| JOE ENLET (Chon Chuuk, Chukese/Micronesian), PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Rhode Island

Purpose: Marine ecosystems and tuna fish hold deep cultural significance in Pacific indigenous relational worlds in addition to their economic and nutritional value. However, intensifying geopolitical competition over tuna, especially its extractive exploitation by foreign countries as colonial actors within the Western Pacific, poses ecological risks to tuna and political risks to indigenous sovereignty. This study will explore anti-/de-colonial tuna governance frameworks that mobilize indigenous knowledges as forms of resistance and alternatives to the colonial violence of geostrategic influence in Micronesia. 
 
Methods: Utilizing methods aligning with Micronesian indigenous ethics and tutunap (collective narratives), I will engage in multi-dimensional conversations and embedded experiences with pwo (master navigators) in Chuuk, Micronesia. These engagements will be conducted in Fosun-Chuuk (native language of Chuuk) and employ traditional protocols of knowledge exchange. These conversations and experiences will be interpreted through a method of narrative analysis that prioritizes indigenous epistemologies and communal stories. The purpose of analysis is to relate indigenous understandings of ikenen-mataw (fish of the distant sea), fishing, and people within an aquapelagic environment. Preliminary relationship building with intended participants in Chuuk, the PI’s home community, is currently ongoing.   

Outcome: The narratives and relationships gathered in this study will explicate critical anti-/de-colonial understandings of human and non-human kinship, reciprocity, and stewardship within what has otherwise been reductively understood as a highly valuable marine fishery. These narratives will become the basis for the development of an indigenous oriented framework for tuna governance in Micronesia which can mitigate overexploitation and enable Micronesian sovereignty.