Book Review : Shu-mei Shih and Lin-chin Tsai (Eds.), Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond

I reviewed the Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond, edited by Shu-mei Shih and Lin-Chin Tsai.Non peer reviewe

Outcasts of Empire: Japan’s Rule on Taiwan’s ‘Savage Border’ 1874–1945, written by Paul D. Barclay, (2018)

Book review. Reviewed work: Outcasts of Empire: Japan’s Rule on Taiwan’s ‘Savage Border’ 1874–1945, written by Paul D. Barclay. - 2018.Non peer reviewe

Indigenous Peoples’ Self-determination and Long-term Care: Sápmi and Nunavut

This paper examines long-term care for the elderly as a point of departure for critically engaging with the debate on the self-determination of Indigenous peoples. By employing the case of the Arctic Indigenous peoples, the Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi) in Norway and Government of Nunavut in Canada, are utilised as central cases from which to explore the institutionalization and self-determination. The thrust of the paper calls for a critical re-investigation of the contingency of long-term care for the elderly in the context of claims of Indigenous sovereignty. Specifically, I examine the landscape of population ageing and the organisation of care among the Sápmi and Nunavut populations, focusing on colonisation from a circumpolar perspective. The functions and practices of Sámediggi and Government of Nunavut are analysed to illustrate how self-determination is exercised and to what extent they safeguard the rights of elderly people. Sámediggi and Nunavut government as institutional arrangements that mark significant advancements in Indigenous peoples’ reclamation of power and restoration of sovereign rights are discussed. Unfortunately, the political functions that would allow self-determination and self-government to be effective continue to be limited for the Inuit in Nunavut and the Sámi in Sápmi on the Norwegian side

Social Policies for Older Indigenous People in Taiwan

This is based on the introductory lecture (lektio) that I gave in my defense, which was held on 18th May 2021.Peer reviewe

