ジェンダー研究

Special Section

第 22 号

2019 年

Gender and Security

Gendered Security:
Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guam
Ronni Alexander
Kobe University

This paper tells a feminist story about militarization, security, and feelingsafe in Guam. Gender plays an important role in this narrative because of how
militarization and colonization construct and maintain masculinities and genderhierarchies based on power, strength, and the need for military protection. The
paper presents conversations with Chamoru residents and their responses to aquestionnaire about U.S. military bases and feelings of safety. The first section of
the paper challenges gendered hierarchal and binary understandings of security,
stressing the need to pay attention to both being and feeling safe. The second
introduces Guam as a highly militarized space and as a colony of the United States,
and the third introduces some conversations and questionnaire responses regarding
the bases and being/feeling safe. The paper finds that while the U.S. militarypresence makes the island a target, many people say it makes them feel safe. This
reimagines the myth of the need for protection and notions of security based onmilitarism and militarization, highlighting the idea that without decolonization anddemilitarization, Guam can be “safe” only through unsafe ways.

Keywords
gender, Guåhan/Guam, security, colonization, militarization

In the spring and summer of 2017, Japanese people watched a show of public frenzy as North Korea conducted its missile
tests. The national television station NHK
cancelled regular programming, and “Jalert” warning sirens sounded in regions
over which the missiles flew. Although

the missiles were not aimed at Japan, theyflew through Japanese airspace, and the
public’s reaction made it feel as if an attack was imminent. Moreover, the Japanese government successfully invoked theNorth Korean missile tests to garner support for changing Article 9 of the Japanese7

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/GuamConstitution and increasing the level andscope of Japan’s military preparedness.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe responded
to the hateful dialogue between U.S. president Donald Trump and North Koreanleader Kim Jong-un, which focused on
the capability of North Korea’s missiles
to drop nuclear bombs on Guam and themainland United States. The U.S. baseson Guåhan/Guam 1 fall within range ofNorth Korea’s Hwsang-12 missiles as well
as China’s “Guam killer” (Dong-Feng 26)
intermediate-range ballistic missiles, so a
nuclear attack on the island is not impossible (Gibbons-Neff, 2016). Guam, which
American military strategists call the “tipof the U.S. spear” in the Pacific, houses
large navy and air force bases, as wellas one of the world’s largest ammunition
storage sites, and it is quite possible that

there are nuclear weapons on the island. 2 It
is therefore not surprising that enemies of
the United States see the island as a meaningful target.
While people in Guam understand thisnotion, questioning the U.S. military presence requires much effort. People strongly
support the military, as it is one of the island’s top two employers (the other being
tourism), and most people in Guam have
U.S. citizenship. 3 Because citizenship wasawarded through a unilateral decision by
the U.S. Congress, the island’s indigenous
Chamoru 4 residents have not had an opportunity to engage in the process of decolonization. A political status plebiscite
has been called, but it remains unclear ifor when the plebiscite will actually happen and who will be allowed to participate
in it. 5 Currently, educational activities in

1 Guåhan is the indigenous name for the U.S. colony of Guam. Here I will use the term ‘Guam’ toemphasize the colonized status, except where Guåhan is used in the original.
2 Although the United States does not disclose the location of its nuclear weapons deployments,
Guam hosts a major munitions stockpile (Hicks 2014). Declassified reports and other research
confirm that nuclear weapons were at Andersen Air Force Base at least until 1999, and they mightwell still be there or elsewhere on the island. In November, 2016, the situation in the north Pacificprompted resumption of nuclear deployments in the Pacific, including the first port visit to Guamby a nuclear-armed submarine since the late 1980’s (Starr and Lendon 2016).
3 U.S. citizenship was granted to Chamorus on Guam under the Organic Act of Guam in 1950. This
was a unilateral act of Congress and did not involve self-determination. U.S. citizens on Guam
do not have the right to vote for president, and have only a non-voting representative in the U.S.
Congress. This means that although almost 40% of the island is taken for military purposes andthe U.S. military is one of the two top employers on the island, people on Guam do not have an
institutionalized way to voice their opinion about military policy or vote for the Commander in
Chief of the U.S. military forces (See Na’Puti and Bevacqua 2015; Alexander, 2016a; Mercer, 2014).
4 Naming is an important part of identity. The indigenous people of Guåhan are the Chamoru
people. Alternative spellings include Chamorro (the more common, but frequently associatedwith the colonizer version) and CHamoru. See for example Taitano, 2014.
5 The plebiscite is scheduled for 2018, but will most likely be delayed due to questions over who
has the right to participate, e.g. only those defined as Chamorus under the Organic Act of Guamand their descendants, or other residents as well, and when the required voter registry will becompleted.

8ジェンダー研究

Guam are underway based on three choices—independence, free association with
the United States, or statehood—but theremoval of U.S. bases is not a condition
or stated goal for any of these, and until
recently, the issue has not even been substantially discussed.
In 2006, the Roadmap Decision between Japan and the United States laidout plans for the transfer of U.S. Marines
from Okinawa to Guam and an expansionof military facilities in the latter. When I
began research on this military build-up in
Guam in 2010, there was little talk about
the bases, but people were very interested
in identity—Chamoru and American. An
environmental impact statement issued inconjunction with the build-up underscoreddifferences between Chamoru and American values, and people were angry at the
military’s disregard toward land and water
resources (Alexander, 2013).
Through a feminist lens, this paper looks
at how people perceive the bases with regard to their own security. It presents
multiple conversations with Chamoru andother residents between 2010 and 2018 andstudent responses to a questionnaire about
feelings of safety, which were collected in2015 and 2017. Some of the conversations
lasted only 15 or 20 minutes while someinterviews went on for several hours. This
study does not portray these conversations
as a single objective story that reveals thetruth but rather as an understanding ofpolitics that can be achieved only when welisten to multiple voices and pay attention
to what people feel and what they say.

