Taiwan Studies conference at ANU

I’ve just spent the past week in Canberra attending a Taiwan Studies conference at Australian National University (ANU). The conference titled “Taiwan: The View from the South” was hosted by the Australian Centre on China in the World. The conference brought together scholars from Australia, Taiwan and other countries

It was the first time that I had been involved in a Taiwan related academic activity in Australia. It was great to renew some of my connections with Taiwan, especially meeting with my supervisor Dr David Blundell. It was also a good opportunity to learn more about the work being done in the field of Taiwan Studies in Australia.

One of the highlights of the conference was screenings of films by Tsai Ming-liang followed by Q&A with Tsai, moderated and translated by Linda Jaivin. Tsai’s film “Stray Dogs” screened to a full house. The second night of screenings featured two short films, “No Form” and “The Skywalk is Gone”.

Keynote speeches by Australia’s two leading Taiwan scholars challenged the audience to think about new ways of understanding Taiwan. Emeritus Professor Bruce Jacobs examined Taiwan’s history in terms of colonialism. Dr Mark Harrison took an epistemological approach looking at the role of storytelling in creating narratives of Taiwan’s development.

At the conference there was discussion about establishing an Australia and New Zealand Taiwan Studies Association. This would complement similar organisations in Europe and North America. The conference showed that there is a strong Taiwan Studies community in Australia and a more formal organisation would only help to further promote it.

The Story of Smangus at Students of Sustainability

This morning I gave a presentation about Smangus at the Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference. This year the conference is being held in Bendigo, which is not far from where I live in Australia. I attended because it was a good chance to reconnect with the academic world and activists in Australia. It was also the first time I have done a presentation about my research in Taiwan for an Australian audience.

SoS is an annual conference organised by the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) which connects campus environment collectives from around Australia. I first attended SoS in 2004. Incidentally the 2004 conference was also the first time I met John Seed. I later had the chance to travel around Taiwan with John and visit some indigenous communities including Smangus.

My presentation, titled “The Story of Smangus: Indigenous Rights in Taiwan,” started with some background information about Taiwan and its indigenous peoples. I then followed this with some discussion of the Smangus community and the legal case about the right to use wood from a wind-fallen tree. As the key theme of the conference is sustainability I wanted people to know more about how the people of Smangus have used their traditional knowledge as the basis for a sustainable community. The word sustainability is often misused, but I think the people of Smangus and other indigenous peoples around the world have practiced sustainable ways of living for hundreds or even thousands of years. There are many lessons that can be learnt from them.

Indigenous issues are a major theme at SoS. The plenary on the first day of the conference was on sovereignty. Grassroots Aboriginal activists spoke about the topic. Their perspectives presented a radical challenge to the mainstream discourse on this issue in Australia. This afternoon I had the chance to further explore some of these issues in a workshop about working with indigenous communities. The workshop talked about the need for “decolonising our minds” in order to work effectively with indigenous peoples for justice.

Smangus presentation – Students of Sustainability [pdf file]

Ethnoecology workshop at Smangus

On Sunday and Monday I attended a conference in Smangus. The conference, organized by National Chiao Tung University (國立交通大學), brought together a small group of anthropologists to discuss the topic of “Rethinking environment, localisation and indigenisation.” While it poured rain on the Sunday afternoon the cafe at provided a great refuge for the presenters gave their papers.

The presentations started with Dr Lin Yih-ren (林益仁) talking about the politics of the plan for the Maqaw National Park. The proposed national park covers a mountain area that is the traditional territory of the Atayal people. The social movement to promote the park developed through several stages. Initially indigenous people were not involved but an alliance between indigenous people and conservationists later developed. However, there was also another indigenous group that opposed the park. The plan for the park is now suspended but it has had an important influence on the development of ecotourism and laws related to indigenous peoples.

Jackson Hu’s paper on the fetish landscapes of the Theravada Buddhist communities in the China-Burma border region wasn’t able to attend to give his presentation, but presented via a PowerPoint presentation with a voice recording.

Kerim Friedman presented a paper on language rights in Taiwan. He looked at how Taiwan developed a place-based multiculturalism in the 1990s, based on Japanese ideas. This has led to a fragmentation of the local language market. For example, there are 43 different language tests for Austronesian languages, even though there are only fourteen officially recognised ethno-linguistic groups.

The next set of presentations were both about Amis communities on the east coast of Taiwan. Yi-tze Lee (李宜澤) talked about the development of organic agriculture in the Talampo community in Fuli (富里). Interestingly this community is known as the “dark village” (黑色部落) because it has no electricity, a name that was also once given to Smangus. Lee contrasted the organic farming practices of Talampo with those of the Chinese-speaking farmers on nearby Liushi Dan Mountain (六十石山).

