2022

07/10/2022

Premio Fernando Coronil 2022 para Dr. Konrad Antczak por el libro "Islands of Salt: Historical Archeology of Seafarers and Things in The Venezuelan Caribbean 1624-1880”. Read more

04/01/2022

2020

EU Horizon 2020 - Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 840992

Principal Investigator: Konrad A. Antczak

Primary Coordinator: Sandra Montón-Subías

Informal commerce thrived for more than two centuries between the Dutch islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire (ABC islands) and Spanish colonial Venezuela, seducing a diversity of regional trans-imperial seafarers and mobilizing vital commodities. Indispensable European ceramics were traded to the mainland chronically neglected by Spanish provisioning fleets, while local Venezuelan ceramics itinerated to the ABC islands to satisfy everyday domestic needs.

While much is known about the socioeconomic and political history and impacts of this longstanding commerce, nothing is known of its material dimensions and how the indispensable smuggled ceramics changed or maintained the identities and gender relations of peoples in the colonial societies on the islands and the continent. The central research question of the ArCarib project is: how did the informal maritime commerce of ceramics in the 17th- and 18th-century South-eastern Caribbean impact the everyday life of communities on the ABC islands and on the Venezuelan coast, particularly their identity formation processes and gender relations?

This interdisciplinary historical archaeological project employs the innovative theoretical and methodological framework of assemblages of practice, developed by the PI, to critically contrast new and existing archaeological, archaeometric, and documentary evidence and answer this central research question. This first cross-border archaeological study between the ABC islands and Venezuela will break new ground, revealing how through informal commerce the colonized agentially contributed to the dynamics of continuation and/or change in their communities’ identities and gender relations beyond the restrictive, acculturating, and engendering policies imposed by the colonizer. This project is poised to generate completely new knowledge that will advance interdisciplinary understandings of contraband and informal commerce in the early-modern colonial contexts and its material dimensions and impacts.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 840992.

2019

10/12/19

Por Mireia López-Bertrán (Universitat de València) y Diana DiPaolo Loren (Harvard University).

10 de diciembre, 16:15-18:00 horas.

Auditori de Mercè Rodoreda (edif. Mercè Rodoreda).

Organizan: GRACME y CGyM.

Entrada libre. Se expedirán certificados de asistencia. 

22 /11/2019

Several newspapers from Spain refer to archaeological and historical project ABERIGUA in Guam:

20/11/2019

El projecte ABERIGUA investiga l'impacte que va tenir per als habitants de Guam (Illes Mariannes) la seva inserció a la xarxa colonial de l’imperi espanyol a l'època moderna. Liderat per Sandra Montón Subías, professora d'investigació ICREA-UPF de el Departament d'Humanitats, el passat mes de juliol va concloure la seva tercera campanya d'excavacions.

Noticia: "Un projecte arqueològic estudia la incorporació de l'illa de Guam a la xarxa colonial de l’imperi espanyol"

21/07/2019

Several newspapers and webpages from Spain refer to our 2019 archaeological campaign in the San Dionisio Church from Humåtak, Guam:

31/05/2019

This seminar will present the intimate connection between material culture and gender in the making of the (very) early modern colonial globalization. The 16th and 17th centuries witnessed the rise of historical processes vital in moulding the world to its present shape. While scholars have extensively studied the worldwide translocations of people, goods and ideas, the fact that this globalization also took shape through the cross-continental circulation of gender ideology, gender policies, and engendered knowledge, technologies and skills has not been sufficiently explored. Neither has material culture’s active role in these been sufficiently scrutinized despite its potential to reveal otherwise unnoticed cultural features.

Through and archaeological project currently being developed in Guam (Mariana Islands), focus will be placed at the crossroads of Modern Colonialism, Gender Systems and Maintenance Activities, a concept born in archaeology to highlight the foregrounding nature of a set of routine daily practices that are essential to social continuity. 

15/03/19

La Arqueología Histórica: Zona de Contacto, VII Jornadas de Arqueología, by Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Verónica Peña Filiu y Sandra Montón Subías. CGyM, IUHJVV. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.​

07/03/2019

Institut d'Història Jaume Vicens i Vives Seminari, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), March de 2019

A càrrec de Lourdes Prados

Catedràtica d'Arqueologia. Departament de Prehistòria i arqueologia. Universitat Autònoma de Madrid.