第 22 号

2019 年

The paper is composed of three sections.
The first discusses the idea of security, examining how state-centric approaches are
gendered and are based on the myth of theneed for protection. It suggests the needfor alternative approaches that take individuals seriously and focus on their emotions, including what “feeling safe” means
for them. The second section focuses on
Guam as a colonial militarized space, andthe third shows some conversations andquestionnaire responses regarding themilitary bases as well as being and feeling safe. The paper concludes by suggesting that the gendered myth of the need forprotection is being reproduced in Guamalong with masculinities based on power,
strength, and toughness, as well as feminized discourses of safety/security involving protection through militaristic means.

Thinking about security

The traditional understanding of international relations (IR) considers states as
the referent object for security, and militarism lies at the center of what it means tobe secure. State-centric approaches identify war as the main threat to security andmilitary superiority as the solution. Feminist scholars have challenged the masculine and/or patriarchal bias in IR as wellas its binary heteronormativity. They havealso reconceptualized perceptions of security to “encompass myriad political, economic, and social relationships, as well asprocesses and practices” (Khalid, 2019, 39.
Also see Reardon 1986, Enloe 2007, Tickner 1992, Wibbick 2011, Weber 2010, Ag-

9

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guamathangelou and Ling 2009, Sylvester 2002,
Shepherd 2013).
Feminist criticism has identified the importance of the personal in the international and of questioning the meta-narrativesof the state, security, and politics. Feminist
IR scholar Cynthia Enloe, for example,
urges us to turn our feminist curiosity toward that which is taken for granted or assumed to be “natural.” This involves not
only identifying where women are locatedbut also looking at how meanings are masculinized and feminized. Enloe suggeststhat militarism, a “compilation of assumptions, values and beliefs,” and militarization, a “multi-stranded process by which
the roots of militarism are driven deep
down into the soil of a society” (2014:9,
2010), serve to reinforce masculine privileging. Applying such feminist curiosity
to Guam, we can find a place where, until
recently, even those seeking independence
did not notice the military bases or recognize that they might be a problem (L.N.,
personal communication, 2010.5).
Feminist IR scholars have also shown
how security is linked to the so-called
need for protection based on the “belief
that men can and should protect women”(Åse, 2019, 273). Feminist theorists argue
that this associates femininity with vulnerability and weakness and masculinity with safety and control, which in turnjustifies gender hierarchies and inequality.
Higate (2019, 71), for example, states that“webs of masculinized social relations andthe logics that shape them inhere with thepower to influence access to economic and

10political resources for subordinate othersin the case of women or marginal men.”Among the various types of masculinities,
militarized masculinity is particularly destructive and “especially likely to be imagined as requiring a feminine complement that excludes women from full andassertive participation in . . . public life”(Enloe 2014, 11). As an ideology, militarism rests on stereotypical dichotomies associated with masculinity and femininity.
Eichler discusses “gendered militarism”
as constructing “feminized populations inneed of masculinized protection” (2019,160). It is gendered in its reliance on, andreproduction of, hierarchal gender norms
and relations, creating a dichotomous politics of protection based on masculinizedprotectors opposite femininized nations(Eichler 2019, 162, Enloe 2000, Runyan
1990).
Postcolonial scholars have also criticized the myth of protection. Colonization is violent process in which a civilized,
rational, educated, and armed colonizer
denigrates a chaotic, barbaric, feminized“other.” These gendered notions of exclusion and violence are “embedded in theimaginary of the state itself” (Parashar,
2017, 373). Militarism, militarization, andmilitary bases have played an importantrole in furthering this colonial violence,
exclusion, and expansion. They remain
real and imagined symbols of militarystrength that depend on articulations ofinsecurity to which violence is seen to be
the most effective response, thus perpetuating a militarized version of the “need forジェンダー研究

protection” myth. The presence of military bases helps construct and reinforce
securitized and gendered understandingsof what is safe and unsafe and to normalize military solutions, making them seemthe only and/or most reasonable choice.
Where military bases are present, the attitudes of those who work at them andlive in the surrounding communities become militarized, an ongoing process thatbrings the military into a range of social
relations otherwise unrelated to war and/or war-making, making them seem “natural” or “normal.” As minds and bodies arecolonized, so are understandings of what
it means to be and feel safe. This synergy
between forces of colonization and of militarization is particularly strong in colonies
such as Guam, which were established primarily for strategic rather than economic
purposes. Because militarization relies
on gendered binaries of danger and safety
predicated on power measured in terms ofphysical strength, more strength is therefore understood to mean more safety. In
other words, higher levels of militarization
become synonymous with higher levels ofsafety.
Feminist and postcolonial interventions
have resulted in new understandings ofthe meaning of security and have helped
recognize the importance of challenging
established security narratives and developing new methodologies. Wibben (2011,44), for example, suggests that the form of
security narratives needs to be changed tochallenge “violent practices that insist on
the imposition of meanings that privilege

第 22 号

2019 年

state-centered, military forms of security.” Agathangelou and Ling (2009) offer
worldism as a way to recognize multiple
worlds. Wibbin (2011) also discusses theimportance of feelings of insecurity, yet it
is only recently that emotion has entered
the IR discussion (see for example Lutz
and Abu-Lughod, 2008; Crawford, 2000;
2014; Bleiker and Hutchison, 2008, 2014;
Mercer, 2014, Ahmed, 2014). Also, as Sylvester reminds us, even when emotions
are addressed, “it is usual for feminists ininternational relations to keep their emotions to themselves and sometimes eventhe emotions of their subjects out of thepicture” (2011, 687, 2011b).
Hutchison and Bleiker (2008, 2014)
have shown that emotion, specifically fear,
has never been absent from IR. Crawford(2000, 2014) and Mercer (2014) offer interventions as to the importance of emotions
to politics and how the denial of such importance reproduces existing power relations. However, in mainstream IR, emotion becomes part of a masculine/feminine
dichotomy where masculinized security,
which involves rational, objective thinking
and assertive action, is said to keep us safe
while irrational, impulsive, or feminine
ways of knowing are dangerous. Regardless of gender, in the institutionalized willingness to sacrifice their lives to protect
others, soldiers become important symbols of how the military understands security and safety, which is rooted in rationality, physical strength, and cool toughness.
Military masculinities are important in
how they shape men’s understandings

11Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guamof war and what it means to be a soldier(Enloe 2007). Nevertheless, emotions areclearly an important and increasingly acknowledged part of identity, culture, andpolitics. Like identities, emotions may be
multiple, conflicting, and inconsistent.
Ling (2014, 579) argues that the field of
IR “rarely theorizes emotion as a concept,
theory, or method—until now.” Following
Nandy (1988), Ling discusses how the “undeveloped heart” of British imperialism
and colonialism was linked to psychological and cultural factors as well as to political and economic ones (580). This led to
the rise of hyper-rational and hypermasculine states that “denigrate anything smacking of the feminine, including a sense of
welfare and compassion for all, natives andaliens alike” (580). Ling uses a “worldist
model of dialogics” to suggest the need toappreciate the multiplicity of emotions andconcludes that “taking emotions seriously
involves decolonizing our minds and ourworld politics” and steers us away from asingle, hypermasculine model of the state(2014, 582).
In an extension of the myth of protection, masculinized states and militarism
equate safety with protection, but being
safe and feeling safe are not necessarily thesame. We know that on a personal level, it
is possible to be safe but not feel that way
and to feel safe without necessarily being
so. If we are to take emotion seriously, we
also need to challenge understandings of

security that confuse being safe with feeling safe. 6 Examining how militarization
affects communities and identities is one
way to make this conflation visible and toillustrate ways in which they do not necessarily go together.

Guam as a militarized and masculinized space

When thinking about issues of safety
and security, feminist curiosity is useful in
Guam because it requires a discussion ofwhat should be protected by whom and inwhat ways. Like many small islands, Guamis a site of multiple and overlapping complexities. It is a site for both military bases
and destination tourism, and its colonial
political status is complicated. Geographically, it is the southernmost and largestof the Mariana Islands but since 1898 has
been separated from the rest of the archipelago. It is a living illustration of themeaning of challenges to coloring-bookunderstandings of borders by feminist,
critical, and poststructuralist IR scholars
who understand social relations not as dichotomous and impermeable but rather as
multiple and mutually constitutive.
Guam also represents the discussion
among Pacific scholars about the meaningof “islandness” and the relation between
islands and oceanic spaces. For example,
Epeli Hau’ofa (1994) challenges the focus
on island land masses and suggested theterm “Oceania,” stressing the islands’ oce-

6 The language of being and feeling safe is difficult. While often “safety” is used to refer to personalsafety as opposed to national “security”, here “being safe” refers to the state of physical safety/
security while “feeling safe” refers to the emotion of feeling safe/secure.

12

ジェンダー研究anic connections. Similarly, Teresia Teiwa
uses “s/pacific n/oceans” in her discussionof the need to “erode the generic constructions on which both the military and tourist industries depend” (103) and her understanding of the fluidarity of the Pacific(Teiwa and Slatter, 2013, 449). Guam illustrates the meaning of this challenge, as it
is both enmeshed in the global network of
American military facilities and is simultaneously seen and treated as an isolated,romanticized, and sexualized “paradise”
that is politically unimportant and unable
to manage its own affairs. Guam is a territory with an ambiguous status that has
been exploited to legitimize, normalize,
and perpetuate colonial practices. This
includes its use for military bases andwar fighting and its potential expendability when the United States faces certain
threats (Davis 2015). In thinking about
multiplicities of emotion, identifying andhonoring Pacific Islanders’ experiences
and how they are affected by (neo)colonialism can help deepen our understandingof security and boundaries, national orotherwise. 7
In colonies such as Guam, military
power and sophistication are a clearly tangible proof of colonial “superiority,” withmilitary bases and their modern technology becoming living symbols of difference, domination, and desire. While Guamis depicted in tourist brochures as having

第 22 号

2019 年

beautiful beaches and tropical motifs, it is
one of the most militarized places in theworld. In Guam, strategic significance and“expendability” resulted in Japanese occupation during WWII. This experienceof lacking “protection” from the UnitedStates has helped perpetuate understandings of militarization as contributing tosafety and security maintenance, as represented by the military bases, which isproblematic since security is strongly tied
to identity. Shepherd explains that “[t]heproblem is then not merely that national
security mobilizes a whole series of dichotomies that make it meaningful (security/insecurity, self/other, nation/world,male/female, war/peace and so on) but thatthe nation-state is secured against, as at
the expense of, various internal and external others, whose security may be violated
as a necessity” (2013, 85).
Guam was ceded to the United Statesin 1898 under the Treaty of Paris, whichmarked the end of the Spanish–American
War. Placed under the jurisdiction of thenavy, Guam was from the beginning usedby the United States to protect its growing colonial interests in the Pacific. The
island was occupied by Japan between
1941 and 1944, and both the occupation
and retaking of Guam brought intense suffering to the island and its people. Afterthe war, the United States continued tomaintain military bases in Guam, taking

7 In this context, critiques of feminism as a Western and colonizing project by African and other
scholars are also important. It is particularly meaningful to recognize the importance of diversities and tensions within the concept of feminism (See for example Kolawole, 2002; Sylvester,2002).

