 Hello again, let's talk about social inclusion. Taiwan's indigenous peoples have a long history of living as autonomous nations. However, as Taiwan democratized, the state began to recognize, let's say individual indigenous rights, but not indigenous sovereignty. And this is what we're addressing today in this episode. We have invited our two speakers, Scott Simon from the University of Ottawa and Awimona from the National Tonghua University in Taiwan. Our speakers, well, we're discussing with them two court rulings that illustrate how liberal indigeneity undermines indigenous sovereignty. We'll jump into that in a bit. Scott and Simon, Scott and Howie, sorry, welcome. Thank you, it's nice to be here. Nice to be here. Howie, I would perhaps start with you by asking the most obvious, probably a little bit obvious. Why is this topic important to conduct research on? Okay, thank you for the questions. I think the reason we pick up this topic is that in a very simple way, Taiwan or the Republic of China has always been identified by the whole world. It's more like a majority of Hans state. But in Taiwan, if we take the perspective of indigenous peoples, we have been living on this island for thousands of years. So some of the academic research has also pointed out that Taiwan is a land as a settler state. So there are a number of different issues that need to be clarified, not only within Taiwan, but also to expose to international communities. So I think that's one of the critical reasons why we pick up this topic as our research paper. To identify indigenous people is not part of the majority of Hans and not part of the idea of the state of Taiwan of Republic of China. We are inherently self-determined political entity and then that need to be clarified on this level. I think that's from what I thought about this topic. Maybe Scott can answer more. Scott, let's wrap this up a little bit more. What was the research gap specifically that you wanted to address in this study? Yeah, so I think what it was that in the year 2020, the pandemic was just beginning and I was in Taiwan and Aoi and I were at a meeting of the SEDEC National Council, but we found out that there was a demonstration in Taipei for Black Lives Matter. And it included the indigenous youth movement there and they made some very interesting speeches about the problems they have and making parallels with Black Lives Matter. And so that inspired the two of us to think through critical race theory and to see if there was something we could learn from critical race theory that's relevant to Taiwan and also if looking at the indigenous Taiwan legal issues if we can make a contribution as well to that literature of critical race theory. So that was kind of the gap we were looking for was trying to bring together, like at that demonstration in Taipei, critical race theory and indigenous Taiwan. And the result I think was quite interesting. So let's jump into those findings. Okay, so I think that the main findings of the study was we took a look at two court rulings. And one of the main issues of critical race theory is that there are often laws and court decisions that protect the rights of individuals, but they don't change the system and they don't change some of the systemic forms of racism that exists. And that's kind of what we found here with these two court cases that we looked at. The first is one that we have both looked at intensely for a long time. And it was a case about an indigenous hunter who had been arrested, found guilty and charged with illegally possessing a hunting rifle that was not, because the rule is in Taiwan, indigenous people can't hunt, but they have to make their own rifles. And so he had a rifle that was just a little bit too advanced. And he also had failed to register with the authorities according to law, which says that they have to register where and when they're going to hunt, what they're going to catch. And hunters know that's impossible. Animals don't make appointments with them. And so basically the court ruled that the laws are, another thing it was also charged with taking endangered species. And so the court basically ruled that the laws that limit hunting are reasonable, that they can limit the species that they're not permitted to hunt endangered species or any kind of limited species. And they have to follow the rules about registration, but the rules about the guns, they have to be made clear. So it's not changing the law at all, it's just asking them to make them a bit clearer and easier to follow. It's a question of proportionality. And then the second one was about whether or not children born of a hunt or a non-indigenous and an indigenous parent would be able to have indigenous status if they use the non-indigenous name. The law until then it said, you have to use the indigenous name to get status. And they decided that's an individual choice whether you use your Han Chinese name, which I think the fathers would like them to do if the father is Chinese or not. And so the court decided it's an individual decision. Now both of these impinge upon indigenous sovereignty. The idea I think is that hunters should be able to regulate their own hunting grounds and that there really should be ways in which the indigenous communities rather than the state decide their own membership roles. And so both of these court rulings, although they uphold the rights of individuals and though they claim to be anti-discriminatory, they actually failed to recognize indigenous sovereignty. So that was the main finding. Let's follow up on this, Harvey. So I think the two important ideas that Scott passed was how the system is not able to fight systemic forms of racism and is affection on indigenous sovereignty. I'm curious to know more about policy impacts, potential policy impacts of what you found, Harvey. I think