Sosiaalipolitiikka ja alkuperäiskansat Taiwanissa

This dissertation examines the relationship between the colonial state and Indigenous peoples by focusing on the case of elderly care. Studying the Tayal in Taiwan, it investigates aging, care and well-being from the Indigenous paradigm. The aim is to develop the hermeneutic perspective of the Tayal to privilege their voices in reconfiguring the concept of care. Three research questions are posed: 1) What are the “Indigenous problems” represented in long-term care (LTC) policies in Taiwan? 2) How do the Tayal experience care in a care center funded by the state? How do they contest the policies and what visions of care do they have? 3) What are the discrepancies between policy and practice? How do they reflect the relationship between coloniality and indigeneity in multicultural Taiwan? The data consists of policy documents, participant observation, field notes, interviews and personal narratives concerning the everyday experiences of Tayal elders (bnkis). Methodologically, the dissertation employs critical policy analysis and critical ethnography. The dissertation arrives at three main conclusions. First, the identified three frames depoliticize the “problem” of elderly care for the Indigenous peoples and make them “invisible.” Through frames of secludedness and inadequacy, the construction of the Indigenous problem is depicted as caused by their geographical location and by their lack of ability to be service providers or consumers. By contrast, the frame of culture emphasizes unique traditions, allowing more agency but running the risk of imposing an image of static and unchanging indigeneity. Second, the ethnographic analysis shows the strength, resilience and resistance of the bnkis. The idealized “tribal care” promoted in the Day Club, the social center which served as the core location for my fieldwork, turns a blind eye to the fluid, contextual and living Tayal culture, which underlies the kind of care that the bnkis prefer. Investigation of the experiences of bnkis shows that the Day Club is appropriated, repurposed and redefined by the Tayal community to negotiate identities and contest predominant conceptualizations of aging and care. Third, the findings indicate that contrary to Taiwan’s claims to be multicultural and its promise to recognize Indigenous rights, the approach to accommodate Indigenous elders is still predicated on a middle-class, urban, Han-Chinese norm. The novelty of this study lies in its aspiration to develop Indigenous epistemology and Tayal hermeneutics in the context of care. The results contribute to literature in critical policy analysis, care studies, Indigenous studies, critical gerontology and Taiwan studies, as they raise important questions about what indigeneity is and the role that the nation-state plays in the making of social policy for Indigenous elders.Tässä väitöskirjassa tarkastellaan koloniaalisen valtion ja alkuperäiskansojen välistä suhdetta keskittymällä vanhusten hoivaan. Väitöskirjassa tutkitaan Taiwanin atayal-alkuperäiskansaan kuuluvien ikääntymistä, hoivaa ja hyvinvointia alkuperäiskansojen paradigman näkökulmasta. Tavoitteena on kehittää atayalien hermeneutiikkaa, jotta heidän äänensä saataisiin kuuluviin hoivan käsitteen uudelleenmäärittelyssä. Väitöskirjassa esitetään kolme tutkimuskysymystä: 1) Mitä ”alkuperäiskansoihin liittyviä ongelmia” Taiwanin pitkäaikaishoivan politiikassa on? 2) Millaisena atayalit kokevat hoivan valtion rahoittamassa hoivakeskuksessa? Miten he kyseenalaistavat vallitsevaa politiikkaa ja minkälaisia näkemyksiä heillä on hoivasta? 3) Mitä eroja politiikan ja käytännön välillä on? Miten erot heijastavat koloniaalisuuden ja alkuperäiskansalaisuuden välistä suhdetta monikulttuurisessa Taiwanissa? Aineisto koostuu poliittisista asiakirjoista, osallistujien havainnoinnista, kenttämuistiinpanoista, haastatteluista ja henkilökohtaisista tarinoista atayal-alkuperäiskansan vanhusten (bnkis) arjen kokemuksista. Väitöskirjan tutkimusmenetelminä käytetään kriittistä policy- analyysia ja kriittistä etnografiaa. Väitöskirjassa tehdään kolme keskeistä johtopäätöstä. Ensinnäkin tunnistetut kolme kehystä depolitisoivat alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvien vanhusten hoivan ”ongelman” ja tekevät heistä ”näkymättömiä”. Eristäytyneisyyden ja vaillinaisuuden kehysten läpi tarkasteltuna alkuperäiskansojen hoivaan liittyvien ongelmien katsotaan johtuvan heidän maantieteellisestä sijainnista ja oletetusta kyvyttömyydestä toimia palveluntarjoajina tai -kuluttajina. Kulttuurillinen kehys sitä vastoin korostaa alkuperäiskansojen ainutlaatuisia perinteitä, mikä lisää toimijuutta, mutta vaarana on, että syntyy mielikuva staattisesta ja muuttumattomasta alkuperäiskansasta. Toiseksi etnografinen analyysi tuo esiin bnkisien vahvuuden, sitkeyden ja kestävyyden. Kenttätyön ydinkohteena olleessa päiväkerhossa edistetty ihanteellinen ”heimoperusteinen hoiva” sulkee silmänsä muuttuvalta, kontekstuaaliselta ja elävältä atayal-kulttuurilta, joka luo pohjan bnkisien kaipaamalle hoivalle. Bnkisien kokemuksiin perehtyminen osoittaa, että atayal-yhteisö kuitenkin ottaa haltuun, muotoilee ja määrittelee uudelleen päiväkerhon ja kyseenalaistaa identiteetit sekä ikääntymisen ja hoivan vallitsevat käsitteellistämiset. Kolmanneksi havainnot viittaavat siihen, että huolimatta Taiwanin monikulttuuriseksi julistautumisesta ja lupauksesta tunnustaa alkuperäiskansojen oikeudet, lähestymistapa alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvien vanhusten hoivaan perustuu edelleen keskiluokkaiseen, urbaaniin ja han-kiinalaiseen normiin. Tämän tutkimuksen uutuus piilee pyrkimyksessä kehittää alkuperäiskansojen epistemologiaa ja atayalien hermeneutiikkaa hoivan viitekehyksessä. Tutkimuksen tulokset tarjoavat panoksensa kriittistä policy-analyysia, hoivatutkimusta, alkuperäiskansojen tutkimusta, kriittistä gerontologiaa ja Taiwan-aiheista tutkimusta koskevaan kirjallisuuteen, sillä ne tuovat esiin tärkeitä kysymyksiä alkuperäiskansoista ja kansallisvaltion roolista alkuperäiskansoihin kuuluvia vanhuksia koskevan sosiaalipolitiikan toteuttamisessa

Helander-Renvall, Elina. Sámi Society Matters. Rovaniemi: Lapland University Press, 2016 [Book review]

I reviewed a selected edition which reprints seven journal articles written by Elina Helander-Renvall.Non peer reviewe

Indonesia's Overseas Labour Migration Programme, 1969-2010

Book Review: Palmer, Wayne (2016) Indonesia's Overseas Labour Migration Programme, 1969-2010, Leiden & Boston: Brill. XIV + 202 pp.Non peer reviewe

Sustainability science is more about listening than re-inventing the wheel – Indigenous voices for sustainability

Non peer reviewe

Indigenous Peoples’ Self-determination and Long-term Care: Sápmi and Nunavut

This paper examines long-term care for the elderly as a point of departure for critically engaging with the debate on the self-determination of Indigenous peoples. By employing the case of the Arctic Indigenous peoples, the Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi) in Norway and Government of Nunavut in Canada, are utilised as central cases from which to explore the institutionalization and self-determination. The thrust of the paper calls for a critical re-investigation of the contingency of long-term care for the elderly in the context of claims of Indigenous sovereignty.Specifically, I examine the landscape of population ageing and the organisation of care among the Sápmi and Nunavut populations, focusing on colonisation from a circumpolar perspective. The functions and practices of Sámediggi and Government of Nunavut are analysed to illustrate how self-determination is exercised and to what extent they safeguard the rights of elderly people. Sámediggi and Nunavut government as institutional arrangements that mark significant advancements in Indigenous peoples’ reclamation of power and restoration of sovereign rights are discussed. Unfortunately, the political functions that would allow self-determination and self-government to be effective continue to be limited for the Inuit in Nunavut and the Sámi in Sápmi on the Norwegian side

Framing Health : explanations of disadvantages in Taiwanese indigenous health from the perspectives of the government, the media and the experts

This thesis examines the health framing strategies of the three stakeholders: the government, the media and the experts, with regard to how their assumptions and presuppositions of the notion of Taiwanese disadvantaged indigenous health overlap or diverge from each other. Taiwan is a democratic country situated in the East Asia. The ethnocultural diversity became in urgent need to be accommodated ever since the martial law was lifted in 1987. However for two decades, Taiwanese indigenous peoples have experienced health gap with the non-indigenous population in almost all health indicators. In order to complement the current literature, which has been developed with the biomedical paradigm, the health framing strategies of the three stakeholders are analysed to explore the implied factors that account for indigenous health disadvantages. The notion of health framing is utilised to refer to identifying the discourses which have been supported by institutions and influenced by cultures, produced particular understandings of the issue of Taiwanese disadvantaged health. Qualitative content analysis (QCA) is applied in all parts of the analysis. First, the government’s health framing is examined through analysing the Annual Report on Public Health from 2001 to 2012 and the health framing embedded in the media representation is examined through analysing 98 pieces of news reports on both regional and national level from 2000 to 2012. Second, the analysis of semi-structured interviews with the Taiwanese indigenous health experts offer insights into the health framing strategies in and beyond the dimensions of the coding frame. Lastly, three levels of indigenous determinants of health are introduced to structure and to highlight the hierarchy of the framing factors. The results from the analysis of the government and the media indicate that both stakeholders treat Taiwanese disadvantaged indigenous health as a structural problem of insufficiencies in medical and health resources. In addition, the media representation shows emphasis also on behavioural risk factors as explanatory factors. The health framing strategies from both stakeholders echo closely to the previous research that relied on the biomedical paradigm. Two implications are observed from the interview analysis. First, the implied problems to disadvantaged indigenous health are extended to the political, cultural, and genetic dimensions. Second, the factors that are inadequately addressed are not arbitrary and capricious, but being omitted systemically. The experts provide four explanations on the intermediate level and three explanations on the distal levels that are not addressed. For the former, they are (i) absence of access to the healthcare system, (ii) the presence in an educational system that systemically exclude their opportunities to continue education, (iii) poor access to basic infrastructure and resources to prevent economic marginalisation and (iv) the negligence of the importance of cultural continuity, especially the continuity of indigenous languages. For the latter, the implied problems are (i) the negligence of social change that were closely related to nation-building model which resulted in disassembled and deranged indigenous peoples, (ii) the role of power in the design of health institutions which manifested in the absence of cultural sensitivity and (iii) the ongoing impact of doctrine of discovery in Taiwan