13

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guamland at will, often without remuneration.
The 1950 Organic Act of Guam made theisland an unincorporated, organized U.S.
territory and put civilian rule into place,but the island remains highly militarized,with more than 30% of its land reserved
for the military. Although the environmental impact of military expansion on the island has been discussed, for the most part
militarization has been so normalized thatsuch conversations are virtually invisible. 8
Many people remain intensely loyal to,and unquestioning of, the United States
military and its presence on their island.
Some explain this as a discourse of “responsibility” going back to the “liberation” of Guam from the Japanese in 1944
and the cultural duty of the Chamoru to
repay that “debt” (see Diaz, 2001; Perez,2002). According to one veteran, “Joining
the military is a rite of passage, a way toprove yourself as an adult. But the reality
is that people from Guam are looked down
on in the military because they are froma colony. They have to defend themselvesand do better than anyone else . . . I wasa patriotic GI from a colonial land, but
now I’m back and watching the militarybuild-up happen. It makes me worried”(BB, 2018.5). Guam tops the list for military recruitment. Like other places, themilitary provides jobs, but in Guam, thenarrative of liberation and indebtedness
has helped make the military an obvious
career choice. Most families in the island
have a history of military service of which
they claim to be proud.
According to the navy, overseas bases
including those in Guam are necessary to“engage promptly a hostile threat to the security of U.S. interests or allies” and allow
for flexible response to crises, reassure allies, and deter enemies (Department of theNavy, 1978). While overseas bases cannot
be maintained without the approval of thehost government, many bases are highly
contested and strongly opposed by local
populations. Base agreements consume
time and resources and often come withrestrictions. Host governments accept bases as part of alliance agreements with theUnited States, but while bases may enable
the United States to project its strength andaccess foreign markets and resources, they
do not necessarily provide the same benefits for the hosts (Vine, 2015). Moreover,as much as they may provide military defense, in so doing they also become targets
and thus increase their risk of getting attacked despite being prepared to retaliate.
Guam is important for the United States
because the people and the local government cannot refuse. Because it is an American territory, status of forces agreements

8 In the usual understanding of overseas or foreign military bases, the citizenship of the local community is different from that of the country with which the base is affiliated. Because Guam is a
U.S. territory, from the U.S. perspective the military bases on Guam are not foreign bases. Whatcomplicates the situation is that although the island is not an integral part of the U.S. and theindigenous Chamoru have a distinct culture and language, most of the local population has U.S.
citizenship.

14

ジェンダー研究or negotiations with a foreign government
are not necessary. Moreover, because
Guam’s citizens do not have the right tovote for president or a voting representative in Congress, the U.S. government
does not really need to worry about what
the people think. In the words of one Pacific Air Forces commander, “Guam, first ofall, is U.S. territory . . . I don’t need overflight rights. I don’t need landing rights. I
always have permission to go to Guam. It
might as well be California or New Jersey”(Brooke, 2004).
In Guam, the military is everywhere.
Uniformed soldiers are a common sight intourist resorts and shopping centers, local
television has military channels, and local stores carry “military-style” goods forpurchase by, among others, foreign tourists. The airport displays a row of photographs of soldiers who have been killed in
U.S. wars, and its bookstore carries counting books featuring each military branch,enabling children to learn their numbers
by counting guns and tanks. Expensive
military housing complexes replace local
homes and neighborhoods. Finally, bothseen and so obvious as to be hidden are
U.S. military bases and facilities, selfcontained mini-cities that spill out into the
local community in countless ways. The
presence of these bases puts Guam on thefrontline of U.S. military activities in the
Asia-Pacific region; at the same time, theisland is the home front for the many island soldiers serving in the U.S. military athome and overseas (see Cohler 2017, Frain
2017).

第 22 号

2019 年

At the same time, while being a relatively small island, Guam has many faces,
and many people call it home. Indigenous
Chamoru and other local people enjoy majestic ocean views, extended family parties on the beach, mom-and-pop stores,
and American fast food. Tourists seek out
flashy hotels, designer boutiques, shopping malls, beaches, and various tourist attractions. World War II veterans and theirfamilies, American and Japanese, remember Guam as a site of fierce battles; about
1 in every 14 Chamoru were killed during
the Japanese occupation (2018.8.6. MB).
Guam’s most widely spoken language isEnglish, the language of colonization anddomination, but its residents come from a
range of backgrounds: Chamoru, Filipino,
Chuukese and other Pacific Islanders, Korean, Japanese, Russian, U.S. mainland,
and more. Many are Americans, others
have come wanting to become American,
and some want to be independent but notnecessarily lose their affiliation with theUnited States.
In recent years, Guam’s dissatisfaction
with its inferior political status has led toa growing demand for self-determination.
However, wanting the same rights as other Americans does not necessarily meanquestioning the U.S. presence or intending
to separate themselves from the UnitedStates. The words of one activist are revealing: “We are neither fish nor fowl, andhave no political framework to change
that. The tragedy is that so many Guampeople are so normalized that they don’t
think anything is wrong. The U.S. has

15

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guammanaged to convince them that they havethe best deal, and that dignity, identity andculture don’t really matter” (V. interview,
2010.5.8).
Some people in Guam do think about
the bases and oppose them or at least want
to start a conversation about them, butmany feel safer with the bases there (Alexander, 2016b; Nagashima, 2015, 2018). For
some, the legacy of the war is still important. For example, one woman explainedthat while she knew the bases are a threat,“In 1941 the Japanese came because theyknew the U.S. wasn’t there to protect us”(C. conversation, 2016.5). Even many highschool students explain that if it were
not for the bases, Guam would be occupied by North Korea or China or perhaps
some other power (Southern High School,2017.9). In 2016, I asked two adult friends
whether they thought the bases made themsafer. One assured me that it was safer because of the military presence. She said
they would help in the event of a disasteror an attack, asking “How can we protect
ourselves if North Korea or China drop
bombs on us?” (A. conversation, 2016.5).
Her friend, B, took the opposite position.
“The military cares about their own safety,
not ours” (B. conversation, 2016.5).
Some find it impossible to imagine what
Guam might look like without the bases.
One young woman shared that her family
had always been on Guam and expectedthat her children would be, too. When I
asked her about her vision for the future,
she said she wanted it to be a peacefulplace. When asked if that meant with-16

out military bases, she told me she had“never experienced Guam without bases
so it is hard to imagine” (F. conversation, 2016.5.28). After some consideration,
she added that she thought “[i]t would begood to try without them and then compare” (F. 2016.5.28). This view was echoedby many others who said they either had
never thought of Guam without the bases or could not imagine how it might be.
Many others agreed with R. (conversation,2016.5.28), who told me, “I’m an American but I’m also an indigenous Chamoru.”
He thinks that while it is good to talk about
decolonization, the United States is vital to
Guam’s economy and security, referring tomilitary attacks by North Korea, an economic takeover by China, or some unidentified terrorist threat.