A través de esta conferencia se mostrarán los resultados de un proyecto de investigación en el que han participado diversas especialistas, centrado en resaltar la importancia de incluir la perspectiva de género en los museos arqueológicos. El desarrollo de esta metodología permite defender también su aplicación a los museos comunitarios.

Ver vídeo de la conferencia

15/03/2019

La Arqueología Histórica: Zona de Contacto. VII Jornadas de Arqueología UPF-IUHJVV.

15 de marzo, 10:30-17:00 horas.

Auditori de Mercè Rodoreda (edif. Mercè Rodoreda)

Arqueología Histórica: Zona de Contacto


Con este título, inspirado en el término acuñado por Mary Louise Pratt en Imperial Eyes, las VII Jornades d’Arqueologia UPF-IUHJVV proponen debatir sobre las diversas reflexiones –teóricas, políticas, metodológicas, etc.- que la palabra "contacto" suscita entre lxs investigadorxs que trabajan en situaciones coloniales post-1500 relacionadas con la expansión de las monarquías ibéricas por el mundo. Contacto que puede hacer referencia a las relaciones que se establecen en la actualidad entre disciplinas y subdisciplinas, entre metodologías diversas, entre comunidades del pasado y del presente, o entre las personas interesadas en las repercusiones de los procesos coloniales en el presente.

Organizan: Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Verónica Peña Filiu y Sandra Montón Subías.
 

Entrada libre.
Información e inscripción: https://www.upf.edu/web/iuhjvv/jornades-d-arqueologia  o [email protected].
 

PROGRAMA

10.00-10.30 Registro
10.30-10.40 Bienvenida, Dr. Stephen Jacobson (director del CER-IUHJVV).
10.40-10.50 Presentación, Sr. Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Sra. Verónica Peña Filiu, Dra. Sandra Montón Subías.
11.00-11.40 Mesa 1. Arqueología del colonialismo ibérico en Canarias y África

Moderador: Dr. Stefano Biagetti (UPF).

Dra. María del Cristo González Marrero (ULPGC) - De la renuencia al contacto y la conveniencia: Arqueohistoria de la Arqueología Histórica en Canarias.
Dr. Jorge Onrubia Pintado (UCLM) - Contactos locales, conflictos globales: Arqueología de la expansión colonial ibérica en las islas Canarias y el África atlántica (siglos XIV-XVI).

11.40-12.10 Pausa Café
12.10-12.50 Mesa 2. Arqueología histórica en el Pacífico
Moderadora: Dra. Ana Delgado (UPF).
Dra. María Cruz Berrocal (UniCan) - La arqueología Histórica: zona de conflicto.
Dra. Sandra Montón Subías (UPF), Sr. Enrique Moral de Eusebio (UPF) y Sra. Verónica Peña Filiu - Arqueología histórica: zona de (dis)tensión.

12.50-13.30 Debate
13.30-15.00 Pausa Comida
15.00-16.20 Mesa 3. Arqueología del colonialismo ibérico en América
Moderadora: Dra. Mertixell Ferrer (UPF).
Dra. Beatriz Marín Aguilera (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, U. of Cambridge) - ¿Fronteras o zonas de contacto? Paisajes y disciplinas conflictivas en Chile colonial.

Dr. Lauro Olmo Enciso (UAH) - Colonialismo y Desigualdad Espacial: indicadores arqueológicos de zonas complejas de contacto.
Dr. Sergio Escribano Ruiz (UPV/EHU) - Con (o sin) tacto. Por qué lo llaman contacto cultural cuando quieren decir colonialismo.
Dr. Konrad Antczak (U. of Amsterdam) - El contacto y sus simetrías: buscando movilidades marítimas extraimperiales y tendiendo puentes intercontinentales.
16.20-17.00 Debate

