Taiwan's Contemporary Indigenous Peoples

Chia-yuan Huang, Daniel Davies, Dafydd Fell, Dafydd Fell, Daniel Davies, Chia-Yuan Huang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000407914
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This edited volume provides a complete introduction to critical issues across the field of Indigenous peoples in contemporary Taiwan, from theoretical approaches to empirical analysis.

Seeking to inform wider audiences about Taiwan's Indigenous peoples, this book brings together both leading and emerging scholars as part of an international collaborative research project, sharing broad specialisms on modern Indigenous issues in Taiwan. This is one of the first dedicated volumes in English to examine contemporary Taiwan's Indigenous peoples from such a range of disciplinary angles, following four section themes: long-term perspectives, the arts, education, and politics. Chapters offer perspectives not only from academic researchers, but also from writers bearing rich practitioner and activist experience from within the Taiwanese Indigenous rights movement. Methods range from extensive fieldwork to Indigenous-directed film and literary analysis.

Taiwan's Contemporary Indigenous Peoples will prove a useful resource for students and scholars of Taiwan Studies, Indigenous Studies and Asia Pacific Studies, as well as educators designing future courses on Indigenous studies.

1 Taiwan’s contemporary Indigenous peoples

Huang Chia-yuan, Daniel Davies and Dafydd Fell

Introduction

In recent years, a number of Taiwan Studies organisations have become institutionalised, offering important platforms for the dissemination of research on Taiwan. These institutions – such as the North American Taiwan Studies Association, the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Conference Group on Taiwan Studies (affiliated with the American Political Science Association) and the Japan Association for Taiwan Studies – have made important contributions to the development of the field. Many universities in Europe and North America have also established Taiwan Studies centres and related programmes (Chang and Fell 2019). These include both academic events and teaching programmes that focus on Taiwan. Since the late 1980s, the quality and quantity of English-language output on Taiwan have increased significantly (Hsiao and Fell 2019). This includes the Routledge Research on Taiwan series, the Harrassowitz Studia Formosiana series, Camphor Press and the International Journal of Taiwan Studies. These developments suggest that we are enjoying a golden age of Taiwan Studies (Fell 2017; Schubert 2017).

In the last years, Taiwan Studies edited volumes have covered a wide range of topics such as social movements, national identity, international relations, documentary film, economic development and cinema. One salient topic in this vibrant field has been Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. For example, about a third of the edited volumes published so far in the Routledge Research on Taiwan series have had a chapter with an Indigenous focus. Yet, for all the topic’s salience, much of the output is widely dispersed. Given the diversity of research over the last two decades, it is surprising that there has not yet been a dedicated volume that examines contemporary Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples from a range of disciplinary angles.

Taiwan provides a fascinating case for a number of aspects of contemporary indigeneity. It is a multi-ethnic society with rich and diverse cultural characteristics. The country’s Indigenous peoples and their languages belong to the Austronesian family. They have close cultural ties with Oceania and the South Pacific and their history on the island dates back more than 5,000 years. There are currently 16 legally recognised tribes (Council of Indigenous Peoples 2020) with a total population of approximately 574,000, accounting for 2.4% of Taiwan’s overall population.

Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples have been victims of successive waves of colonisation since the first Han Chinese settlers arrived to the island from Fujian, a process further accelerated by the arrival of the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Subsequent Han settlement was facilitated under loose Cheng and Qing rule until 1895, when the island was ceded to Japan. The most recent colonists arrived when control of Taiwan transferred to the Republic of China after World War II. The impact of this form of Chinese rule up to the 1980s was that ‘Indigenous societies were under the Han Chinese government’s forced colonial domination and assimilation policy’ (Chi 2016: 268). Taiwan went through a gradual process of democratisation from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. During this period of political and social reform, the Indigenous rights movement began to have an impact and Chi cites the publication of the first Indigenous magazine Gao Shan Qing (高山青) as an important starting point in the decolonisation process. Since democratisation, the Taiwan state has responded to the Indigenous rights movement in a number of ways, with new institutions such as the Council for Indigenous Peoples, changes in cultural and education policy and President Tsai’s 2016 apology to the Indigenous peoples for four centuries of suffering and mistreatment (Office of the President of the Republic of China 2016).

As the Indigenous rights movement has achieved important breakthroughs, there has been growing academic research on Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. To this end, universities in Taiwan have established centres for Indigenous studies and created research and teaching positions. As a consequence, interest in and understanding of the field have developed rapidly. Although there has been plenty of high-quality research on the topic, much of the literature is historical, with issues related to modern Indigenous peoples less well covered. With structural reforms in Taiwan’s political, economic and social systems, more studies on Taiwan’s contemporary Indigenous peoples are needed. Yet, the available research in English is spread across multiple journals and edited volumes. For this reason, it is difficult to conduct integrated teaching and discussion on the topic.

