From the streets to the villages : aboriginal movement in Taiwan; the trapsformation of ethnic identity from the 1980s to 1990s

Abstract

An amount of scholars have addressed various perspectives in regard of the complexities of race and ethnicity. Later on social movement theorists presented different approaches in inquiring of the structural dynamics of collective actions and some laid emphases on collective identity in social movement. Based upon these discussions, this research inquires the dynamics of initiation of Taiwan's pan-aboriginal movement and the triggers of its orientation shifts by looking at the changes of structural circumstance. Furthermore, this research also investigates the dynamics of formation and transformation of Taiwan's aboriginal collective identity (called "Taiwan's pan-aboriginalism" in this research adopted from Hsieh Shinh-Chung) through reviewing Taiwan's colonial historical contexts. The finding shows that the stigmatized collective identity is a historical product which afterward prompted the initiation of Taiwan's pan-aboriginal movement, the notion of pan-aboriginalism (Yuanzhumin) and the blueprint of Taiwan' aboriginal nation (Yuanzhumintsu), nevertheless, were constructed in the process of social movement as a strategy of movement mobilization. Moreover, if the raison d'etre of aboriginal movement is to rescue their tribes, then the proposition of and tribalism is eventually inevitable.