15/03/2019

 Con este título, inspirado en el término acuñado por Mary Louise Pratt en Imperial Eyes, las VII Jornades d’Arqueologia UPF-IUHJVV proponen debatir sobre las diversas reflexiones –teóricas, políticas, metodológicas, etc.- que la palabra "contacto" suscita entre lxs investigadorxs que trabajan en situaciones coloniales post-1500 relacionadas con la expansión de las monarquías ibéricas por el mundo. Contacto que puede hacer referencia a las relaciones que se establecen en la actualidad entre disciplinas y subdisciplinas, entre metodologías diversas, entre comunidades del pasado y del presente, o entre las personas interesadas en las repercusiones de los procesos coloniales en el presente.
Organizan: Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Verónica Peña Filiu y Sandra Montón Subías (CGyM)Información e inscripción: https://www.upf.edu/web/iuhjvv/jornades-d-arqueologia, o [email protected]

  • Horario:  10:30-17:00 horas.
  • Lugar:  Auditori de Mercè Rodoreda (edif. Mercè Rodoreda)
  • Entrada libre.

Programa: 

10.00-10.30 Registro

10.30-10.40 Bienvenida, Dr. Stephen Jacobson (director del CER-IUHJVV).

10.40-10.50 Presentación, Sr. Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Sra. Verónica Peña Filiu, Dra. Sandra Montón Subías.

11.00-11.40 Mesa 1. Arqueología del colonialismo ibérico en Canarias y África

Moderador: Dr. Stefano Biagetti (UPF)

Dra. María del Cristo González Marrero (ULPGC) - De la renuencia al contacto y la conveniencia: Arqueohistoria de la Arqueología Histórica en Canarias.

Dr. Jorge Onrubia Pintado (UCLM) - Contactos locales, conflictos globales: Arqueología de la expansión colonial ibérica en las islas Canarias y el África atlántica (siglos XIV-XVI).

11.40-12.10 Pausa Café

12.10-12.50 Mesa 2. Arqueología histórica en el Pacífico

Moderadora: Dra. Ana Delgado (UPF).

Dra. María Cruz Berrocal (UniCan) - La arqueología Histórica: zona de conflicto.

Dra. Sandra Montón Subías (UPF), Sr. Enrique Moral de Eusebio (UPF) y Sra. Verónica Peña Filiu - Arqueología histórica: zona de (dis)tensión.
12.50-13.30 Debate

13.30-15.00 Pausa Comida

15.00-16.20 Mesa 3. Arqueología del colonialismo ibérico en América

Moderadora: Dra. Mertixell Ferrer (UPF).

Dra. Beatriz Marín Aguilera (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, U. of Cambridge) - ¿Fronteras o zonas de contacto? Paisajes y disciplinas conflictivas en Chile colonial.

Dr. Lauro Olmo Enciso (UAH) - Colonialismo y Desigualdad Espacial: indicadores arqueológicos de zonas complejas de contacto.

Dr. Sergio Escribano Ruiz (UPV/EHU) - Con (o sin) tacto. Por qué lo llaman contacto cultural cuando quieren decir colonialismo.

Dr. Konrad Antczak (U. of Amsterdam) - El contacto y sus simetrías: buscando movilidades marítimas extraimperiales y tendiendo puentes intercontinentales.

16.20-17.00 Debate  Final

  • Horario:  10:30-17:00 horas.
  • Lugar:  Auditori de Mercè Rodoreda (edif. Mercè Rodoreda)

05-03-2019

Seminario en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

Sandra Montón Subías

En esta conferencia presentaremos el patrimonio que ha resultado de la inserción de Guam y las Islas Marianas (Micronesia, Pacífico occidental) en la red colonial del imperio español de época moderna y las principales acciones que se emprenden de cara a su protección y conservación. A través del proyecto ABERIGUA, que se está desarrollando actualmente en la villa de Umatac, discutiremos el papel fundamental que las comunidades actuales desempeñan en la puesta en valor de este patrimonio.

2018

05-08/09/18

Verónica Peña-Filiu and Sandra Montón-Subías.

24th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Barcelona.

Historical archaeologists working in the Spanish colonial Americas have widely recognized the significant efforts that colonial agents made to "recreate" Iberian foodways in the New World. Independently of their greater or lesser success, scholars have also signalled the important consequences that the previous efforts had on native communities. In this paper, and drawing from the previous scholarship, we will move to the western Pacific and discuss the social implications that food imperial politics had in Guam (Mariana Islands) during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The incorporation of Guam by the colonial network of the Spanish empire took place in 1565, but the permanent occupation of the island began latter, in 1668, in the framework of Jesuit global missionization. Since then, new animals, plants, recipes, culinary equipment and cooking technologies were introduced to “recreate” foodways deemed appropriate by missionaries. Importantly, new forms of land exploitation and native labour followed, as well as new attitudes towards food in terms of gender and class.

