado, con la revalorización de las construcciones late (latte stones) y la figura del maga’låhi hurao, por el otro, como iconos fundacionales de la cultura (neo) chamorra, es otro de los objetivos de este ensayo.

The sun in the Mesoamerican cosmology still plays an important roll explaining the time, the generations and the kinship. Some mythical structures working since prehispanic periods show how this idea has been vital to former Americans. And today, in spite of its transformations, follows assets at least between the Cancuc Tzeltal community.

For more than 400 years the inhabitants of the Mariana Islands, the Chamorros, have experienced a continuous process of globalization and adaptive resistance which has come to be defined mainly through the exhibition of the body – feminine in kinship relations, and masculine through the physical body – as the matrix of identity and belonging. Following this line of interpretation, we make an argument for the non-centrality of colonial experience in the bodily construction of masculinity through a visual narrative that emerges principally from the exhibition of the physical body.

Despite cross-cultural exchange and ethnic mixing over the last five centuries, Guam remains culturally a Chamorro society. Rather than stressing the ‘acculturative forces of colonialism’, this study focuses on the survival of Chamorro local traditions and identity by bringing death rituals and native Catholicism to the fore. This study corroborates the work of several scholars who have emphasised the vital role played by Chamorro women and female symbolism before and after Spanish contact. It adopts a theoretical position, well expressed by historian Vicente M. Diaz, which conceives colonialism as an ambivalent and fluid process, involving appropriation and creative syncretism on the part of the colonised.

Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores first introduced the " discourse of poverty " to reaffirm the lack of economic interest in the evangelization process of the Mariana Islanders, presenting the Chamorros as 'poor' and 'humble'. The political competitors of the Spanish Crown used this stereotype, although it did not match the real socio-cultural reality of the 'Marianos', to discredit the whole Iberian quest in the light of the violent results of the colonial process. In the 20th century, some U.S. scholars have used this episode-the evangelization and conquest of the Marianos-revitalizing the Spanish " Black Legend " in the Marianas with similar political goals, affecting the Chamorros' current historic self-understanding.

This paper challenges the historiographical conception of a break, of a historical discontinuity in the Mariana Islands, and an annihilation of its native inhabitants by the Spaniards at the end of the Seventeen-Century. The indigenous agency and adaptive resistance was continuously performed asymmetrically but actively in the reducciones, producing organs of power, prestige, and control through military titles and offices that were active until 1791. This adaptive resistance would face two structures of power, the Jesuit pries and the alcaldes or mayors. The history of the relations between them is the history of the villages of Guam and its peoples.

Mainstream history of the Mariana Islands presents the CHamoru as indigenous people who were transformed after the conquest (1668-1700) into a Hispanicized population losing their Austronesian cultural tradition. I instead emphasize the role of CHamorus during these years as active participants in their history and vehicles of what I call "adaptive resistance." In this paper I present some of the ideological interpretations that have been included in the historical narrative. They have been accepted without conducting a critical analysis of the sources and have been crucial to establish this narrative. Anthropologists have long accepted, with great relief, that our discipline renounced the search for absolute objectivity demanded, paradoxically, by many other sciences. The acquiescence to reality has allowed us to accept alternative sources of knowledge, such as poetry, novels, or songs. It allows us also to be missionaries, dancers or even pirates, or all at once. We abandoned the schizophrenic use of the third person of the plural in our writings and embraced our authorship, our "I." Claiming our authorship, we acknowledged our passions and mistakes. This acceptance better equipped us to deal with the contradictions and complexities enclosed in historical events and their commemorations. While reflecting on the anniversary of the arrival of Magellan to these islands, we have seen that there are different perspectives of the same historical event. The Government of the Philippines claims today that Lapu Lapu's killing of Magellan should be the main event to commemorate in 2021. Meanwhile, the Spaniards will celebrate with pride Magellan's or Juan Sebastián Elcano's incredible achievement.

This paper is part of an ongoing research project that seeks to analyze indigenous adaptive resistance and cultural continuity during the Spanish colonial enterprise in the Mariana Islands. In doing so, Atienza will bring out evidence of cultural continuity and transformation, and what might be questioned as a compartmental and externally driven understanding of the history of the archipelago and its islands.

Abstract: After the death of Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores, an
intermittent and violent conflict broke out in the Mariana Islands.
Centuries later this conflict would be baptized as the „Spanish-Chamorro
wars‟. The ethnohistory of the Chamorros traditionally has been
considered closed after the defeat of the native forces in 1684 and the final
„reducciones‟ and pacification of the Gani islands at the end of the 17th
century. In this paper, I will present some elements that I consider to prove
the socio-political continuity of indigenous agency beyond the final
Christianization and “Hispanicization” of the island.

Comunicación preparada para la mesa “les projects populistes et l’indigénisme politique en Amérique Latine / los proyectos populistas y el indigenismo político en Latinoamérica” dentro de la XVII Semana de ética y filosofía política en San Sebastián del 1 al 3 de junio de 2011.

Insistía mucho Francisco Umbral, quizá el mejor narrador del siglo veinte, en que Madrid es un género literario. Género que se ha ido llenando de grandes obras y que, cada año, vuelve a ser punto de mira de lectores.
Y olvidé su nombre es una novela con Madrid de protagonista, Madrid y sus jóvenes, que ven lo mejor de la vida girar en sus calles.
Madrid y la amistad que se vuelve un tesoro como sus callejones, en una prosa rítmica, certera, inolvidable, que deslumbró al jurado desde la primera página, Y olvidé su nombre es un texto como la ciudad protagonista, inolvidable.
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El primer contacto de los españoles con las Islas de las Velas Latinas o de los Ladrones se produjo en 1521 con la llegada a Guam de la escuadra de la Especiería dirigida por Fernando de Magallanes. Posteriormente, la conquista y evangelización de las Islas Marianas, rebautizadas así por el jesuita Diego Luis de San Vitores en honor de la reina regente Mariana de Austria, dio comienzo en 1668 y concluyó en 1899, siendo dicho archipiélago una de las últimas tierras del Pacífico en mantenerse bajo soberanía colonial española. Las Islas Marinas y España, separadas por más de trece mil kilómetros, permanecen unidas por más de quinientos años de una historia tan intensa como compleja. Este volumen contribuye a poner de manifiesto esos lazos en una publicación académica en la que especialistas de ambos territorios se han unido para presentar desde una perspectiva pluridisciplinar el rico legado histórico que atesora las Islas Marianas.

At the end of the 17th century, the Society of Jesus projected a martyrial ethos across Europe’s eastern overseas possessions, places that were of extreme importance for the control of transoceanic trade in the western Pacific. Scars of Faith offers a collection of primary sources that deal with the Jesuit martyrdom in the 17th century Mariana Islands. Facing repression and persecution to the point of death meant that Jesuit missionaries were at the heart of the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, and God and the devil in the Spanish Micronesia. And for the Society of Jesus, frontier missions such as the Mariana Islands meant a discourse of spiritual heroes whose violent deaths helped to spread Catholicism at the margins of the Spanish empire.

The documents and letters that accompany this volume are primary sources, offered in their original languages and in English, from Jesuit missionaries such as Fr. Diego Luis de San Vitores, Fr. Luis de Medina, and Fr. Manuel de Solórzano y Escobar.  These documents tell a gripping account of the Jesuits and their encounters with the people of the Mariana Islands, including the native Chamorro people. Scars of Faith traces Jesuit martyrs on the frontier missions of "the Pacific" and their accounts of sociocultural clashes, violence, and efforts for peace and evangelization.