This month saw the online launch of an English-language book that it is hoped will enhance Taiwan studies at universities in Europe and further afield, providing a wider audience with unique insight into a field of study that is attracting increasing attention.
Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples is the result of a lecture series at London’s Centre of Taiwan Studies, part of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies. These talks on issues related to Taiwanese Aborigines formed the basis of the new publication, the whole project facilitated by a grant from Taipei’s Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines (順益台灣原住民博物館).
“Within Taiwanese universities there has been a rapid growth in the numbers of Indigenous teaching and research programs in the last decade,” says Dafydd Fell, director of the centre. “There have also been parallel trends in Indigenous language promotion in the media, such as Indigenous Television, and in schools. Since some of these Indigenous studies programs in Taiwan are also developing English language courses, we are hoping our book can be widely used in Taiwan.”
Photos courtesy of Dafydd Fell
Fell added that within the field of international Taiwan Studies there has been a similar growth in interest in Aboriginal topics, but much of this work tended to be dispersed across different disciplines. The book brings together studies on modern Taiwanese Indigenous topics.
Both trends form part of a growing global interest in Indigenous studies that Taiwan is just one part of, with the nation providing fascinating examples of a number of aspects of contemporary indigeneity. Part of a multi-ethnic society with diverse cultural characteristics, Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples have lived on the island for thousands of years. Their languages belong to the Austronesian family and they have close cultural ties to Oceania and the South Pacific.
The book has four section themes: historical perspectives, the arts, education and politics. Chapters are written not only by academics but also by writers from within the Taiwanese Indigenous rights movement.
The authors who spoke about their respective chapters in the book at its launch, described by Fell as “four giants of Taiwan studies,” highlight the diversity of its content.
Niki Alsford showed that 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 into urban environments. This has made it important for Indigenous peoples to maintain a framework of traditions and values compatible with multiple community-based, pan-Indigenous and wider Taiwanese identities.
Scott Simon talked about how Indigenous peoples have adapted Christianity to their local cultural context rather than passively accepting external values, defining contemporary religious communities and institutions as hybrid creations not foreign impositions.
Kerim Friedman used the concept of chronotope to discuss shifting representations of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples in documentary films, while Chang Bi-yu (張必瑜) discussed representations of Indigenous peoples in educational materials, focusing on the dominance of a “Han perspective” and the stigmatization and reduction of Indigenous peoples to limited social and physical spheres.
Fell says there has been growing interest in Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples among students at the Centre for Taiwan Studies.
“I think students are often curious about the way many of the trends we see in Indigenous society are quite different from the rest of Taiwan. For instance, patterns in Indigenous voting behavior and party identification,” he says.
A more inclusive approach to Indigenous cultures at present contrasts with past efforts aimed at enforcing assimilation.
“This did a huge amount of damage in the area of language policies, as so many Indigenous languages in Taiwan became endangered,” Fell says. “It is encouraging to see the way Indigenous cultures have become a source of pride and part of Taiwan’s national branding in recent years.”
Fell says that Taiwan has used Indigenous or Austronesian heritage as part of its international diplomacy efforts, particularly in its relations with the Pacific region, this forming the subject matter of one of the book’s chapters.
However, as pointed out at the book launch, Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples are still often misunderstood, with a tendency for them to be inaccurately portrayed as a homogeneous, exotic group.
There is also plenty of scope for further study of a number of important issues including Indigenous sovereignty, urban indigeneity (bearing in mind that more than 50 percent of Indigenous people now live in urban areas) and Indigenous knowledge, particularly relating to environmental issues.
The second expedition of Commodore Matthew Perry of the US to Japan in 1854 sent ships to Formosa on the way back to the US to assess Keelung’s potential as a coaling station. Far-sighted, Perry recommended that the US establish a presence on Formosa, as Taiwan was then known. His suggestion went unheeded, but others were watching, few more closely than Prussia. The Prussians had wanted to follow up the Americans with an expedition of their own. In 1858, when William I became regent, the idea of entering the colonial race in the Far East began to take shape in the
June 27 to July 3 “The Sacred Tree (神木) is on fire!” Tseng Tian-lai (曾添來) didn’t believe it at first as it was pouring rain, but he sensed the urgency in the caller’s voice. The Alishan Forest Railway station master stepped out and saw smoke billowing from the direction of the beloved 3,000-year-old red cypress. The tree was struck by lightning in the afternoon of June 7, 1956, and a fierce blaze raged inside the eroded trunk, requiring nearly 200 people 20 hours to put it out. The authorities were especially nervous, according to a 1997 Liberty Times
To the consternation of its biological father — China — the young nation of Taiwan seems to prefer its step-dad, Japan. When the latter was forced out, a semi-modernized iteration of the former returned. And just as some people thrive as adults, despite an unstable childhood, Taiwan has become a democratic success. Unfortunately, the island’s biological father behaves like a parent who is no use, yet who continues to meddle. A combination of rose-tinted retrospection and growing mutual respect has given many Taiwanese a highly positive attitude toward Japan. Physical reminders of the 1895-1945 period of Japanese rule are treasured,
Born in Aldershot in 1959, Russell Foster is a professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford and the director of the Nuffield Laboratory of Ophthalmology. For his discovery of non-rod, non-cone ocular photoreceptors he received numerous awards including the Zoological Society scientific medal. His latest book — the first he has written without a co-author — is Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionize Your Sleep and Health. The Guardian: What is circadian neuroscience? Russell Foster: It’s the fundamental understanding of how our biology ticks on a 24-hour basis. But also it’s bigger than that —
RSS