Through the analyses of historical and archaeological evidence we will discuss how these new foodscapes took shape through everyday life practices, and their main repercussions for Guam’s indigenous inhabitants –the Chamorro– in terms of food production, cooking and consumption.

05-08/09/18

AGE Session of the 24th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Barcelona. Co-organized by Sandra Montón-Subías, Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, and Leila Papoli-Yazdi.

This session aims to discuss the effects that different types of colonial domination had on different local sex/gender systems. Colonialism brought into co-existence groups of people with different sex/gender systems in the framework of asymmetrical relations of power. It thus frequently altered and/or disrupted natives’ gender understandings that were incompatible with those brought and imposed by colonial powers. 

Focus will be on the role that material culture and the body played in these colonial processes in relation to gender. We will welcome contributions that reflect on how gender transformations were performed and implemented on the ground, and what they entailed for the people who experienced them. Topics include (but are not limited to) the re-structuration of living spaces, children's socialization, food systems, dress, kinship, healing practices, belief systems and sexuality.

05-08/09/18

Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

24th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Barcelona.

In 1668, a group of Jesuits landed in the Mariana Islands (Western Pacific) with the aim of evangelising their native inhabitants (the Chamorros). However, this contact soon became an armed clash, since some Chamorros were reluctant to adopt certain practices preached by the fathers.

The aim of this communication is two-fold: First, I will argue that sexuality (and the practices and discourses associated with it) was one of the most controversial points in that conflict. Second, I will analyse, from an archaeological, transfeminist and intersectional perspective, the role played by different materialities in the “ethnosexual conflict” between Spaniards and Chamorros. I will claim that that confrontation was articulated around two buildings, two heterotopias produced from very different sexual epistemologies: the guma' uritao, where young Chamorro males were initiated into adulthood, and the Jesuit school, space where Chamorro boys and girls learnt the Christian doctrine and, therefore, the European sexual standards. The recurrent burning of both buildings by members of the two sides shows both the ferocity with which the Spanish colonial agents tried to implement their evangelising and colonial project and the resistance of Chamorros themselves against such project. Following Barbara Voss, I will conclude that sexuality, far from being a "consensual" and "domestic" element of colonial encounters, in many cases received a public and even violent treatment.

05-08/09/18

Sandra Montón-Subías.

24th Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Barcelona.

In this paper, we will present ABERIGUA, an archaeological project that investigates the impact that the incorporation of Guam and the Mariana islands by the colonial network of the Spanish empire had on the local Chamorro population. We are seeking to understand the changes, but also the continuities that survived through this general process. We are particularly focusing on all those changes and continuities that took place in: 1) socio-ecological systems; 2) socio-political systems (with special attention to gender and sexual politics); and 3) the sphere of maintenance activities (a set of practices that, grosso modo, include tasks related with care giving, food processing and cooking, weaving, socialization of children, hygiene and public health, and organization and maintenance of daily-quotidian residential spaces).

We will also present the preliminary results from fieldwork campaigns conducted in June-July 2017 and April-May 2018 at the church and cemetery of San Dionisio and the Palace of the Governor. Both sites stand as archaeological witnesses of the 17th, 18th and 19th century colonial processes. Conflating historical written sources and archaeological information, we seek to contribute a better understanding of the historical-archaeological legacy connected to Iberian cultural contact and colonialism in this part of the western Pacific.

18-20/06/18

Workshop: Gender and Empire: A Transimperial Approach to Gender Politics and the Colonial State, 1848-1945, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona.

Verónica Peña Filiu and Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

As Claude Lévi-Strauss noted, in a large number of human groups there exists a strong connection between the act of eating and the sexual intercourse. The aim of this communication is to show how, during the evangelisation and colonisation of the Mariana Islands, Spanish colonial agents targeted both activities in their attempt to “reduce” and control native Chamorro populations. Pre-contact eating and sexual practices, deeply rooted in the daily life of the natives, were radically different from European standards. Therefore, the colonisers promoted a series of policies directed to accommodate such practices to the Christian doctrine and, hence, to a “civilized” way of life. In analysing those policies, we will also discuss the canonical historiography of the Marianas by showing how the colonial agents, far from comprising a monolithic and homogeneous group that successfully imposed their goals, faced several problems and internal divisions during the development of their project. 

