I Fanhigaiyan: weaving an alternative journalism praxis from CHamoru decolonization media activism

Abstract

In this article, I theorize an Indigenous media framework drawn from conversations with journalists and Indigenous activists in Guåhan (Guam). I refer to this framework as I Fanhigaiyan, a Fino’CHamoru (CHamoru language) term which can mean a thing which weaves or a place for weaving. This term captures the essence of CHamoru (the Indigenous people of the Marianas) media activism as a grounded and resurgent practice which establishes and maintains networks of reciprocity in Guåhan and in translocal spaces for Indigenous sovereignty and demilitarization. While in critical studies it is a given that news media serve an ideological function of state power, few researchers have examined the settler ideological power of media in American territories such as Guåhan. This article draws attention to the role of mainstream news media in concealing and reproducing settler logics of territoriality and elimination, and the mediated CHamoru resistance to American settler governance and discourse.