Students’ perspectives on safety

Working under the premise that the military bases represent an idea of security thatprivileges the need for protection, I createda simple questionnaire to determine people’s attitudes toward the bases. In 2015,
my colleagues in Guam distributed it to
65 of their students. I used the questionnaire again with 58 university and highschool students in Guam in September
2017, when North Korea was conducting
nuclear-capable missile tests and claiming
to be targeting Guam. The questionnaire
did not seek to paint a complete picture
and/or generalize young people’s opinions
about the U.S. bases; rather, it aimed to see
how students did or did not express their
feelings and concerns. Most of the univer-ジェンダー研究sity students studied Chamoru language,
and many supported independence. I wondered whether they would reiterate American understandings of security or present
something different.

Characterizing Guam

The questionnaire first provided a listof words and asked respondents to choose
those that they thought described their image of the island. 9 The most frequently
chosen option was “A place I love” followed by “A place I want to protect.” Thisis true for both the original (2015) and thesecond questionnaires (2017) regardless of
the respondent’s attitude toward the bases and security. When asked why, many
participants from both groups said things
like “Because it is my birth place and myculture is dying within the American presence” (G2-01, 2016) or “This is my home.
The Chamorro island is unique and if thisisland was ever to vanish, there wouldn’t
be anything left like us” (UGO9_2018),
emphasizing their love for Guam as theirhome and its importance to the Chamoru
culture. Fewer respondents in both groups
characterized it as a peaceful place, as amilitary base, and/or as the center of Chamoru culture. Some in the 2015 group, andfewer in the 2017 group, said they wanted
to leave Guam and see the world and gain
experience, and a very small number inboth groups said it was a dangerous place.

第 22 号

2019 年

As to the reasons for such sentiments, the2015 participants highlighted environmental threats from the bases while the 2017
respondents identified military threats
from North Korea and/or China (2018:
SHP4-4; UOG_14; SHP4).

Do the bases make you safe?

In 2015, most students stated that the
U.S. bases both made them safe and madethem feel safe although most did not distinguish between the two. “They protect us
from any invaders” (G1-16), “[t]hey are tohouse military personnel which would inturn provide safety from terrorists/harmful military groups” (G2-10), and “because
it (Guam) is positioned strategically” (G109). At the same time, some thought thebases made them unsafe. For example,
they said the bases were an “[i]nvitation
for war” (G1-03) that would make them“[t]argeted by other countries” (G1-23);“[b]ecause of the bases, it puts U.S. as atarget to others. For instance, what North
Korea threatened to do (e.g. attack Guam)was because Guam had missiles locatedon bases here” (G2-28).
Many students from the 2017 groupcited the strength of the U.S. military.
For example, “[the] U.S. military is thestrongest in the world; no other country
can match its personnel strength and technological capability” (2017: UOG4). They
also stressed the military’s ability to pro-

9 Questionnaire choices for ways to describe Guam: Island resort; Military base; U.S. colony; Center of Chamoru culture; An island necessary for U.S. defense; U.S. possession; A place I love;
A dangerous place: A place I want to leave; A place I want to protect; A peaceful place; Other.
_.

17

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guamtect them from threats: “We are protected from anything that may threaten us”(2017: SH4_20). A few students mentioned
North Korea and/or China by name, but
most referred to general “threats” or “attacks.” While most people in both groups
said that the bases made them safe, manyof the 2017 respondents also said that they
were unsure whether the bases made themfeel safe or that they did not feel safe. For
example, they stated that the goal of theUnited States “isn’t to protect Guam”(2017: UOG14).
Some students in both groups expressed
ambivalence: “They make me feel like weare protected = safe. But I also feel unsafe
at the same time because they are targets”(2015: G1-01). Some expressed ambiguity:“I feel like even though we are targeted because of our bases, we are better prepared
for attacks because of them” (2017: UOG5),or “I do feel safe but at the same time I
feel like they are using us” (2017: SH16).
These responses underscore the contradictions represented by the bases: while many
students believe that there is strength andsafety in numbers and firepower, they also
wonder whether the United States is reallyinterested in protecting them or is just using them as a shield to protect itself. Many
see the bases as a kind of insurance—it isbetter to have them just in case something
bad happens—but only a few were able
to express exactly what “something bad”
would look like.
To briefly summarize, most respondents
said that the bases made them safe andmany—more from the first group than the18

second—also said the bases made themfeel safe. Their reasons had to do withprotection from threats and attacks, aswell as Guam’s strategic location, whichreflects the continuing discourse of indebtedness to the United States for returning
to “rescue” Guam in 1944. Many of these
responses invoked a typically gender-stereotypical view of the military as strong,
masculine, and tough and therefore able toprotect them. They also reflect the understanding of security as protection.
In 2017, a student workshop at SouthernHigh School discussed the assertion thatpeople both are and feel safe. While stating over and over that the United States has
the strongest military in the world, therefore making them safe, the participants’
written notes from group discussions revealed their concerns in statements such as“Nobody is taking the North Korean threat
seriously or trying hard to put a stop to it,”or “The North Korean ‘threat’ has affected
us dramatically because due to the threat
Japanese school exchanges cancelled out
on us” (2017, Southern High School WS).
One student told me that her family had aboat ready in case they needed to escape,and another said that she does not likethinking about the threat because Guamdoes not have an evacuation plan, andtherefore, everyone would probably die(2017.9 Southern High School).

