This
conference aims to engender transnational conversations about
indigenous knowledge, with Taiwan as its comparative pivot and
relational node. Setting discussions on indigenous knowledge and
settler colonialism in Taiwan in dialogue with those in the United
States, Okinawa, and the Philippines, this conference explores some
initial and necessarily broad questions: What is indigenous knowledge
and how is it defined in different places? How is indigenous knowledge
relevant to such taxonomies as philosophy, epistemology, ontology, or
cosmology? How has it been suppressed and/or erased, and how has it
transformed and grown over time? What is being preserved, lost, and
strengthened, and what might be the politics and poetics of
preservation, loss, transformation, and growth? How have settler
colonizers perceived, represented, and usurped indigenous knowledge?
What imaginary of the future does indigenous knowledge present? How is
indigenous knowledge a resource for all?
In Taiwan, the indigenous Austronesian peoples have been subjected to
settler colonialism by waves of Han people from China for over three
centuries, during which other colonial regimes came and went, including
the Dutch Formosa in southern Taiwan (1642-1662), the Spanish Formosa
in northern Taiwan (1646-1662), and Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945).
For Austronesians, as is the case for all indigenous peoples living
under settler colonialism, colonialism is a “structure” (Wolfe) almost
impossible to overcome. Seen in this light, postcolonial theory as an
academic discourse in settler colonies, such as Taiwan and the United
States, is a disavowal of indigeneity and settler colonialism, and can
be understood as another settler’s “move to innocence” (Tuck and Yang)
or “strategy of transfer” (Veracini). For indigenous scholars and
activists everywhere, what has been indispensable to their resistance
against settler colonialism is the centering of indigenous knowledge as
an act of decolonization and a way to envision a better world (Goeman;
LaDuke; Moreton-Robinson), resulting in a wide-spread indigenous
knowledge movement of which Taiwan’s indigenous discourse, though
little known, is a constitutive part. For this and other reasons, this
conference hopes to bring comparative and relational insights to indigenous
knowledge formation in different parts of the world to see how
situating Taiwan’s indigenous studies in a global context recalibrates
indigenous studies in general and Taiwan studies in particular.
Download the flyer for
this event
Friday, May 11
9:30
am Welcome Remarks
- Cindy Fan (Vice Provost
for International Studies and Global Engagement and Professor of
Geography, UCLA)
- David Schaberg (Dean of
Humanities and Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA)
- Min Zhou (Director of
Asia Pacific Center, Walter and Shirley Wang Chair Professor of
US-China Relations, and Professor of Sociology and Asian American
Studies, UCLA)
- Shu-mei Shih (Director
of Taiwan Studies Program at the Asia Pacific Center, Professor of
Asian Languages and Cultures, Comparative Literature, and Asian
American Studies, UCLA, and Honorary Chair Professor, Department
of Taiwan Culture, Languages and Literature, National Taiwan
Normal University)
10:00-12:20
Panel 1: Indigenous versus Settler Knowledges
- Tunkan Tansikian,
National Dong Hwa University
Indigenous
Knowledge in Taiwan
- Mishuana Goeman, Gender
Studies & American Indian Studies, UCLA
Beyond the
Grammar of Settler Apologies
- Tibusungu ’e
Vayayana/Ming-huey Wang, Geography, NTNU
kuba-hosa-hupa:
Taiwan Indigenous Cou’s Cosmology and Pedagogy
- Skaya Siku, Institute
of Ethnology, Academia Sinica
The Making of
Indigenous Knowledge in Contemporary Taiwan: A Case Study of Three
Indigenous Documentary Filmmakers
- Moderator: Katsuya
Hirano, UCLA
12:20-1:30
Lunch
1:30-3:50 Panel
2: With and Against Narratives of Settler Colonialism
- Annmaria Shimabuku,
East Asian Studies, NYU
Indigeneity in
Intellectual History: Ifa Fuyū and “Okinawan Uniqueness”
- Fang-mei Lin, Taiwan
Culture, Languages and Literature, NTNU
Two Historical
Discourse Paradigms: Han People’s Resistance against Japan and
Indigenous People’s Collaboration with Japan
- Katsuya Hirano and
Toulouse Roy, History, UCLA
Uncovering
Taiwan’s Settler-Colonial Unconsciousness
- Nikky Lin, Taiwan
Culture, Languages and Literature, NTNU
Constructing
Indigenous Literature: Re-examining the Writings of the Literary
History of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples
- Moderator: Min Zhou,
UCLA
3:50-4:20
Coffee Break
4:20-5:30
Writer’s Forum
- Ibau Dadelavan, author
of Eagles,
Goodbye: A Paiwan Woman’s Journey to Western Tibet (Miperepereper i
kalevelevan aza aris; Laoying zaijian: yiwei paiwan nuzi de zangxi
zhi lu)
- Moderated by Shu-mei
Shih, UCLA
Saturday, May 12
10:00-12:20
Panel 3: Land, Ecology, and Race
- Daya Da-wei Kuan,
Ethnology, National Cheng Chi University
Indigenous
Knowledge of Landscape Management: An Ethno-physiographical Study
in Tayal Communities, Taiwan
- Shannon Speed, American
Indian Studies, UCLA
Traces of
Mexican History: Land, Labor, and Race in the Neoliberal Settler
State
- Stephen Acabado,
Anthropology, UCLA
Indigenous
Agrofestry and Agroecological Systems: Risk Minimization between
the Ifugao (Philippines) and Tayal (Taiwan)
- Su-Bing Chang, Graduate
Institute of Taiwan History, NTNU
The River and
the Indigenes: Discussion on the Rukai in the Jhuokou River
Watershed
- Moderator: Shu-mei
Shih, UCLA
12:20-1:30
Lunch
1:30-3:30 Panel
4: Ethics of Research
- Jolan Hsieh, Ethnic
Relations and Cultures, National Dong Hwa University
From Collective
Consent to Consultation Platform: Indigenous Research Ethics in
Taiwan
- K. Wayne Wang, Ethnic
Studies, UCSD
Land
Rematriation in Settler Societies: Questions, Strategies, and
Possibilities
- Kyle Whyte, Philosophy,
Michigan State University
The
Significance of Inter-Indigenous Knowledge Exchange: Experiences,
Ethics and Aspirations
- Moderator: Breny
Mendoza, California State University, Northridge
3:30-4:00
Coffee Break
4:00-5:00
Conclusions and Reflections (All participants)
- Moderated by Shu-mei
Shih
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