The Politics of Indigenous Collaboration: The Role of Chamorro Interpreters in Japan's Pacific Empire, 1914-1945

In this talk, Professor Camacho will examine indigenous forms of collaboration in Japan's empire in the Pacific, from 1914-1945. Emphasis will be placed on the roles of Chamorro interpreters and police assistants during the Japanese wartime occupation of the Mariana Islands. Rather than view collaboration as a sign of moral failure or victory, as has been the case with most studies of collaboration, Camacho will treat collaboration as a category of analysis that can shed light on the conflicting, multiple and sometimes complementary modes of indigenous agency. The goal is to situate collaboration as an idea worth thinking about in terms of its methodological and theoretical contributions to and implications for the study of colonialism and resistance.

Co-sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies.