From 1898 until World War II, U.S. imperial expansion brought significant numbers of white American women to Guam, primarily as wives to naval officers stationed on the island. Indigenous CHamoru women engaged with navy wives in a range of settings, and they used their relationships with American women to forge new forms of social and political power. As Christine Taitano DeLisle explains, much of the interaction between these women occurred in the realms of health care, midwifery, child care, and education. DeLisle focuses specifically on the pattera, Indigenous nurse-midwives who served CHamoru families. Though they showed strong interest in modern delivery practices and other accoutrements of American modernity under U.S. naval hegemony, the pattera and other CHamoru women never abandoned deeply held Indigenous beliefs, values, and practices, especially those associated with inafa'maolek--a code of behavior through which individual, collective, and environmental balance, harmony, and well-being were stewarded and maintained. DeLisle uses her evidence to argue for a "placental politics--a new conceptual paradigm for Indigenous women's political action. Drawing on oral histories, letters, photographs, military records, and more, DeLisle reveals how the entangled histories of CHamoru and white American women make us rethink the cultural politics of U.S. imperialism and the emergence of new Indigenous identities.
Christine Taitano DeLisle is assistant professor of American Indian studies at the University of Minnesota.
"Placental Politics helps to recover Indigenous women's agency as political actors and activists by honoring the various ways in which CHamoru women and pattera circumvent colonial institutions and ideologies to support community and cultural futurity. . . . I recommend this book to Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in North America, the Pacific Islands, and worldwide, as it is essential for understanding the importance of Indigenous women's subtle yet powerful acts of self-determination and sovereignty."--American Indian Culture and Research Journal "A timely book for a multitude of audiences that will inspire more CHamorus and other Indigenous scholars to critically engage with famalao'an-centered histories."--Native American and Indigenous Studies "Densely woven through with fino'CHamoru (CHamoru language), Placental Politics explores how United States naval colonialism in Guam contributed to the creation of new kinds of women, both white American and CHamoru. . . . [A] uniquely engaging and exciting contribution to scholarship on colonialism in the Pacific and histories of Pacific women."--Journal of Pacific History
