Disaster Militarism and Indigenous Responses to Super Typhoon Yutu in the Mariana Islands

ABSTRACT

On 24 October 2018, Super Typhoon Yutu devastated the Mariana Islands with 185 km/hr winds, unnaturally exposing the ongoing consequences of United States’ colonialism and disaster militarism. Yutu also revealed the local Indigenous responses as resilience rhetorics, characterized by relationality, responsibility, reciprocity, and justice. This essay argues that U.S. media perpetuation of disaster militarism surrounding Yutu must be understood alongside reverberating Indigenous resilience. First, it outlines the Mariana Islands as a U.S. colony; then, it examines U.S. media and the production of ignorance around empire and militarism; and finally, it concludes with Mariana Islands fieldwork to consider how resilience is rhetorically manifested and locally mediated to challenge colonial power, disaster militarism, and to enact Indigenous environmental justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous
• militarism
• resilience
• climate change
• environmental justice

Acknowledgements

Si Yu'os Ma'åse to the photographers, artists, residents, and peoples of the Mariana Islands leading the resurgence for the health of our planet. Manmetgot Hit Na Taotaogues Yan Chaddek Ta Fa'maolek. I am grateful for the collective work of our peoples and to all who continue protecting the Mariana Islands, and supporting the sovereignty movement that connects Oceania with other global fights for liberation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was assisted by a Mellon/ACLS Scholars and Society Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and supported by the Waterhouse Family Institute, Villanova University under WFI Research Grant number 18190053.