Written by Choesang Scholer.
Image credit: Woman Vendor in 2-28 Peace Park – Taipei – Taiwan by Adam Jones/ Flickr, license: CC BY 2.0.
In the broader discourse on Taiwanese identity, especially as Taiwan increasingly asserts itself as distinct from the People’s Republic of China, Indigenous identity has become a paradoxical symbol. While the 16 officially recognised Indigenous Taiwanese groups are publicly celebrated as the island’s original inhabitants, they continue to face harsh realities: persistent appropriation of indigeneity for political ends, ongoing human rights infringements, and the ineffective delivery of Indigenous rights. Some of the most notable challenges Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples face today include rapidly disappearing cultures and languages, encroachment onto their traditional domain, the denial of their rights and the exclusion of the lowland (Pingpu) Indigenous Peoples. Despite the pressures of external forces on Indigenous land and domain, Indigenous community members utilise art as a medium for political protest to amplify their concerns when their government fails to do so.
To understand how Indigenous communities in Taiwan express their multifaceted and complex relationship with their identity and the state, it is critical to engage with the island’s colonial history. Beginning in the early seventeenth century, Taiwan’s Indigenous populations have endured successive eras of European and Asian colonisation, land dispossession, and forced cultural assimilation. In contemporary times, Indigenous populations have received some legal protections from the Taiwanese government—starting in the Chen Shui-bian era—however, the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (a global human-rights organisation for Indigenous peoples) emphasises that despite the adoption of protective laws, serious discrepancies and contradictions in the legislation, coupled with only partial implementation of these laws, [have] stymied progress towards the self-governance of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples.
Moreover, authentic engagement with Indigenous concerns is further hindered by the blatant appropriation of Indigenous identity by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the current ruling party. The rising identification of equating Taiwaneseness to one synonymous with Indigenous identity by various political leaders prioritises party politics and a nationalist agenda that seeks to assert a Taiwanese identity separate from both the oppositional party, the Kuomintang (KMT), and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) over legitimate transitional justice. In an interview on Taiwan Indigenous Studies at the University of Washington, Professor Stevan Harrell poses a poignant rhetoric about the ethics of pro-independence groups, DPP members, and even larger Taiwanese society looking to find something indigenous about themselves. Or to say that I’m not Chinese, even though my ancestors came from Fujian or from Guangdong, challenging these ideas as a form of cultural appropriation. Consequently, these groups contradict their self-proclaimed fundamental progressive values, while they simultaneously promote these values as defining characteristics that distinguish them from their opposition.
In practice, Indigenous representation frequently involves selectively embracing elements of Indigenous culture—traditional dress, language, and rituals—commodified for cultural tourism and political symbolism, often without addressing the deeper struggles Indigenous communities face. Consequently, there is a concern that, despite the political and commercial success of indigenous culture, the indigenous peoples are being left behind. Although the DPP presents itself as a progressive force committed to inclusion and decolonisation, its actions have mirrored a top-down approach that sidelines Indigenous voices. Indigeniety can no longer be co-opted for party politics and national self-interest, and the state’s relationship with Indigenous peoples must move beyond the transactional. Reciprocity is vital in the promotion of Indigenous culture and rights; thus, political groups across the spectrum cannot advocate for Indigenous rights theoretically, while in practice failing to fully deliver them. For many Indigenous activists, such performative gestures do little to address ongoing issues and limited access to political power.
Therefore, as Indigenous concerns remain stifled and cultural exploitation proliferates, the community response is clear and steadfast in choosing to disrupt the existing status quo by reclaiming Indigenous identities, culture, arts, and history on their own terms. More specifically, the emergence of contemporary art by indigenous artists provided an avenue for cultural revitalisation, the expression of identity and the creative consideration of current realities.This identity-building expression appears across various modes through paintings, novels, dance, music, film, photography, and other forms, inviting narratives that challenge four centuries of historical and contemporary colonial interpretations.
One unique manner in which Indigenous peoples combat appropriation and selective remembrance is by decolonising Taiwan’s art through Indigenous-centred curation. For example, Biung Ismahasan—a Bunun, Atayal, and Kanakanavu curator, artist, and researcher—critiques, in Taiwan, non-Indigenous curators and academics (self)identified as experts in the fields of Indigenous Contemporary Art were controlling major publishing and curatorial contracts [in museums]. He further points to a pattern of misunderstanding, biased judgment, and appropriation of Taiwan’s Indigenous cultures [which] betrayed the very communities who entrusted them with their art, thus perpetuating a history of hegemonic pillaging of tribal cultures. Thus, the discussion of indigenous art must encompass not only the production of art itself—creating authentic, self-produced narratives of indigeneity—but also it is crucial to question the methodology of curation and its institutional effect on historical memory. This intentional discourse alongside the negotiation of biases and positionality is essential for constructing a Taiwanese identity rooted in a real collective imagination of Indigenous peoples, rather than one shaped by countless instances of objectification, essentialisation, or co-optation on both the individual and societal level.
These works of art create visibility and, through their increasing distribution, further conversations on indigeneity. For instance, Professor Lin Guo-Ting, an Amis assistant professor at Ming Chuan University, introduces Indigenous music to discuss Indigenous issues in Taiwan, such as discrimination, loss or quest for identity, and Indigenous movements to her primarily Han students. Art, in this case, through the form of music, opens accessible spaces for discourse on Indigenous causes not only in museums but in classrooms as well.
Moreover, the artists themselves serve as a vehicle for protest just as much as their art. Consider Amis singer Panai Kusui, who protested for more than 1,400 days in central Taipei to demand that the government expand the territory that indigenous tribes can reclaim as their ancestral land. Likewise, the Indigenous Ketagalan Boulevard Protest started when filmmaker Mayaw Biho and singers Nabu Husungan Istanda and Panai Kusui…began a ‘sleepout’ on Ketagalan Boulevard to protest. They argued that the new regulations amount to justifying a theft of the 1 million hectares of indigenous land that have been designated as private property. Through their encampment, concerts, public art, and collaboratively painted rocks, they continued to wield art—and their positions as artists—as a means of asserting sovereignty. Subsequently, showcasing yet again how ineffective governance has led Indigenous communities to adopt art as the only viable means of protest.
Indigenous artists, academics, and their art challenge dominant narratives of both Taiwanese and Indigenous identity, fostering self-recognition and advocating for Indigenous rights and sovereignty. While these art forms create spaces for dialogue, visibility, and authenticity, it is crucial that non-Indigenous Taiwanese and the nation’s leaders respond in kind with these communities’ civic engagement and protest. A more honest reckoning with Taiwanese identity requires moving beyond symbolic inclusion toward substantive justice: returning land, investing in Indigenous-led education, promoting self-determination, and implementing Indigenous voices in national decision-making. Fostering genuine inclusivity in Taiwan’s national identity, beyond performative acts and unfulfilled legal protections, can be what truly differentiates the two regions across the strait.
Choesang Scholer is an undergraduate student at Stanford University studying International Relations with a specialisation in East and South Asia and a particular focus on China.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Stanford Student Commentaries‘.
Taiwan Insight 