04-08/06/18

IX Reunión de Teoría Arqueológica de América del Sur (TAAS), Ibarra (Ecuador).

Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

En 1668, un grupo de jesuitas españoles viajó hasta las Islas Marianas (Pacífico occidental) con el fin de evangelizar a sus habitantes locales. Sin embargo, el proyecto evangelizador pronto se convirtió en un conflicto armado, debido a la resistencia que mostraron los nativos (denominados “chamorros”) a la hora de adoptar ciertos puntos de la doctrina cristiana.

El objetivo de esta comunicación es analizar, desde una perspectiva arqueológica, feminista e interseccional, las prácticas de “resistencia etnosexual” desempeñadas por los chamorros en dicho conflicto. Argumentaré que este último se articuló en torno a dos materialidades concretas, dos heterotopías producidas desde epistemologías sexuales muy diferentes: la guma’ uritao, lugar de iniciación a la adultez para los jóvenes chamorros, y el colegio jesuita, espacio de aprendizaje de la doctrina cristiana y, por tanto, de los estándares sexuales europeos. La quema recurrente de ambos edificios por integrantes de los dos bandos muestra tanto la ferocidad con la que intentó implantarse el proyecto evangelizador de los jesuitas como la capacidad de resistencia de los propios chamorros. Siguiendo a Barbara Voss, concluiré que la sexualidad, lejos de ser un elemento “consensual” y “doméstico” de los encuentros coloniales, recibió en muchos casos un trato público e, incluso, violento.

04-08/06/18

IX Reunión de Teoría Arqueológica de América del Sur (TAAS), Ibarra (Ecuador).

Sandra Montón-Subías and Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

La colonización española del archipiélago de las Marianas (Pacífico occidental) comenzó con la llegada, en 1668, de un reducido grupo de jesuitas a la isla de Guam. Tras un breve periodo de convivencia pacífica, varios conflictos estallaron entre los religiosos y los chamorros (habitantes nativos de las islas) debido a la restructuración del modo de vida que los jesuitas intentaron imponer en la isla. Dichos conflictos concluyeron con la concentración de los chamorros en un número limitado de “reducciones”, construidas ex novo por los españoles con el fin de facilitar su conversión al cristianismo.

El objetivo de esta comunicación es analizar, desde una perspectiva de género y feminista, los cambios y continuidades experimentados en las dinámicas corporales de los chamorros dentro de ese proceso de “reducción”. Argumentaremos que, lejos de ser un proceso uniforme e ineludible, la “reducción” de los cuerpos chamorros dio lugar a la adopción, la adaptación y el mantenimiento de distintas prácticas y estándares corporales (tales como la desnudez, el pudor o la “decencia”, estrechamente ligada al ámbito de la sexualidad), dentro de un proceso de etnogénesis mayor que se manifestó a distintos niveles y escalas.

03-07-18

Several newspapers and webpages from Spain refer to our 2018 archaeological campaign in the San Dionisio Church from Humåtak, Guam:

15/02/18

Institut d'Història Jaume Vicens i Vives Seminar, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), 15 February 2018.

Almudena Hernando.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1G34UEBQzU&feature=youtu.be

2017

25/10/17

CotArq, Congreso Internacional sobre Otras Arqueologías, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, 25-27 October 2017.

Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

Los jesuitas españoles que llegaron a la isla de Guåhån (actual Guam) en el año 1668 atribuían dos significados al término “reducir”: por una parte, lo empleaban como sinónimo de “someter”, de “subyugar” a los habitantes nativos a la doctrina cristiana. Por otra, con “reducir” también se referían al acto de extraer a dichos “nativos” de sus antiguos pueblos y reubicarlos en otros, diseñados por los españoles de acuerdo con la racionalidad urbanística europea de la época.

