Abstract

In this article, I examine the sustainability of employing Philosophy for Children (P4C) to address the ongoing ecological crises affecting Guam. I argue that although P4C aims to foster a more ecological form of living, its failure to cultivate contemplation and dialogue grounded in specific ecosystems renders it incapable of fostering generative and sustainable inquiry that pushes against the serializing forces of capitalism and colonialism. I further draw on Austronesian seafaring traditions and the works of Indigenous CHamorus to reconceptualize the community of philosophical inquiry as a community of philosophical wayfinding. Within such a community, the participants navigate an ocean of harmful ideas in an empowering and sustainable manner by emphasizing the local mental, social, and environmental conditions of their inquiry. I begin by first motivating the question of P4C's ecological sustainability for Guam through the history of capitalism's and the Brown Tree Snake's co-colonization of CHamoru subjectivity. I specifically use Félix Guattari's The Three Ecologies to identify the semiotics of power through which capitalism pollutes CHamoru Ecology to further Americanize CHamoru existential cartographies. While P4C offers a potential pathway for creating new subjectivities, I argue that the community of philosophical inquiry's abstract nature turns it into a source of capitalist expansion on Guam. Finally, I draw from Austronesian seafaring and CHamoru ecopoetry to reimagine the community of philosophical inquiry as a more locally grounded and impactful practice, capable of addressing Guam's ecological crisis through the creation of invested subjectivities.