Academic literature on the topic 'Truku (Taiwan people)'

Since the 1960’s, Truku people, one of the Austronesian groups in Taiwan, have suffered from loss of lands, arising from various governmental policies, privatization of land ownership, and implications of the modern legal system. This paper is to look at how the emergence of the privatization has significantly produced and reproduced various kinds of the gender tensions arising from the conflicts of the women’s land ownership in Truku society. The privatization of the land ownership and the introduction of the modern legal system is argued to have created two unique concepts of land rights: men’s and women’s land in the contemporary Truku society. The former is based on the discourse of the Truku tradition interpreted and represented by the men; but the later one is relied on the legal protection from the modern law for the women and their contributions to farming and taking care of their parents’ lands. Furthermore, the different perspectives of whether or not women customarily or legally have land ownership have profoundly influenced on the social interactions among households in people’s daily lives as well as on the strategies of the land reclamation movements in Truku society.

Around the world, especially since the passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, indigenous people have hoped that advances in legal rights can help them gain recognition for their ecological knowledge and autonomy in the use of natural resources. In Taiwan, following legal changes in the 2005 Basic Law on Indigenous Peoples, indigenous people hope to gain control of their own hunting regime through establishment of co-management boards with national parks and other state institutions on their traditional territories. This article explores hunting practices and indigenous knowledge in Truku communities. Hunters and trappers possess rich knowledge about the mammals and birds of the forests. Hunting practices embed them in the ancestral law of Gaya and contribute to cultural survival. This article explores whose knowledge is most relevant to the establishment of co-management institutions and makes suggestions for their creation.

Abstract Indigeneity, enshrined in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is an international governance model that promises sovereignty and self-government to indigenous nations. Anthropologists have expressed concern that indigeneity may become an avatar of neoliberal governance that benefits a small elite and contributes to the hypermarginalisation of the poor. This multi-scalar ethnography explores the meaning of indigeneity in Seediq and Truku communities. The author concurs that legal indigeneity fails to meet the needs of the poor. Most ordinary indigenous people perceive that they already benefit from Taiwan’s existing legal framework and fail to understand the need for new institutions. For the case of Taiwan, moreover, the limits of indigeneity are most evident in the exclusion of Taiwanese indigenous peoples—and Taiwan—from United Nations mechanisms. As indigeneity degenerates into great power politics, it falls short of its aspirations to recognise indigenous nations as ontological equals to established states.

Background: The Truku indigenous people of Taiwan share strong cultural and genetic relationships with the Atayal tribe. Archaeological and linguistic studies show that their line of descent is associated to Proto-Austronesian speaking groups from Southeast Asia who settled in Taiwan in the early Neolithic, 6000 years ago.

Sixteen Indigenous peoples/nations have been officially recognized by Taiwan’s government: Amis (Pangcah), Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Puyuma, Rukai, Tsou, Saisiyat, Yami (Tao), Thao, Kavalan, Truku, Sakizaya, Seediq, Kla'alua and Kanakanavu. Additionally, some ten nations of the plains Indigenous peoples (such as Siraya, and Makatao) are obtaining recognition for their lost Indigenous status since the work of Transitional Justice initiated by President Tsai Ing-wen. Unlike the later migrants who came from southeastern China, Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples belong to the larger Austronesian grouping of peoples who have spread across all of the Pacific Ocean, to Southeast Asia and across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar. According to official records, the Indigenous population of Taiwan is close to 560,000, constituting 2.24 per cent of the island’s total population.

This research is based upon fieldwork carried out in 2005 and 2006 among Truku people, a Taiwanese indigenous group living in eastern Taiwan. It examines the transformation of the relationship between women and land, and explores meanings related to women’s ownership of land since the government introduced the privatisation of land ownership and cash cropping into Truku society in the 1960s. However, the imposition of these programmes of land reform and capitalisation has generated various types of conflict over land in Truku society. Since the 1960s, Truku people have suffered from loss of lands, arising from various governmental policies on economic development. Hence, many land reclamation movements have arisen, organised by Truku people in order to reclaim their land rights. Furthermore, the transformation of property relations has generated many conflicts over land and inheritance between different households and has created tensions between women and men in terms of land ownership in contemporary society. Most importantly, I reflect on the prevalent idea that women’s right to own land is not sanctioned by ‘traditional’ Truku culture, an argument which, I argue, is problematic, because the idea does not (neatly) fit into actual Truku practices of property transaction. Truku people strategically make use of this narrative of ‘tradition’ in order to strengthen their own tactical position in land disputes which arise between different households. Furthermore, I am critical of the emphasis placed on masculine or male Truku culture in this narrative, which is constructed by Truku activists in land reclamation movements in contemporary Truku society. Through investigation of the processes by which women obtain land in Truku society, I argue that women’s ownership of land cannot simply be regarded as a consequence of the implications of privatisation, but is also a result of kinship practices and their work in cultivating land and maintaining the economic well-being of the household in contemporary society. This research attempts to contribute to anthropological perspectives on property relations, economic anthropology, gender studies, kinship studies and studies of indigenous movements in Taiwan.

