Managing Water and Wetlands Based on the Tayal’s Interpretation of Utux and Gaga

Humans first appeared on the planet about 3.5 million years ago and like most biota, they settled near wetlands because of the availability of food and water. The ancestors of our species understood and knew that water, wetlands, and healthy landscapes were essential for life. In Taiwan, the indigenous people have a long history being a part of and managing the natural resources, including wetlands in their respective habitats. Water and wetlands still play a substantial and significant role in the manner that the Tayal, an indigenous group of people in Taiwan use, preserve, care, protect, respect, and share the habitats and natural resources within which they live. The evolution of Taiwan’s tribal cultures, and probably most cultures on the planet are closely entwined with the resources present in each tribe’s habitat, especially water and wetlands. DNA results indicate 2 lineages of people migrated to Taiwan between 11,000 and 26,000 years ago and gave rise to 9 ethnic groups (Tajima et al. 2003). Today 16 indigenous cultures/tribes are recognized with each occupying different regions of Taiwan’s diverse landscape. Each tribe has its own language and culture and occupies its own geographic region, which contributes to Taiwan’s rich cultural history and diversity. The Tayal tribe is one of the larger tribes with about 88,000 people and the Smangus people are a subset of the Tayal tribe with a culture that is at least 6,000 years old. Culturally, the Tayal people consider themselves to be an element of the environment and their culture is defined by their relationship and interactions with the environment, including all of the other biotic, abiotic elements present in their habitats. In this paper we provide an overview of Tayal culture and philosophy, which determines how the Tayal people manage and protect their natural resources, especially water and wetlands following the tenets of Utux and Gaga that comprise the entirety of their core cultural values. The cultural and language variations, nuances, environmental interpretations, and management techniques are specific to tribal groups and differences in geographic location and environmental settings.

Communities of Judges, Protection of Tribal Cultures, and the Principle of ‘Complete Justice’

Samarendra Das and Felix Padel, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan, 2020), xxxii + 776 pp.

Dyrenes betydning i religion og filosofi – en oversigt

English abstract: In this article, I present an overview of the meaning and significance of animals in a religious context, ranging from tribal cultures to a Christian tradition. Furthermore, I will draw a line to current philosophical and eco-critical debates. My thesis is that in many cultures humans have had a tendency to regard animals as a mediating link between life in this world and a transcendent form of being. In animistic and totemistic ontologies animals are closely related to divinities as well as to humanity as such, whereas in more developed forms of religion they become part of a hierarchy as mediators between humans and gods. This is seen, for instance, in sacrificial cults. Later their significance decreases according to their predominant role of being moral similes. In our own times, however, animals seem to regain a significance as beings in their own right owing to our increasing ecological awareness. Prominent philosophers such as Derrida and Agamben have thus questioned the traditional view of human exceptionalism and opened up for a new understanding of the relationship between being animal and being human. I finally suggest that Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’ and an eco-critical notion of stewardship concerning endangered species, as well as animals in general, both conceive of the animal as a new kind of immanent transcendence. Dansk summary: Jeg tegner i denne artikel et omrids af dyrenes betydning i en religiøs kontekst (fra stammefolk til en kristen tradition) samt i en filosofisk og øko-kritisk optik. Min tese er, at dyrene i mange kulturer har ansporet mennesket til at se dem som bindeled mellem livet i denne verden og en transcendent væren. I animistiske og totemistiske ontologier er dyrene tæt forbundet med både mennesker og guder, hvorimod de i de arkaiske religioner indgår i et hierarki, hvor de, blandt andet gennem ofringer, udgør den medierende instans mellem mennesker og guder. Senere antager de hovedsagelig en metaforisk betydning som moralske sindbilleder. Vores egen tid oplever en stigende økologisk bevidsthed om dyrenes egen-værdi, og markante filosoffer som Derrida og Agamben har stillet spørgsmål ved den traditionelle grænse mellem dyr og mennesker, som antropocentrismen har levet højt på i århundreder. Jeg hævder i den forbindelse, at der hersker en indbyrdes forbindelse mellem Agambens begreb om det nøgne liv og en øko-kritisk omsorg for dyret, som gør det til en ny form for immanent transcendens.

