Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond

This book situates Taiwan’s indigenous knowledge in comparative contexts across other indigenous knowledge formations. The content is divided into four distinct but interrelated sections to highlight the importance and diversity of indigenous knowledge in Taiwan and beyond. It begins with an exploration of the recent development and construction of an indigenous knowledge and educational system in Taiwan, as well as issues concerning research ethics and indigenous knowledge. This is followed by a section that illustrates diverse forms of indigenous knowledge, and in turn, a theoretical dialogue between indigenous studies and settler colonial studies. Lastly, the Paiwan indigenous author Dadelavan Ibau’s trans-indigenous journey to Tibet rounds out the coverage. 

This book is useful to readers in indigenous, settler colonial, and decolonial studies around the world, not just because it offers substantive content on indigenous knowledge in Taiwan, but also because it offers conceptual tools for studying indigenous knowledge from comparative and relational perspectives. It also greatly benefits anyone interested in Taiwan studies, offering an ethical approach to indigeneity in a classic settler colony. 

Shu-mei Shih and Lin-chin Tsai, “Introduction”

I.  Indigenous Knowledge, Education, and Research

1.  Tunkan Tansikian, “Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan”

2.  Tibusung?'e Vayayana, “Kuba-hosa-hupa: A Preliminary Study of Tsou Cosmos and

Pedagogy”

3.  Skaya Siku, “The Making of Indigenous Knowledge in Contemporary Taiwan: A Case Study

of Three Indigenous Documentary Filmmakers”

4.  Jolan Hsieh, Ena Ying-tzu Chang, and Sifo Lakaw, “From Collective Consent to

Consultation Platform: Indigenous Research Ethics in Makotaay, Taiwan”

5.  Cheng-Feng Shih, “Indigenous Knowledge Production and Research Ethics”

II.  Forms of Indigenous Knowledge

1.  Benoit Vermander, “Rituals as Local Knowledge: Millet and the Symbolic Subsistence of

Taiwan’s Aboriginal Population”

2.  Stephen Acabado and Da-wei Kuan, “Landscape, Habitus and Identity: A Comparative

Study on the Agricultural Transition of Highland Indigenous Communities in Philippines and

Taiwan”

3.  Scott Simon, “Of Boars and Men: Indigenous Knowledge and Co-Management in Taiwan”

4.  Darryl Sterk, “The Hunter’s Gift in Ecorealist Indigenous Fiction from Taiwan”

5.  Shu-Yuan Yang, “The Indigenous Land Rights Movement and Embodied Knowledge in

Taiwan”

III.  Settler Colonial and Decolonial Critique 

1.  Katsuya Hirano, Lorenzo Veracini, and Toulouse-Antonin Roy, “Vanishing Natives and

Taiwan’s Settler-Colonial Unconsciousness”

2.  Breny Mendoza, “Decolonial Theories in Comparison”

3.  Lin Fang-mei, “Two Historical Discourse Paradigms: Han People’s Resistance against Japan

and Indigenous People’s Collaboration with Japan”

4.  Tsai Lin-chin, “Mapping Formosa: Settler Colonial Cartography in Taiwan Cinema in the

1950s”

IV.  Creative Coda

Dadelavan Ibau, “Being Indigenous in Taiwan and Tibet: A Writer’s Journey” 

Shu-mei Shih is the Vice President of the American Comparative Literature Association, and, at UCLA, she is the inaugural Edward W. Said Professor of Comparative Literature, a Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, and Asian American Studies.  An elected Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities, she has won numerous awards and fellowships, including the distinguished alumna award from National Taiwan Normal University. She is the creator of the emergent field of Sinophone studies, which merges settler colonial studies with the study of Sinitic-language communities and cultures inside China and around the world. 

Lin-chin Tsai received his PhD at the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at UCLA, with a focus on Taiwan as a settler colony and its cultural productions. His articles on Taiwan literature and cinema have been published in academic journals in English and Mandarin, as well as edited volumes, including Keywords of Taiwan Theory (2019), and Cinematic Settlers: The Settler Colonial World in Film (2020). He also co-authored a book with scholars specializing in Taiwan literature, entitled 100 Years of Taiwan Literature (2018).