Indigenous areas in Taiwan were a ‘special administrative region’ during the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945). The Japanese police controlled the primary aspects of everyday life of indigenous people. Some policies concerning indigenous people have been continued in the post-colonial regimes of Han Chinese until now. Protected areas (PAs) have been established since the 1980s by central government when Taiwan was still under the martial law. National parks are typical protected area with rigorous conservation restrictions. Some protected areas actually overlapped with the traditional domains of indigenous people. Community conservation is a participatory protected area and has emerged around the 1990s. It is seen as a reform of fortress protected areas such as parks because it integrates both objectives of conservation and development. The rolling back of the state and empowerment of the local community are assumed to be the features of such a reformed policy. Community conservation has become popular among indigenous communities of Taiwan since 2000. This study aims to look at the interactions between state authorities and local indigenous people in PAs. Two Truku villages in east Taiwan were selected as case studies, as one is in Taroko National Park while the other conducted a community conservation project in the 2000s. Qualitative methods were employed for data collection. Drawing from the theory of political ecology, a framework is constructed drawing together human territoriality, resistance, and social impacts. This analysis framework was employed to examine the acts of state agencies and local Truku people, and social repercussions in the Truku examples in the context of PAs. Research results showed that the establishment of PAs and conservation policy implementations in PAs by state agencies were acts of internal territorialisation. Such a spatial classification restricted the locals’ exploitation of natural resources according to the imposed regulations. Through the control enforcement by state agencies and judicial authorities, conflicts between the local indigenous people and state agencies have happened. Even the co-management arrangement of the Park and the planning of scenic areas for local development revealed the domination of power by the government. These restrictions resulted in unpleasant social impacts such as difficulties of cultural practices and livelihood selections as well as the undermining social capital in the local indigenous communities. Accordingly, the local Truku people mobilised resistance to the conservation interventions via individual everyday practices and collective protests. Their resistance aimed to express their sustenance demands and ethnic claims. Differences between covert and overt resistance depended on the degree of empowerment. Through the process of empowerment, local protesters gained more information and political dynamics for their collective action, open resistance. I primarily contend that the establishment of PAs and conservation policy implementations by governmental agencies, whether through parks or community conservation, are acts of internal territoriality. Territorialisation of the state tends to result in resistance by the local indigenous residents due to the negative social impacts as a result of conservation interventions. This argument also interprets the unexpected consequence, resistance of the local indigenous people, of PA policies in Taiwan. To avoid the undesired outcome of policy implementation and social cost, it is necessary to build trust between them. A participatory project which confers genuine power and accords with local norms may be feasible. Decentralised power could be the first step of a breakthrough.

碩士<br>國立花蓮教育大學<br>學習科技研究所<br>97<br>The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Web-based Traditional Instruments Workshop（WTIW） on practicum course of making Taiwan Indiginous Truku people Jaw’s harp. The subjects were selected from the university in East part of Taiwan. The researcher selected 38 samples as the experiment group, accepting the concept of WTIW as the learning method. The 35 samples were assigned to the control group, maintaining the traditional learning style. Experiment group carried out a period of four weeks （3 hours per week） experimental education, and control group carried out a two-day workshop （6 hours per day） experimental education. This research uses a quasi-experiment research design. The dependent variables include the Cognitive Assessment of jaw’s harp cultural knowledge, achievement in Skill of making jaw’s harp and Self-Efficacy Scale of Skill. Its independent variable is the teaching method. For the research information, the researcher used such statistical methods as Paired Samples T Test or Single Factor ANCOVA to perform the test. With the analysis of Single Factor ANCOVA, counseling quantitative information and qualitative interviewer of the research, the result indicated that 1） Performance of experiment group showed significant difference on Cognitive Assessment of jaw’s harp cultural knowledge. 2） Experiment group performed better than control group on the skill of making jaw’s harp. 3） Experiment group performed better on the total score in Self-Efficacy Scale of Skill and the construction of Confidence and Favor, Interest and Challenge, Drive and Pressure, Will and self-Constraint than the control group. 4） Most students had maintained a positive attitude towards WTIW. They are engage in attending the workshop. According to the research findings and conclusions, the researcher provided some suggestions to the cultural transmission of making traditional instruments and the future researchers for reference.