Sylvia Frain
The Everyday Peace Initiative
I am a United States citizen and Aotearoa New Zealand permanent resident and have been living, studying, and working in Oceania for over twenty years. I am guided by my "kuleana" within the US Affiliated Pacific Islands and am dedicated to intersectional efforts of decolonisation and demilitarisation.
I earned my PhD in Peace Studies with a doctoral scholarship from The National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in 2017. I have worked in academia, as a program manager for community development, and in diplomacy for the US State Department in Public Affairs for the US Mission in New Zealand.
I have produced creative and community-centered resources and have organized Oceanic gatherings to ensure alternative forms of knowledge and diverse perspectives are included. My doctoral thesis, created in collaboration with the women in the Marianas Archipelago in Micronesia who are resisting the United States military, is available as a free e-book on the University of Guam’s Guampedia platform.
How can I support you?
I am committed to creative, community-centered practices and contribute to scholarly discourses, and support knowledge about Oceanic historic and contemporary nuclear imperialisms and efforts for denuclearisation.
I currently manage the research-oriented Facebook page, Oceania Resistance. Please get in touch!
my research
Research Interests
(De)militarisation, (De)colonisation, Oceania, Micronesia, Peace Studies, Visual Methods, Filmmaking
Oceania Resistance: Digital autoethnography in the Marianas Archipelago
Sylvia C Frain
I critically navigated Guam’s port of entry for the sixth time in 2015 with the U.S. customs officials smiling and saying, “welcome back.” I returned not as a daughter who lives in the village of Ipan in the south of Guam, but as a doctoral studen...
RESISTING POLITICAL COLONIZATION AND AMERICAN MILITARIZATION IN THE MARIANAS ARCHIPELAGO
Sylvia C Frain
This article will explore the triangle of contemporary political colonization, increased American militarization, and the continued denial of Indigenous rights interlinked in the Marianas Archipelago. The 15-island chain is politically constructed...
Images of Empire and Visualizing Resistance in Guam (Guåhan)
Sylvia C Frain
The United States’ contemporary Pacific empire is maintained through colonial political arrangements and enforced through expansive military
bases. In historical literature discussing World War II, particularly within American academies, Pacific m...
“Fanohge Famalåo’an & Fan’tachu Fama’lauan": Women Rising! Indigenous Resistance to Militarization in the Marianas Archipelago
Sylvia C Frain
For my doctoral studies, I examined how indigenous women nonviolently resist the invisible and visible sexist and environmental politics of everyday and expanding militarization by the United States in the Marianas Archipelago.
Written as a form o...
Conducting Women-Centered (Re)search as Resistance in Micronesia
Sylvia C Frain
In the seventh and final research paper of this section, “Conducting Women-Centered (Re)search as Resistance in the Marianas Archipelago,” Sylvia C. Frain builds upon a framework for non-Indigenous scholars (like herself) to advance ways to center...