Obligation to contribute to security

The questionnaires contain a few questions about whether and why respondents
do or do not feel obligated to contributeジェンダー研究to the security of the United States and,for those who do, what such contributions
might entail. The theoretical basis for including these questions is the associations
among citizenship, military service, andgender. I was interested to see whether
people in Guam felt that giving one’s life
in defense of the United States was a necessary part of being a citizen.
In 2015, several people said they werecurrently or had previously been in and/or affiliated with the military, and thatwas how they fulfilled their responsibility.
Others felt compelled because they live ina U.S. territory (G2-29) or because “[t]heU.S. protects Guam” (G2-25). Others feltthat “I just don’t really feel like it is/would
be appreciated” (G1-24) or that “I don’t
feel like I’m even a part of America” (G126). One person captured the ambivalenceof both being and not being American:“Again I grew up with a weird dichotomyof nationality. I am told the best way tocontribute to safety and peace is to enlist
in the military but I am also told to aspire
toward the American dream of chasing mydreams” (G2-33).
While some respondents in the 2017group said they felt such a responsibility,
most either denied having that feeling orindicated they felt powerless as citizens orwere questioning such feelings. For example, “Guam doesn’t have much say in whatgoes on in the U.S., ex., we don’t vote forthe president” (2017: UOG19), or “in myopinion, the U.S., as the strongest nation in
the world, should already have enough tosustain themselves” (2017: UOG 18). As to

第 22 号

2019 年

what they might do as responsible citizens,
one student reiterated a frequent response,saying, “I’m not sure; we don’t really havea vote . . . probably just to join the military” (2017:SH4_18).

Where do you feel safe?

The final set of questions asked the respondents when/where they felt peace andwhen/where they felt and/or were safe.
Most respondents from both groups, aswell as most people with whom I conversed, said they felt most safe and peaceful at home or with their families. The second most frequent response was feelingsafest in military bases. A typical response
from the 2015 group was “I feel peacefuland safe at home, church and on military
installations on island” (G1-25). Several
people also said they felt peace (and alsosafe) when with friends. The responses
were similar for the 2017 group althoughsome said that they do not ever feel safe.
Others said that being at the beach or innature made them feel peaceful, and some
said they felt safe in school.

Conclusion: Gender, militarization,and being safe in GuamThis paper has attempted to tell a feminist story about militarization, security,and feeling safe in Guam. Gender is a
crucial element here because of the ways
militarization and colonization constructand maintain masculinities based on power, strength, and the need for protection
through militaristic means. This is evident
in how people either talk or keep silent

19

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guamabout feeling and being safe on the island,particularly the unquestioning faith in the
power of the U.S. military and its ability
to make them safe. This paper also shows
the respondents’ tendency to equate being
safe with feeling safe, reflecting a masculinized view of security. At the same time,some people did express feeling ambivalent; while the bases make Guam a target
and therefore less safe, the military firepower on the island makes them feel safe.
This redefines notions of security based onmilitarism and militarization.
Overall, the questionnaire responses
and conversations conveyed support forthe military and did not challenge the underlying gendered and dichotomous viewsin security policy. While both women andmen saw the military as necessary for protection, women tended to use much more
powerful and emotional language when
expressing their desire to protect theirhome. Both men and women saw the military as a way of gaining new experienceand performing their duty as American
citizens, although military service wasmore clearly expressed by men than women. Women generally articulated anger or
frustration more clearly than men: “The
Chamoru people will never be a priority to
the U.S. We are just a highly valued place,not a necessity” (SH4_11). Despite sayingthat the bases offered protection, certainly
more people in the 2017 group than the2015 group said they thought that the United States does not really care about Guamand is just using it.
Guam is a good example of how a milita-

20

rized and colonized society adopts its colonizer’s perspective of security, including
the acceptance of the myth of protection as
normal. Most respondents cited the UnitedStates’s military strength and firepower asa reason for their safety. Postcolonial andneocolonial societies have been oppressed,
their cultures, lands, and languages desecrated and taken away. They have sufferedattacks on their pride and joy in themselves
and their culture, and over time, the waysof the colonizer have become incorporated
into their own culture and behavior. Partof this process is the reproduction of themyth of protection, replete with genderedhierarchies and binaries.
“Guam is an example of ‘successful’ colonization of the worst kind” (L. interview,
2013.9). Years of having to “be American”
on the island has led to the incorporationof many American cultural aspects into
everyday life. A significant part of “being
American” has included militarization andthe understanding that being safe means
having and/or needing military protection.
The questionnaire responses illustrate thisthrough the respondents’ inability to imagine life without the bases and their belief that the bases are necessary for protection, even as they struggle to recreate the
Chamoru worldview that has been takenfrom them. For many, the affirmation ofindigenous culture and need to protect theland and environment to feel safe is accompanied by the desire to depend on the
military for protection to be safe.
The questionnaire responses and conversations also reflect the reproduction

ジェンダー研究of military masculinities and American
military understandings of safety. Many
people seemed proud of Guam’s strategic
importance to the United States, and only
a few seemed to question being placed in
the line of fire. They also applauded thestrength of the U.S. military. When the2017 group explained why they felt the
U.S. military presence made them safe
and/or feel safe, nobody made any reference to, or expressed concern about, whatmight happen if the United States did infact shoot down North Korean missiles
and if Japan or other islands happened toget caught in the crossfire. In other words,
people in Guam reiterated American understandings of security rather than expressing alternative ways of creating/protecting their own vernacular community.
The pervasive normalization of military
solutions as natural and successful indicates the high level of militarization on theisland. At the same time, in contrast to thismasculinized view, most people feel safest
in their homes with their families. This isa good example of gender as a regulatory
process, as it essentially reproduces the
public/private gender divide.
If Guam did not have U.S. bases, there
would probably be no reason for North Korea or any other country to attack it and noneed to defend against malicious terrorists
or armies. However, many people say they
feel safer knowing the military is thereeven though some also acknowledged that
the U.S. military presence was the cause