thanks for that follow Scott's point. I think I would divide into two different aspects from the individual aspect. I think it is a way from our finding that indigenous individual can have more discussion and talk to the general public. How does this naming? I mean, how does this naming on indigenous people can be racial and we can adjust this type of inferiority impulse on indigenous peoples? And on the collective aspect for the public policy, I think it is very important and we can see this changing especially from the 2016, the National Apology delivered by our president, Tsai Ing-wen. So that has a shift. I mean, it's a shift from the government part which brings back to a general society what we have been advancing in Taiwan. We call it indigenous mainstreaming, which means the policy has to take into account the collective part of the indigenous sovereignty to do the evaluation on the older indigenous policy. I think that's one of the collective aspect how our research finding has already been pushed forward. And another example is that Taiwan has launched a series of national report on the International Human Rights Convention. How does our government has been implemented in Taiwan? And right now we are currently doing the ICERD, the so-called International Convention on all forms of racial discrimination. So in the past, we always take, we always see these the convention from the individual basis but right now we have to take into account the collective part of indigenous claims. When we evaluate how does the government policy has impact on indigenous peoples? So I think that that's a number of different examples we have been seeing right now in Taiwan. Perfect. And how we both on the individual or either on the individual or collective changes for the future, let's look at the research now again. So what can we look for in terms of research for the future? What's left to find? I think, yeah, Scott. Go ahead, I'll help after you. Okay, so I think there's a lot of work that we can both do and we've been working together as an anthropologist, do those ethnography and then as a legal scholar. But I think that for ethnographical research, I think that there's quite a bit to do. There are 16 officially recognized indigenous nations. They're recognized as peoples. They don't always have the same aspirations to nationhood or, and so I think that it would be good to do research and this is gonna take a lot of people on the different groups and what are their dreams and aspirations for sovereignty and how does that fit in with their traditional and customary law, which all of them have, the Cedek, Awee, and those from the Cedek has a law called Gaya. And so really to understand these customary laws and how that relates to sovereignty, I think is very important and to do the diversity of it across the island. So Awee. Yeah, I think for the future development, it is, and it should be a motivation for the Taiwan academic or even the public officials because indigenous people in Taiwan for a long, long time has been recognized as a part of the majority hunts. So I think the future development, especially on the research, we will be taking a very critical and important aspect on this critical ratio theory to explore more on how does the public policy should be reviewed and evaluate and maybe do more future research and that should be interdisciplinary field under all the different academic area that we can all collaborate together. I think that's forward we can see. So you did work on the tip of the iceberg of a big iceberg still to explore there. Scott, some further materials that you'd like to share with our listeners? Yeah, sure. First of all, I would suggest that listeners take a look at the article because the bibliography is quite good. Awee Mona's essay that's in there is I think a very important touch tone article. And I think that the idea that the doctrine of discovery applies also to Taiwan is something that's important there. If I can do some self promotion, I also in this year have published a book with the University of Toronto Press. It's called Truly Human Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa. It's based on years and years of research with actually in the community where Awee's father and the community where his mother comes from and some others and really looking at issues of Gaian traditional law and what that means moving forward not just for the Zedek in Taiwan but also for humans because we're living in a difficult time with the climate change and threats of war on the horizon and so forth. So I think those traditional laws and ideas of morality are quite important. Mm-hmm, this has been quite a straight on point episode. I'm sure our listeners will agree on that but I will ask you to close this episode with a punchline in one to sentences to wrap up this whole conversation. What would it be? For me, it would be to remember that Indigenous peoples exist in many parts of the world not just in the paradigmatic cases of the US, Canada and Australia, New Zealand but Taiwan also has Indigenous peoples who were there thousands of years before any state ever controlled this island long before any Chinese or Japanese or any outsiders like the Dutch and the Spanish were there. So I think that's the important takeaway. They're Indigenous peoples on the island and they're there to stay. Perfect, straight to the point. Scott, Awee, thank you very much for this episode. Good, thank you very much. To our listeners, if you are watching us on YouTube you can find all the resources that Scott mentioned and the article by Scott and Awee in Let's Talk About Social Inclusion website. Everything is there for you to access, totally open access. You can also listen to this episode wherever you get your podcast. You can subscribe to our newsletter and you can follow us on Twitter at KojitatioLTA.