El objetivo de esta comunicación es en analizar el impacto que el proceso evangelizador emprendido por los jesuitas españoles en Guåhån y, más tarde, en el resto del archipiélago de las Marianas, tuvo sobre la forma en que los chamorros, pobladores originarios de las islas, entendían y se relacionaban con el paisaje. Para ello, me centraré en las estrategias que los jesuitas emplearon para “demonizar” (en sentido literal) los antiguos espacios sagrados de los chamorros, con el objetivo de mantenerlos alejados de sus antiguas creencias. Asimismo, examinaré el papel que jugaron, dentro de dichas estrategias, los nuevos pueblos en los que los españoles realojaron a los chamorros (denominados, precisamente, “reducciones”). Concluiré destacando que el proceso evangelizador puesto en práctica por los jesuitas derivó en un “paisajicidio” que modificó radicalmente los vínculos que los chamorros mantenían con sus paisajes.

20/10/17

AGE (Archaeology and Gender in Europe) Workshop 2017, "Gender and Change in Archaeology", Lisbon, 19th and 20th October 2017.

Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Sandra Montón Subías.

This paper will present changes in sex/gender systems that Spanish colonial domination had in Guam during the early modern period. Most of these changes took place in the sphere of maintenance activities, conversely aimed at granting stability and continuity of life in any human group. Almost since the first moment of permanent colonization in 1668, maintenance activities were made the target of colonial policies. From the concentration of population and re-structuration of living spaces in reducciones to children’s socialization in Jesuit seminaries, through food systems, dress, kinship, healing practices, and sexuality, Jesuit missionaries aimed to dismantle traditional Chamorro lifeways, which were mainly organized through maintenance activities.
Through this presentation we will also present some thoughts about the interplay between change and continuity in the course of history and values attached to them by hegemonic archaeology.

10/10/17

Some researchers from our project ABERIGUA have started to collaborate with "Recerca en Acció", a program developed by the Generalitat de Catalunya in order to promote high standard scientific projects among school and high school students.  

Link: http://www.recercaenaccio.cat/aventures-cientifiques/aberigua-arqueologia-colonial-a-lilla-de-guam/

07/10/17

Workshop "The Spanish Atlantic and Global Europe: Connections, Encounters, Entanglements in the Long 19th Century", Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 6-7 October 2017.

Verónica Peña Filiu.

29/09/17

VII Seminario de la AEHIM (Asociación Española de Historia de las Mujeres). Facultad de Geografía e Historia de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Enrique Moral de Eusebio.

28/09/17

VII Seminario de la AEHIM (Asociación Española de Historia de las Mujeres). Facultad de Geografía e Historia de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Almudena Hernando (Ponente invitada).

03/09/17

The volunteers that collaborated with us in the 2017 fieldwork campaign at the San Dionisio Church, Humåtak, have ellaborated a video in which they expose their fieldwork impressions, as well as their thoughts on the pasts of their village and island.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbmx2vOmcJY

31/08/17

23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Maastricht, 29 August- 3 September 2017.

Sandra Montón Subías, Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Verónica Peña Filiu.

The aim of this communication is to understand the diachronic changes and continuities undergone by the body and its care, as well as by the material culture associated with it, at the beginning of the Spanish colonization of the Mariana Islands (17th and 18th centuries). For that purpose, we will claim that the body is not a surface in which identity is inscribed, as if identity could exist as an abstract entity separated from the body that enacts it. Quite the opposite, we will argue that, in oral societies like the pre-contact Chamorro one, notions of “person” and “identity” cannot be ontologically detached from the body and the actions performed through it. The importance of the body and its care as an “understanding of personhood rooted in both social practices and cultural representations”, especially in relation to gender and group membership, made the bodies of native Chamorros an entity to be colonized by the Spanish powers. To better understand the implications of the colonization of native bodies by colonial agents, we will briefly address the way in which current Chamorros, especially cultural practitioners and men involved in self-determination movements, are recovering ornaments and practices related to the bodily care of ancient Chamorro society in a current process of ethnogenesis.

31/08/17

23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Maastricht, 29 August- 3 September 2017.

Almudena Hernando.