Since 2011, the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS University of London, in collaboration with the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, has run a Taiwan Indigenous Studies Research Project. While the focus was initially historical, in recent years it has shifted to modern Taiwan. A Contemporary Taiwan Indigenous Studies lecture series was created in 2017. This series has provided a platform for scholars and practitioners from Taiwan and around the world to deliver lectures, seminars, film screenings and other cultural activities related to Indigenous Taiwan. The events focus on diverse subjects, including history, anthropology, culture, media, politics, society, education, youth, environment and social movements. This lecture series, which has received considerable acclaim from scholars and audiences around the world, strives to enable people from diverse backgrounds and research fields to better understand the historical development of ethnic interactions and other key issues in Taiwan that can and should be addressed through a variety of interdisciplinary approaches. Almost all the chapters in this volume were first presented as part of this lecture series.

The goal of this volume is thus to bring together many of the leading and emerging scholars working on modern Indigenous issues in Taiwan, to share their research and analysis of their specific sub-fields. We aim to provide a complete introduction to important issues in the field of Indigenous peoples in contemporary Taiwan through theoretical exploration and empirical analysis. Therefore, we have asked our authors to offer quite broad, almost handbook style, overviews of their area of speciality. In addition, we have also asked them to bring in elements from their own individual research and in some cases their practical or activist experience. This book seeks to inform wider audiences about Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples and can be used as the basis for future courses on Indigenous studies.

In addition to the academic field, Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples are connected to their counterparts around the world through the Working Group on Indigenous Populations and the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, both established by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Thus, this book also seeks to enhance the visibility of studies on Taiwan’s contemporary Indigenous peoples within the international political sphere.

Interdisciplinary approach

In creating this book, we invited scholars to discuss what they see as the most significant issues and developments in the field of contemporary Indigenous research in Taiwan. The chapters come at the issue from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including history, migration studies, education, literature, film studies, comparative politics, modern art and legal studies. In other words, we want the book to appeal to both a readership interested in Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples and a disciplinary readership.

The current international scholarly focus on Taiwan’s contemporary Indigenous peoples began with the political reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. As Taiwan’s vibrant civil society, democratic political culture and Taiwanisation of institutions drew the attention of international scholars, rather than serving as a window into China, Taiwan itself became a subject of study. Valued by the international academic community for its democratic and multicultural identity rather than its similarities to China, the major points of difference from China became a central point of interest. In this regard, Indigenous peoples, although comparatively small in number, represented Taiwan’s distinctiveness. As Indigenous performative and material cultures became increasingly prominent in political and public discourse, international academia, spurred on by linguistic and archaeological studies locating Taiwan as the source of the Austronesian dispersal (Bellwood 1991; Blust 1995), renewed its focus on the ethnographic and cultural heritage of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples. Building on earlier studies by Japanese anthropologists and ethnologists, the histories, traditions, knowledge and interactions of Indigenous communities have been documented by Taiwanese and international scholars.

While this book builds on these earlier works, we also have tried to bring together a different perspective on the topic. Rather than focusing on the rich and varied historical traditions of Taiwan’s Indigenous communities, we have intentionally tried to highlight contemporary cultural, political and sociological research. The chapters selected for this volume aim to provide a holistic analysis of the contemporary conditions and relations of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples within a national context. With this in mind, we have tried not to focus narrowly on anthropological accounts of individual communities or ethnic groups. Rather, we have sought to outline common trends in relations between communities, political actors and institutions.

To these ends, the chapters feature a diverse set of research methods. While the most common approach is the fieldwork interview, extensive use is also made of participant observation, textual and film analysis. The authors are a diverse group of scholars that includes established professors, a number of mid and early career scholars and PhD students. Although half of our authors are based in Taiwanese universities, we also have authors based in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Canada and Australia. Moreover, some of our authors combine their academic careers with cultural practice. For instance, Sophie McIntyre has curated related art exhibitions in Taiwan and Australia, P. Kerim Friedman has served as programmer for the Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival and Darryl Sterk is an award-winning translator of literature and film subtitles. Others such as Jolan Hsieh and Awi Mona have experience as Indigenous rights activists. They and Kuan Da-wei have also served in advisory roles for the Taiwanese government. We are delighted with the way our authors have enriched their chapters by sharing their practical experience and observations.

We divide this book into the following four parts: Long-term perspectives, the Arts, Education and Politics.

Long-term perspectives

The chapters contained within this book focus on the experience of Indigenous peoples in present-day Taiwan. In the first section, historical perspectives reveal the factors that have shaped contemporary Indigenous identities. Discussion of spatial and spiritual movements from the early-modern colonial era to the present invokes the multiple interactions that have conditioned and constructed indigeneity. This section reveals the agency of Indigenous peoples in engaging with push and pull factors, as well as the ongoing negotiation between traditional and modern identities, local, national and international social networks. Rather than being defined by historical events, this section uses the examples of migration and religiosity to show how the changing social, cultural and political contexts of Indigenous Peoples are not reactive, linear or externally defined, but the results of actively negotiated positions, values and interests.

