Abstract book ISBN:
978-80-907270-3-8 (EuropeanAssociation of Archaeologists); 978-84-9168-140-3 (Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, vol. 1); 978-84-9168-143-4 (Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, vol. 2)
Content:
Colonial domination brought into co-existence groups of people with different sex/gender systems. It frequently disrupted local gender understandings incompatible with those imposed by colonial agents. In this paper, I will present one of such situations: the incorporation of Guam by the colonial network of the Spanish empire.
Understood as a “civilizing” (sensu Fanon 1952) enterprise by Jesuit missionaries, the colonization of Guam targeted from the outset gender arrangements and Maintenance Activities, a concept used in archaeology to highlight the foregrounding nature of a set of daily practices that are essential to social continuity. From the re-structuration of living spaces to children’s socialization, through food, dress, kinship, healing practices and sexuality, Jesuit missionaries aimed to dismantle native Chamorro lifeways, which were mainly organized through Maintenance Activities.
In this paper, I would like to focus on the first years of colonization, on the period known as the Spanish-Chamorro wars (roughly 1668-1700). These were the years that witnessed more conflict and dramatic changes for the Chamorro communities. My aim is to discuss the interrelationship between colonial processes, material culture and the construction of gender. Through the interpretation of Guam’s specific case, I would like to show the day-to-day of more general gender-global changes.