The Politics of Indigenous Collaboration: The Role of Chamorro Interpreters in Japan's Pacific Empire, 1914-45

• Published in: The Journal of Pacific history 2008-09, Vol.43 (2), p.207-222
• Main Author: Camacho, Keith L.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agency; Chamorro; Collaboration; Collaborationists; Colonialism; Colonies & territories; Colonization; Criminal arrests; Guam; Historical anthropology; History; History instruction; Imperialism; Indigenous peoples; Indigenous populations; Japan: History; Japanese; Language translation; Law enforcement agencies; Men; Micronesia; Military history; Native peoples; Northern Mariana Islands; Oral history; Pacific Ocean region: History; Pacific Region; Police; Political dissent; Resistance; War; World War 2
• ISSN: 0022-3344; 1469-9605; 1469-9605
• DOI: 10.1080/00223340802281528

Many studies, including work relating to the Pacific, have focused on agents of colonial resistance, yet have seldom addressed its various expressions. In order to complicate dichotomous understandings of resistance that are central to current studies, this essay explores indigenous forms of collaboration during the rise and fall of Japan's empire in the Pacific, from 1914 to 1945. Drawing on a range of Chamorro oral sources concerning the role of Chamorro interpreters and police assistants in the Mariana Islands, it discusses the conflicting, multiple and sometimes complementary modes of indigenous agency. The point is to situate 'collaboration' as an idea, like 'resistance', worth thinking about for its methodological, political and theoretical contributions to the study of Pacific history.