ABSTRACT
This chapter is rooted in my recent experience with community-oriented archaeology in Guam (Guåhan) (Figure 27.1) and in my commitment to exploring and practicing a depatriarchaldecolonial archaeology. I have been visiting Guam since 2013, mainly within the framework of an archaeological project originally devised to better understand the impact of Spanish colonialism on Native CHamoru. CHamoru /Chamorro is the name that present-day Indigenous inhabitants of the Mariana Islands use to refer to themselves. Among them, more than ever before in my expertise in the field, I have experienced archaeology not only as a discipline that excavates remains from the past but as an enterprise that takes place in a present inhabited by people for whom this past plays an important role.