Next was a presentation about the ‘Tolan community (都蘭) near Taitung. The spirit of the community was very much present as four of the five authors, all members of the ‘Tolan community, were involved in giving the presentation. They looked at the driftwood from Typhoon Morakot and how this sparked action among the young people in the community. Even though most of the young men live outside the village, they discussed the topic via their community website and this led to them taking action to assert their rights to the wood.

Anna Tsing who is a professor of anthropology at the University of California Santa Cruz was the final presenter. She is well known for her book Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection which looks at the forests of southern Kalimantan in Indonesia as a site for understanding the interplay of the local, provincial, national and global networks that shape the forests.

Tsing’s paper was on the subject of “blasted landscapes.” She looked at the ecological the harvesting of matsutake mushrooms in four countries. These mushrooms only grow on disturbed forest environments with poor soils. Hence they can be used to understand the ecological concept of disturbance. The disturbed landscapes the matsutake mushrooms grow on show how humans can live in disturbed environments. For example, in the US Pacific Northwest the mushrooms are picked by Vietnam War veterans and refugees from Cambodia and Laos. Going into the forests and picking the mushrooms is a form of recuperation for these people whose lives have been affected by war.

A number of members of the Smangus community joined us in the evening for Anna Tsing’s presentation and then gave their own presentations. Lahuy Icyeh introduced the Smangus community and explained how they developed their communal system of management. Then Kevan Berg, a Ph.D. student from Canada, who is currently doing fieldwork in Smangus introduced his research. His study is about landscape ethnoecology and seeks to understand the forest habitat classifications of the Atayal in Smangus. Finally the chief of Smangus, Icyeh Sulung, spoke to the group. He was very happy that the conference was being held in Smangus. He said that the development of ecotourism in Smangus was a way to share traditional knowledge about the environment and to educate people about the importance of environmental protection.

The skies were clear on Monday morning as the group set out on the hike to the Yaya Qparung, the grove of ancient cypress trees. The walk was punctuated by a number of stops along the way where Lahuy talked about the history of various sites. Although the walking trail is now lined by bamboo and forest, it was until a few decades ago being cultivated in some areas. Some evidence of this is still present.

At lunch before we left Lahuy pounded some millet for everyone to try. Accompanied by wild honey it tasted quite delicious. The photo above shows Lahuy displaying some of the different millet varieties that are grown in Smangus. Although millet is no longer a staple in their the diet the people in Smangus still grow some millet every year. One of the reasons for this is to preserve the different varieties. Currently they grow seven varieties and they plan to cultivate more in the future.

Smangus was a great location for the conference on the ethnoecology. There was a chance to learn from anthropologists studying ecologically related topics and also learn directly about traditional ecological knowledge in Smangus.

*For more photos see Kerim’s set of Smangus photos at flickr.

Deepening democracy in Asia

A forum in Taipei yesterday titled “Democracy Building in Asia” brought together experts from Taiwan, the US and Asian countries. The forum was sponsored by the Heritage Foundation, Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) and the Institute for National Policy Research.

In one of the opening speeches John Chiang (蔣孝嚴), a Vice-Chairman of the KMT and board member of TFD, said it was timely to have the conference in Taiwan now that there have been two orderly and peaceful transitions of power and this shows that democracy can work in Asia.

Lin Wen-cheng (林文程), the President of TFD, speaking in the afternoon said that democratic countries should be more pro-active in promoting democracy in their foreign policy. Taiwan is the only country in Asia that has established a national foundation to promote democracy in the region. Lin said that other countries, especially Japan and South Korea, should establish similar organisations.

The need for greater regional efforts in promoting democracy was highlighted by the presentations of several foreign speakers. Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, President of the National Human Rights Society in Malaysia, said that Malaysia had a very good constitution that included a bill of rights when it obtained independence in 1957. However, since 1987 its democracy has been under attack. Malik emphasised the harm that had been done to the judiciary through sacking key judges who made decisions that went against the government and appointing crony judges.

Jarius Bondoc, a journalist from the Philippines, said that 67 journalists had been killed in the Philippines since 2001 and the harassment of journalists continues.

The first session in the morning was about legislative optimisation. It included talks by representatives of the Congressional/Parliamentary Research services from the US and India.

Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), a former legislator and currently Director of International Affairs for the DPP, spoke about how procedure in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan could be improved to consolidate democracy. She identified four categories for change: (1) electoral system, (2) structure of the Legislative Yuan, (3) accountability and (4) quality of legislation.

With regard to the electoral system she said the new system, first adopted in the 2008 election, resulted in a the KMT winning a large majority with many more seats than the percentage of their vote. Small parties were also locked out by the new system. I raised a question about exactly how the system should be improved. Bi-khim replied the issue is being discussed by the DPP but there is no consensus within the party. There is also no consensus between parties on the issue.