第 22 号

2019 年

of the problem. This collective emotion offeeling unsafe has somehow become entwined with an understanding of masculinized military power as ensuring peaceand security, leading to the belief that people would feel even less safe without thebases. This is one way in which overseas
military bases reproduce a masculinizeddiscourse of insecurity and the need forprotection, which allows for their continued, if contested, existence.
Decolonization is an essential step thatwould enable people in Guam to imagine
security that is not based on insecurity, but
this would require their ability to imagine
their island without military bases. They
need to challenge meta-narratives of security and look toward worldism or otherways of incorporating multiple worldviews. This would entail affirming the region’s fluidarity and reimagining their borders and interconnections with people onother Pacific islands. The pursuit of safety
must begin with an endogenous process of
decolonization and demilitarization thatcomes from individual and collective bodies and includes a recreation of genderedrelations. Such a pursuit must also challenge meta-narratives of security that relyon gendered hierarchies and the assumed
need for protection. Finally, it must value
the importance of feeling safe as well as
being safe and enable people to develop
ways to establish living places, spaces, andstyles based on their own narratives of being and feeling safe.

21

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guam

References
Agathangelou, Anna and L.H.M. Ling, 2009, Transforming World Politics: From empire to multiple worlds,
Routledge.
Ahmed, Sara, 2014, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, 2nd edition. Edinburgh University Press.
Alexander, Ronni, 2013, “Militarization and Identity on Guam: Exploring intersections of indigeneity, gender and security.” Journal of International Cooperation Studies 21(1): pp.1-22, Kobe University.
…. 2016a, “Living with the Fence: Militarization and Military Spaces on Guahan/Guam.” Gender, Placeand Culture 23(6) : pp. 869-882. First published on-line in 2015.
….. 2016b, “Peace in the Pacific? Living Strategic Colonialism in the American Pacific.” Unpublished paper
presented to the ISA Annual Conference, March 2016, Atlanta, GA.
Åse, Cecilia, 2019, “The gendered myth of protection,” pp.273-282 in Caron Genrty, Laura Shepherd andLaura Sjoberg, eds. Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security, Routledge.
Bevacqua, Michael Lujan, 2010, “The Exceptional Life and Death of a Chamorro Soldier: Tracing the Militarization of Desire in Guam, U.S.A.” in Shigematsu, Setsu and Keith Camacho, eds., Militarized
Currents: Toward a Decolonized Future in Asia and the Pacific, pp.33-62. Minneapolis: Universityof Minnesota Press.
Bleiker, Roland and Emma Hutchison, 2008, “Fear no more: emotions and world politics.” Review of International Studies 34: pp. 115–135.
Brooke, James, 2004, “Looking for Friendly Overseas Base, Pentagon Finds It Already Has One.” New YorkTimes. 7 April.
Butler, Judith, 2004, Undoing Gender, New York and London: Routledge.
Cohler, Deborah, 2017, “Introduction: Homefront Frontlines and Transnational Geometries of Empire andResistance.” Feminist Formations 29(1) (Spring): pp. vii-xvii.
Crawford, Neta C., 2000, “The Passion of World Politics: Propositions on Emotion and Emotional Relationships.” International Security 24(4): pp. 116-156.
…. 2014, “Institutionalizing passion in world politics: fear and empathy.” International Theory 6(3): pp 535- 557.
Davis, Sasha, 2015, The Empires’ Edge: Militarization, Resistance, and Transcending Hegemony in the
Pacific. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.
Department of the Navy, 1978, “Strategic Concepts of the U.S. Navy.” NWP 1 (Rev. A), Washington, D.C.
Diaz, Vincente M., 2001, “Deliberating ‘Liberation Day’: Identity, History, Memory, and War in Guam,” inFujitani, T., Geoffrey M. White, and Lisa Yoneyama, eds., Perilous Memories: The Asia-Pacific War,Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 155-180.
Dillon, Michael and Julian Reid, 2009, The Liberal Way of War: Killing to make life live, Routledge.
Duffield, Mark, 2001, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security,
London: Zed Press.
Eichler, Maya, 2019, “Gendered Militarism,” pp.160-170, Caron E. Gentry, Laura Shepherd, Laura Sjoberg,
eds., Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security, Routledge.
Enloe, Cynthia, 2000, Manuevers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women’s Lives, Berkeley: University of California Press.
…. 2007, Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link, Rowman and Littlefield.
…. 2014, “Understanding Militarism, Militarization, and the Linkages with Globalization Using a Feminist

