Legal Indigeneities: Identity, Authenticity, and Power in Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts
講者：Chris Upton，清華大學世界南島暨原住民族中心科技部博士後研究員
時間：2022/4/27（三）15:00-17:00
地點：清華大學人文社會學院 C304 教室
主辦單位：清華大學人類學研究所、清華大學世界南島暨原住民族中心
協辦單位：清華大學人文社會研究中心
Abstract:
In this presentation, I discuss my ethnographic research on Taiwan's Indigenous courts in 2017-2018. I focus in particular on performances of Indigeneity in encounters between Indigenous people and the Taiwan legal system. Studying displays of Indigenous identities reveals the processes through which individuals and communities draw upon histories and practices to fashion themselves as Indigenous and engage with wider publics through performances and performative acts. Focusing on three encounters between Indigenous people and the Taiwan legal system, displays of Indigeneity in these encounters were multivalent and involved a repertoire of creative performative acts as Indigenous actors used court spaces, particularly the newly established ad hoc Chamber of Indigenous Courts, to perform identities that confounded essentialist conceptions of Indigeneity, introduced alternative ontological parameters, and assumed state governance responsibilities. These performances suggest a contextually situated engagement with the postcolonial state where Indigenous identities are anchored in the past and forward-looking, reinforce or challenge the category of Indigeneity, and themselves operate as techniques of power.
時間：2022/4/27（三）15:00-17:00
地點：清華大學人文社會學院 C304 教室
主辦單位：清華大學人類學研究所、清華大學世界南島暨原住民族中心
協辦單位：清華大學人文社會研究中心
Abstract:
In this presentation, I discuss my ethnographic research on Taiwan's Indigenous courts in 2017-2018. I focus in particular on performances of Indigeneity in encounters between Indigenous people and the Taiwan legal system. Studying displays of Indigenous identities reveals the processes through which individuals and communities draw upon histories and practices to fashion themselves as Indigenous and engage with wider publics through performances and performative acts. Focusing on three encounters between Indigenous people and the Taiwan legal system, displays of Indigeneity in these encounters were multivalent and involved a repertoire of creative performative acts as Indigenous actors used court spaces, particularly the newly established ad hoc Chamber of Indigenous Courts, to perform identities that confounded essentialist conceptions of Indigeneity, introduced alternative ontological parameters, and assumed state governance responsibilities. These performances suggest a contextually situated engagement with the postcolonial state where Indigenous identities are anchored in the past and forward-looking, reinforce or challenge the category of Indigeneity, and themselves operate as techniques of power.