In Chapter 2, Niki J.P. Alsford analyses how historical processes of migration have had a profound effect on Indigenous peoples’ construction of ideas around tradition. To better analyse the connection, he situates two competing push and pull factors in three major migration phases: Pacific expansion, colonisation and contemporary society. Alsford argues that in the early-modern colonial period, the increasing number of Chinese settlers forced many Indigenous communities to leave their traditional hunting grounds and fertile lands. The boundaries of these lands were then delimited in order to keep Indigenous peoples away from Han Chinese settlements. Later, in the Japanese colonial period, electrified demarcation constrained the movements of Indigenous peoples. In contemporary Taiwan, these constraints are no longer physical, but socio-economic. As a result of land dispossession, lack of employment opportunities and the deterioration of traditional livelihoods, there has been a significant increase in Indigenous domestic migration, with individuals, families and larger groups often moving from traditional communities into urban environments. Such migration has had a profound impact on Indigenous construction of modernity and tradition. It has become important for Indigenous peoples to maintain a framework of traditions and values that is compatible with multiple forms of identity.

To complement Alsford’s discussion of the effects of colonialism on Indigenous peoples’ external space, Chapter 3 discusses the internal spiritual shifts and conflicts which shape modern Indigenous identity. Scott Simon’s chapter establishes Christianity as integral to Indigenous social reality in Taiwan. This distinguishes Indigenous communities from the rest of Taiwan. Through close engagement with social and religious communities, Simon shows how the introduction of Christianity into, and its internalisation within, Indigenous communities has been a negotiated process. Rather than passively accepting external values, Indigenous communities have adapted different forms of religion to their local cultural context. The presence of Christian social and religious institutions has also integrated Indigenous communities into wider paths of influence, both domestically and internationally. Simon’s examination of multiple forms of Christianity within Indigenous villages builds on previous studies using a phenomenological approach (Barker 2014; Huang 1996; Tan 2002; Yang 2008) to define contemporary religious communities and institutions not as foreign impositions, but rather as hybrid creations. As spaces of shared identity and mutual belonging, churches in contemporary Taiwan are shown to simultaneously act as important arenas for social and political conflict, places for family and community building and oases for those seeking spiritual connection and growth. Through long-term fieldwork in Seediq and Truku communities, Simon reveals how churches are both physically and spiritually located within the pathways of locally defined practices and beliefs.

The arts

After discussing Indigenous migration history and adaptive religious attitudes and practices, the second part of the book focuses on the changing form of Indigenous expression. This includes chapters on Indigenous literature, film, documentaries and visual arts. As Taiwanese society has gone through rapid development and transformation, Indigenous cultures have changed, with increasing numbers of Indigenous people now living in urban areas and interacting with other Taiwanese ethnic groups. This part of the book reveals how Indigenous arts and culture are affected by this new environment. Each author applies his or her own area of expertise to tease out shifts in various spheres of the arts. Content analysis and in-depth engagement are applied to investigate the works, approaches and challenges of Indigenous creators. While focusing on different time periods and mediums, each chapter reveals the specificities of the Indigenous creative sphere and the power of the arts to project Indigenous perspectives, to rewrite Taiwan’s history and to engage with issues of identity, the environment, education and modernisation.

In Chapter 4, Chen Chih-fan and Chiu Kuei-fen argue that since the advent of the Indigenous rights movement in the 1980s, Indigenous literary works have become an important channel for Indigenous rights claims and interventions in a range of Indigenous issues and debates. They identify various ‘de-Sinicisation’ literary techniques used by Indigenous writers to advocate for rights around cultural identity, language, lands and resources. Such techniques, they...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Taiwan’s contemporary Indigenous peoples
• 2 Population movements and the construction of modern tradition within contemporary Taiwan Indigenous society
• 3 Making God’s country: A phenomenological approach to Christianity among the Sediq-Truku of Taiwan
• 4 Indigenous literature in contemporary Taiwan
• 5 Teach your children well: Traditional education in Indigenous-directed film from Taiwan
• 6 The shifting chronotopes of indigeneity in Taiwanese documentary film
• 7 The public rise and exhibition of Taiwan Indigenous art and its role in nation-building and reconciliation
• 8 The state of the nation: Contemporary issues in Indigenous language education in Taiwan
• 9 The changing representation of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan’s elementary social studies textbooks
• 10 Indigenous political participation and indigenous voting behaviour in Taiwan
• 11 Indigenous traditional territory and decolonisation of the settler state: The Taiwan experience
• 12 Conflict and reconciliation between civil law and Indigenous legal traditions: The case of land governance in Taiwan
• 13 Indigenous peoples and the politics of the environment in Taiwan
• 14 Restoring Pingpu Indigenous status and rights
• 15 The Austronesian narrative: The role of Indigenous heritage in Taiwanese diplomacy
• Index