22

ジェンダー研究第 22 号

2019 年

Curiosity,” pp.7-10, Isabelle Geuskens, Merle Gosewinkel, Sophie Schellens, eds. Gender and Militarism Analyzing the Links to Strategize for Peace, The Netherlands: Women Peacemaker’s Program.
Frain, Sylvia C., 2017, “Women’s Resistance in the Marianas Archipelago: A US Colonial Homefront and
Militarized Frontline.” Feminist Formations, 29(1): pp. 97-135.
Geuskens, Isabelle, Merle Gosewinkel and Sophie Schellens (2014), Gender and Militarism: Analyzing theLinks to Strategize for Peace, The Netherlands: Women Peacemakers Program.
Gibbons-Neff, Thomas, 2016, “Chinese ballistic missiles dubbed ‘Guam Killer’ pose increasing threat to
U.S. island, report says.” Washington Post, 2016.5.11.
Hau’ofa, Epeli, 1994, “Our Sea of Islands.” The Contemporary Pacific 6(1): pp. 148-161.
Hicks, Robert, 2014, “36th MUNS home to largest munition stockpile.” Anderson Air Force Base News:https://www.andersen.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/638458/36th-muns-home-to-largest-munition-stockpile/ (Accessed 3 December 2018).
Higate, Paul, 2003, Military Masculinities: Identity and the State, Westport, CT: Praeger.
…. 2019, “Men, masculinity and global insecurity,” pp.70-82 in Caron Genrty, Laura Shepherd and Laura
Sjoberg, eds. Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security, Routledge.
Hutchison, Emma and Roland Bleiker, 2014, “Theorizing emotions in world politics.” International Theory,
6: pp 491-514.
Kolawole, Mary Modupe, 2002, “Transcending Incongruities: Rethinking Feminisms and the Dynamics ofIdentity in Africa.” Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equity 54: pp. 92-98.
Ling, L.H.M., 2014, “Decolonizing the international: towards multiple emotional worlds.” Forum: Emotionsand World Politics. International Theory 6(3): pp. 579-583. Available at: https://www.cambridge.
org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/026BC7C8D8B25151DB4862D3E6F08DFA/
S175297191400030Xa.pdf/decolonizing-the-international-towards-multiple-emotional-worlds.pdf(Accessed 2017.5.20).
Lutz, Catherine, 2018, “Militarization,” in Hilary Callan, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea13.
Lutz, Catherine A. and Lila Abu-Lighod, 2008, Language and the Politics of Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McDermott, Rose, 2014, “The body doesn’t lie: a somatic approach to the study of emotions in world politics.” International Theory 6: pp 557-562.
McSorley, Kevin, ed., 2013, War and the Body: Militarisation, practice and experience, Routledge.
Mercer, Jonathan, 2014, “Feeling like a state: social emotion and identity.” International Theory 6: pp. 515535.
Nagashima, Reo, 2015, America and Guam: Colonialism, Racism and Indigenous People, Yushindo (inJapanese).
Nagashima, Reo, 2018, “The Targeted American Colony: The Problem of North Korean Missiles and thePeople of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands,” Asia/Africa Studies 2(428): pp.31-56 (in Japanese).
Na’Puti, Tiara and Michael Lujan Bevacqua, 2015, “Militarization and Resistance from Guahan; Defending
Pagat.” American Quarterly, 67(3): pp. 837-858.
Perez, Michael, 2002, “Pacific Identities beyond U.S. Racial Formations: The Case of Chamorro Ambivalence and Flux.” Social Identities 8(3): pp. 457-479.
Reardon, Betty A. 1996, Sexism and the War System, Syracuse University Press.

23

Gendered Security: Learning from Being and Feeling Safe on the Island of Guåhan/Guam

Runyan, Anne Sisson, 1990, “Gender and the Politics of Protection,” Peace Review 2:4, pp.28-31.
Sjoberg, Laura and Caron Gentry, 2007, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women’s Violence in Global Politics,
Zed Books.
Shepherd, Laura, ed., 2013, Critical Approaches to Security: An introduction to theories and methods, Routledge.
Starr, Barbara and Brad Lendon. 2016, “US sends message to adversaries with nuclear sub visit, drills.” CNN.
Updated November 1, 2016. Accessed 2017.5.11. Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/guam-nuclear-missile-submarine-visit/
Sylvester, Christine, 2002, Feminist International Relations: An Unfinished Journey, Cambridge University
Press.
…. 2011a, “The Forum: Emotion and the Feminist IR Researcher,” International Studies Review 13: pp.
687-708.
…. 2011b, “Experiencing war: a challenge for international relations.” Cambridge Review of International
Affairs 26(4): pp. 669-674.
Taitano, Gina E., 2014, “Chamorro vs. Chamoru.” Guampedia. Accessed 2017.5.20. Available at: http://
www.guampedia.com/chamorro-vs-chamoru/.
Teiwa, Teresia, 1994, “bikinis and other s/pacific n/oceans,” The Contemporary Pacific 16(1): pp.87-109,
University of Hawai’i Press.
Teiwa, Teresia and Claire Slatter, 2013, “Samting Nating: Pacific Waves at the Margins of Feminist Security
Studies.” International Studies Perspectives 14: pp. 447-450.
Tickner, Anne, 1992, Gender in International Relations: Feminist Perspectives on Achieving Global Security, New York: Colombia University Press.
Vine, David, 2015, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, New York:
Metropolitan Books.
Weber, Cynthia, 2001, International Relations Theory: A critical introduction, Routledge.
Whitworth, Sandra, 2005, “Militarized Masculinities and the Politics of Peacekeeping: The Canadian Case,”in Booth, Ken, ed., Critical Security Studies in World Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 89-106.
Wibbin, Annick, 2011, Feminist Security Studies: A narrative approach, Routledge.

（掲載決定日：2019 年 5 月 29 日）

24

ジェンダー研究第 22 号

2019 年

要旨

ジェンダー化された安全―グアハン／グアム島における安全安心から学ぶロニー・アレキサンダー
米軍の駐留によって、グアム島は安全になるのか？本稿では、フェミニストの視点からグアムにおける軍事化、安全そして安心について論ずる。この議論には「ジェンダー」が欠かせない。軍事化や植民地化は、ジェンダーヒエラルキーや権力・力・軍事力を強調するマス
キュリニティを構築し再生産するからである。本稿ではまず、ジェンダーヒエラルキーや二分法的な考え方に基づく安全保障を批判的に分析し、安全安心にも注目する必要を提示する。次に、植民地化かつ軍事化された空間としてのグアム島を概観し、軍事基地について住民と行った対話やアンケート調査の結果を示す。基地の存在によってグアム島が標的にされるとわかっていながら、米軍の駐留によって安心できる、と考える住民が多いことがわかった。そこで、グアム島を真に安全な島にするためには、既存の男性性やジェンダーヒエ
ラルキーに基づく植民地化や軍事化を脱することが先決条件だと結論付けた。
キーワード
ジェンダー、グアハン／グアム、安全、植民地化、軍事化

25