CLAIMING SPACE, LAND AND ECOLOGY: Mapping Geographies of Indigenous and Decolonial Urbanisms in Taipei

Abstract

AbstractThe city is often understood as the antithesis of Indigeneity. In Taiwan, a settler colony where the Han Chinese have colonized Austronesian Indigenous peoples, dominant understandings and representations situate Indigenous vibrancy outside large cities such as Taipei and Kaohsiung, despite the large‐scale urbanization of Indigenous peoples over the past several decades. This essay is based on long‐term ethnographic research in Taipei and explores how urbanized Indigenous people in the Taiwanese metropolis persist in claiming the city's space, land and ecology despite both cartographic and physical displacements of their presence. It maps out emerging Indigenous and decolonial urbanisms in Taiwan, discussing the work of Indigenous artists and the spatial and ecological practices of urban Indigenous community residents.