Bi-khim also discussed how there was a need to change the committee system in the legislature. The current system offers advantages to members of certain committees who can use them to secure projects for their electorates. There is no consideration of professional skills or seniority in assigning legislators to committees. The rotation of committee chairs also leads to inconsistencies.

As well as reform of the legislature, judicial reform was the topic in the final afternoon session. Dr Joseph Wu (吳釗燮), Taiwan’s former representative in Washington and now a professor at NCCU, said Taiwan has consolidated its democracy through two transitions of power, but there were still important issues that need to be resolved.

Wu highlighted the cases of the Kaohsiung MRT, Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen and former President Chen Shui-bian as examples of problems in the judicial system. He said there was a need for serious reform of the judicial system. In particular there needs to be better monitoring of judges, judges should not maintain close relationships with prosecutors, there should be presumption of innocence and the recruitment of prosecutors and judges needs to be reformed. There is also a need to revise the criminal procedure code to limit the detention period, Wu said.

Wu said the top leadership must recognise there is a problem with the judiciary and ask top officials to research and investigate this. The government must accept whatever recommendations are made and put them into place.

Other media: The Taipei Times published an article about the forum. The China Post also has a report. The Taiwan News has a related editorial today on reform of Legislative Yuan.

Poster presented at PNC, Academia Sinica

“The Right to Use Forest Resources: Atayal Culture and Smangus.” Poster presented at Pacific Neighbourhood Consortium (PNC) Annual Conference 2009 at Academia Sinica, Taipei, 6-8 October 2009.

View this document on Scribd

 

Poster presentation at anthropology conference

“Indigenous Rights in Taiwan and the Smangus Case.” Poster presented at the Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA) and Taiwan Society for Anthropology and Ethnology (TSAE) conference at Academia Sinica, Taipei, 2-5 July 2009.

View this document on Scribd

Religion and Gender Ethics Conference

The 2007 International Conference on Religious Culture and Gender Ethics (宗教文化與性別倫理國際學術會議) was held over the weekend at Hsuan Chuang University (玄裝大學) in Xinzhu.

I was one of the MCs at the conference. I made all the announcements in English, while Doris made the announcements in Mandarin.

On the first day of the conference the keynote speech was given by Dr Mettanando. The topic was “The First Council and Suppression of the Nuns”. Ven. Sujato also gave a talk about the status of nuns in early Buddhist history based on study of the Pali texts. Some more of his research on early Buddhism can be found at the Sects and Sectarianism website. It was very interesting to hear these two experts give their analysis of Buddhist history. Kate Crosby also spoke about early Buddhism looking at representations of the female in Theravada Buddhism. She noted that many Western scholars looking for Buddhist feminist writings draw on Mahayana and Vajrayana texts, yet the Theravada canon also contains feminist writings.

The first day was also notable for various feminist perspectives of Buddhism. The papers of David Schak and Elise A. DeVido showed that even though women have played a prominent and important role in Buddhism in Taiwan, there hasn’t really been a transformation in attitudes about gender roles.

The second day of the conference focused on other religious traditions, mainly Christianity and Islam. There were more excellent talks and lots of issues to think about. Overall there was an excellent line up of speakers from overseas and Taiwan.

Many thanks to Ven. Chao Hwei for giving me the opportunity to be involved in this conference.

INEB study tour

After the INEB conference many of the participants joined a study tour. The bus departed from Hongshi College early in the morning of 3 September. The first destination was Dharma Drum Mountain (法鼓山) in Jinshan. During the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain we had a tour of the facilities and short symposium followed by lunch.

Soon after he arrived in Taiwan Ajarn Sulak asked me to contact his old friend Professor Cheng Chen-huang (鄭振煌教授). They met each other during the visit to Dharma Drum Mountain. Professor Cheng told Ajarn that he was working on a project about Ajarn Buddhadasa Bhikkhu.

INEB Conference in Taiwan

Back in May when I visited Bangkok I met Ajarn Sulak and he informed me that the INEB* Conference would be held in Taiwan in September. I offered to help and soon I found myself busily involved in the planning and organisation of the conference.

The conference took place from 31 August to 2 September 2007 at Buddhist Hongshi College (佛教弘誓學院), near Zhongli. A four day study tour visiting Buddhist organisations around Taiwan took place after the conference.

The first formal event of the conference was a press conference. This was held at the Keng Tu Yuan (耕讀園) in Taipei on 29 September. The media contingent was small but included BLTV (人間電視） and the Apple Daily (蘋果日報). The panel of speakers at the press conference was made up of Ven. Chao Hwei (釋昭慧法師) and Ven. Shing Guang (釋性廣法師) of Hongshi College, Dr Yo Hsiang Chou (游祥洲), chief coordinator of the conference, Mr Zhang, the owner of Keng Tu Yuan, and myself. I am not sure if any reports appeared in the Chinese media, but the China Post and Taipei Times both carried articles.