Intro to Indigenous Taiwan

I often get asked about resources to learn about Indigenous Taiwanese culture and history, especially for people who are just starting off. Although I try to write my own publications with a wide audience in mind (and I cite widely, making the bibliographies a useful resource on their own), I know there is a need for a more basic starting point. On this page I’ve collected some of those references.

Style guides

Writing about Indigenous issues in English can be tricky, since the language we use continues to change in response to ongoing social movements. For this reason it helps to consult Indigenous style guides on proper usage. I’ve made a separate page for this: Indigenous Style Guides

General Texts

• While I wish there was a nice book length text which served this purpose, right now one of the best places to start is actually the Wikipedia page on this topic. Fortunately, it is pretty well put together.
• There are then three edited volumes that are excellent starting points:
  • Blundell, David, ed. 2009. Austronesian Taiwan: Linguistics, History, Ethnology, Prehistory. (2nd edition). Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines.
  • Fell, Dafydd, Daniel Davies, and Chia-Yuan Huang. 2021. Taiwan’s Contemporary Indigenous Peoples. Routledge. (Available this July)
  • Shih, Shu-Mei, and Lin-Chin Tsai, eds. 2021. Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond. Springer, Singapore.
• And here is a collection of Indigenous Taiwanese literature
  • Balcom, John, and Yingtish Balcom. 2005. Indigenous Writers of Taiwan: An Anthology of Stories, Essays, and Poems. Columbia University Press.
• The syllabus for my course on “Indigenous Taiwan on Screen” also contains some useful introductory texts, and a lot of great films as well.
• Also see my page on Taiwan Maps and Guides where I include Cheryl Robbins guide books for traveling in Indigenous Areas.

Specific Topics

• This is not meant to be a comprehensive bibliography, but only to provide entry points for further research.
• Early contact:
  • Shepherd, John Robert. 1993. Statecraft and Political Economy on the Taiwan Frontier, 1600-1800. Stanford University Press.
• The Japanese era:
  • Friedman, P. Kerim. 2010. “Entering the Mountains to Rule the Aborigines: Taiwanese Aborigine Education and the Colonial Encounter.” In Becoming Taiwan, from Colonialism to Democracy, edited by Ann Heylen and Scott Sommers, 19–32. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz-Verlag. (Preprint.)
  • Barclay, Paul D. 2017. Outcasts of Empire: Japan’s Rule on Taiwan’s “Savage Border,” 1874-1945. University of California Press. (Available as open access text.)
• Pingpu (Plain Indigenous Peoples)
  • Brown, Melissa J. 2004. Is Taiwan Chinese?: The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Hsieh, Jolan. 2006. Collective Rights of Indigenous Peoples : Identity-Based Movement of Plain Indigenous in Taiwan. New York: Routledge.
• Headhunting
  • Simon, Scott. 2012. “Politics and Headhunting among the Formosan Sejiq: Ethnohistorical Perspectives.” Oceania; a Journal Devoted to the Study of the Native Peoples of Australia, New Guinea, and the Islands of the Pacific 82 (2): 164–85.
• Contemporary Politics
  • Simon, Scott. 2010. “Negotiating Power: Elections and the Constitution of Indigenous Taiwan.” American Ethnologist 37 (4): 726–40.
  • Simon, Scott, and Awi (Chi Wei-Tsai) Mona. 2012. “Human Rights and Indigenous Self-Government: The Taiwanese Experience.” In Human Rights and the Third World: Issues and Discourses, edited by Subrata Sankar Bagchi and Arnab Das, 99–122. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
  • Ku, Kun-Hui. 2012. “Rights to Recognition: Minorities and Indigenous Politics in Emerging Taiwan Nationalism.” In Taiwan Since Martial Law: Society, Culture, Politics, Economy, edited by David Blundell, 91–129. Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines, University of California, Berkeley & National Taiwan University Press.
  • Simon, Scott. 2020. “Yearning for Recognition: Indigenous Formosans and the Limits of Indigeneity.” International Journal of Taiwan Studies 3 (2): 191–216.
• Culture and Identity
  • Friedman, P. Kerim. 2018. “The Hegemony of the Local: Taiwanese Multiculturalism and Indigenous Identity Politics.” Boundary 2 45 (3): 79–105. (Preprint.)
  • Rudolph, Michael. 2008. Ritual Performances as Authenticating Practices: Cultural Representations of Taiwan’s Aborigines in Times of Political Change. LIT Verlag Münster.