Monday September 9th
At 14:15-15:15
Metsätalo (Unioninkatu 40), Room C606
Identity politics, for individuals or in a collective sense, is an important part of any society that pursues and respects multiculturalism. The identity issue of the plains indigenous peoples (or PingPu Indigenous Populations) is closely connected to their political rights. Therefore, they cannot resort to the “self identification” model proposed by the UN standard to retrieve their rights. In Taiwan, Siraya Peoples, one of the PingPu or Plains indigenous peoples not officially recognized as indigenous, has been advocating for self-identification and the restoration of identity vigorously and popularly with the restoration movements of the plains peoples in the recent years. Especially, the language and cultural reviving attempts and the reconstruction of traditional festivals stemming from the local scenes are worth noting as they have gained the support of the local government to fight against the policies of the central government. In August 1, 2016, the Indigenous Peoples Day in Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-Wen made an official apology to indigenous peoples on behalf of the government, bringing new hope to the restoration of identities and rights of the plains indigenous peoples. This presentation wishes to examine the definition of the identity of Taiwan indigenous peoples, taking Siraya peoples’ movements as an example, to analyze the difficulties confronting their restoration of rights and name, and to offer an understanding on the current status quo and insights into future challenges for this movement.
Dr. Jolan Hsieh | Bavaragh Dagalomai is Professor at Department of Ethnic Relations and Cultures and Director at Center for International Indigenous Affairs, College of Indigenous Studies, National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan. She is a Taiwanese indigenous scholar of Siraya Nation. Jolan earned her Ph.D in Justice Studies (Interdisciplinary Law and Social Science Program, 2002) from Arizona State University- Main, USA. Jolan’s research areas are Law and Society, Human Rights, Identity Politics, Global Indigenous Studies, Gender/ Ethnicity/Class, Environmental Justice, Indigenous Research and Ethics. Jolan’s book publications include Collective Rights of Indigenous Peoples:Identity-Based Movement of Plains Indigenous in Taiwan (Routledge, 2006 / 2010) and In-between: Indigenous Research and Activism as Ceremonial Journey (in Chinese, Daw-Shiang, 2017). Jolan enjoys to enhance research, education and innovation cooperation with various international educational institutions with indigenous focus, most notably recent partnership are with Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Canada, US, Hawaii, and Japan.Jolan leads two Ministry of Education funded projects, “Taiwan – Aotearoa New Zealand Indigenous Higher Education Connection” and “Mainstreaming Taiwan Indigenous Cultures and Languages”, and Principal Investigator for several Ministry of Science and Technology and Council for Indigenous Peoples’ research projects.
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