The aim of this contribution is to present data gathered on an Ethnoarchaeological project carried out with two groups inhabiting the Metema region in Northwest Ethiopia, the Gumuz and the Dats’in. Both societies’ economies are of a non-intensive, hoe farming type, and have been defined by the literature as “egalitarian societies”. While indeed such is the type of relationship that exists between the men, if the women are taken into consideration, clearly unequal and submissive relationships can be observed. The aim of the project (and of this paper) is to analyze the relationships between female beauty, gender identity and material culture, by paying specific attention to the latter’s role in constructing a subordinate subjectivity for these women. Among both Gumuz and Dats’in women, beauty patterns are associated to a body marked by scarification, and are closely linked to colored beads. But, far from merely expressing particular beauty patterns, both dimensions (marked bodies and their associated material culture) are the inherent instruments of a gender “dispositive” (in Foucault sense). This dictates that the female body cannot possibly be conceived of without the mark of the group’s law, nor without the “protection” of material culture, particularly the colored beads. Therefore, beauty is associated to the alleged fragility and vulnerability attributed to women by their respective social orders. This topic will be presented using abundant visual information, the results of interviews with women from both groups, and through an analysis of their respective socioeconomic organization patterns from a gender perspective.

12-08-17

On 12 August, Natalia Moragas Segura, member of this research group, was interviewed in the RNE radio frequence. She talked about the current political situation of Guam, as well as about the Spanish influence that remains in the island.

Link to the audio: http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/programa/ent-natalia-moragas-isla-guam-daniel-gamboa-17379810-2017-08-12t14-35-51000/4160319/

11-08-17

On 11 August, the coordinator of this group, Sandra Montón-Subías, was interviewed in the radio programme "La Ventana", Cadena SER. During the interview, she was asked about the current missile crisis between Washington and Pyongyangthe, as well as about the archaeological project that she co-directs in Guam, and the Hispanic heritage and the past of the island.

Link to the audio: http://play.cadenaser.com/audio/001RD010000004681850/

Link to the written interview: http://cadenaser.com/programa/2017/08/11/la_ventana/1502467364_315408.html

11-08-17

On 11 August, Sandra Montón-Subías, coordinator of this research group, was interviewed in the radio programme "La Tarde", COPE. She talked about the archaeological project that she co-directs in Guam, as well as about the Hispanic heritage (both linguistic and archaeological) and the past of the island.

Link to the audio: http://www.cope.es/audios/tarde/isla-guam-utilizan-palabras-espanolas-dia-dia_406350

21/02/17

Museo Arqueológico Nacional (MAN, Madrid)

Sandra Montón Subías, James M. Bayman, Natalia Moragas Segura, Verónica Peña Filiu, Enrique Moral de Eusebio, Omaira Brunal-Perry, Andrea Jalandoni, Jacy Moore.

Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO2eMyo4QuI

The aim of this talk is to present an archaeological research project concerning the archaeology of early Spanish colonialism in the Mariana Islands. We will introduce the context of our research and our main objectives. Likewise, we will present two doctoral theses that are being conducted in the context of this project, regarding the role played by food and alimentation, as well as gender and sexuality, during the Spanish colonization of the archipelago.

21/02/17

Arqueología del contacto cultural y del colonialismo español en las Islas Marianas (Pacífico Occidental).

Museo Arqueológico Nacional (MAN, Madrid)

Sandra Montón Subías, Verónica Peña Fíliu, Enrique Moral de Eusebio

20/02/17

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Geografía e Historia

Sandra Montón Subías

In this talk, organized by the UCA (Unión Cultural Arqueológica), professor Sandra Montón Subías will speak about the possibilities of decolonizong the archeological stance. For that purpose, she will rely on her own research, focused on the study of early Iberian colonialism in the Mariana Islands (western Pacific), as well as she will introduce the audience to Historical Archaeology and its (unavoidable) intersections with colonial contexts.

20/02/17

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Geografía e Historia

Sandra Montón Subías

In this talk, professor Sandra Montón Subías will expose the interrelations between gender and colonialism from an archaeological and feminist stance. In doing so, she will also present to the audience the context and main objectives of her new research projects based on Guam, in the Mariana Islands (western Pacific).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

16-02-17

Our project ABERIGUA (Archaeology of Iberian Cultural Contact and Colonialism in Guam and the Mariana Islands) now has a Facebook page in which we will publish any information concerning the project and our research, as well as any news concerning the Spanish colonialism in the Mariana Islands.

Link to the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AberiguaProject/

Logo Aberigua