‘Mike who?’ is the response attributed to a US politician when asked about plans for Micronesia. Outside a closed circle of Pacific islanders, academics, military personnel, scuba divers and some politicians, the term Micronesia often elicits a similar response. But the appellation Micronesia is not without its own problems. In the first part of this chapter I explore what is meant by Micronesia, and the variety of possible answers to the ‘Mike who?’ question. This requires a consideration of geography, anthropology, history, voyaging and local self-definitions. Some of these issues have been raised in their historical contexts in the previous two chapters, but here they will be set as acutely contemporary issues, and, as such, I will consider the role that archaeology and heritage have to play within these debates. This archaeological role will be the subject of the second half of the chapter where it will be set within local and wider Pacific contexts. I will conclude by spelling out the main questions that archaeological understandings of Micronesia can be used to speak to at local regional and broader Pacific and global scales, and in particular the roles of fluidity and fusion in contesting and addressing these issues.

Geographical constructs

The basic contemporary understanding of Micronesia, at least the one first identified by anyone using an atlas, is of Micronesia as a geographical entity, one clearly marked as having boundaries in any atlas.