Ethnographic Films from Iran

Iranian ethnographic films began with a focus on preserving Iran’s diverse traditions and indigenous cultures. Many of these films were salvage documentaries marked by nostalgia for disappearing traditions of rural and tribal life. The earliest film from this tradition is Grass (1924), which is about tribal migration and was made by American explorers before ethnographic films were recognized as a tradition. The impetus to preserve rural and tribal cultures first came from a group of filmmakers who were trained by a team of specialists from United States Information Service’s (USIS) film program and a team of filmmakers from Syracuse University, who came to Iran in the late 1940s and 1950s to help with development and modernization. They made propaganda and educational films that promoted industrialization, health, agriculture, and education in remote regions of Iran. They also trained Iranian filmmakers who later made actuality films, some of which could be considered ethnographic, with support from state institutions such as the Ministry of Culture and Art and National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT). The notion of what constitutes ethnographic film has been debated by scholars and filmmakers since ethnographic film was first conceived. Ethnographic film has occupied a marginal space in the academic discipline of anthropology because many films that are considered ethnographic lack rigorous scientific research and are not made by anthropologists. Many of the films discussed here are documentaries that provide detailed documentation of daily life and customs of Iranian people but most are not films made by ethnographers. Meaningful university support for the production of academic ethnographic films was rarely available in Iran, except during the leadership of Nader Afshar Naderi at Tehran University’s Social Sciences division in the early 1960s. He introduced ethnographic film to Iranian academia and made several films with detailed attention to customs and traditions of Iranian tribes. Besides films about tribes and Iran’s cultural traditions that have continued into the present day, since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, films of ethnographic value have been made about the Iran-Iraq War and more recently about urban life. Filmmakers documented the eight-year war in a long-running television series that observed soldiers on the front lines. Finally, since the early 2000s, some independent filmmakers have made films that focus on city life, particularly documenting lives of young Iranians, or have made personal and autobiographical films by turning the camera on their own lives.

Dyrenes betydning i religion og filosofi – en oversigt

Lars Albinus ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In this article, I present an overview of the meaning and significance of animals in a religious context, ranging from tribal cultures to a Christian tradition. Furthermore, I will draw a line to current philosophical and eco-critical debates. My thesis is that in many cultures humans have had a tendency to regard animals as a mediating link between life in this world and a transcendent form of being. In animistic and totemistic ontologies animals are closely related to divinities as well as to humanity as such, whereas in more developed forms of religion they become part of a hierarchy as mediators between humans and gods. This is seen, for instance, in sacrificial cult. Later their significance decreases according to their predominant role of being moral similes. In our own times, however, animals seem to regain a significance as beings in their own right owing to our increasing ecological awareness. Prominent philosophers such as Derrida and Agamben have thus questioned the traditional view of human exceptionalism and opened up for a new understanding of the relationship between being animal and being human. I finally suggest that Agamben’s concept of ‘bare life’ and an eco-critical notion of stewardship concerning endangered species, as well as animals in general, both conceive of the animal as a new kind of immanent transcendence. DANSK SUMMARY: Jeg tegner i denne artikel et omrids af dyrenes betydning i en religiøs kontekst (fra stammefolk til en kristen tradition) samt i en filosofisk og øko-kritisk optik. Min tese er, at dyrene i mange kulturer har ansporet mennesket til at se dem som bindeled mellem livet i denne verden og en transcendent væren. I animistiske og totemistiske ontologier er dyrene tæt forbundet med både mennesker og guder, hvorimod de i de arkaiske religioner indgår i et hierarki, hvor de, blandt andet gennem ofringer, udgør den medierende instans mellem mennesker og guder. Senere antager de hovedsagelig en metaforisk betydning som moralske sindbilleder. Vores egen tid oplever en stigende økologisk bevidsthed om dyrenes egenværdi, og markante filosoffer som Derrida og Agamben har stillet spørgsmål ved den traditionelle grænse mellem dyr og mennesker, som antropocentrismen har levet højt på i århundreder. Jeg hævder i den forbindelse, at der hersker en indbyrdes forbindelse mellem Agambens begreb om det nøgne liv og en øko-kritisk omsorg for dyret, som gør det til en ny form for immanent transcendens.

Cultural democracy and schooling in India: A subaltern perspective

It is argued that educational spaces often maintain certain forms of hierarchical cultural patterns to reproduce an unequal civil society. The history and contemporary nature of Indian civil society, ridden with relations of caste and class, often interpellates its agenda of hierarchical order in the cultures of schooling. Children from marginalized communities, particularly from the Adivasi (tribal) cultures, are more vulnerable to these undercurrents, and this often results in their dispirited autonomous participation in schooling. The content and nature of the curriculum and modes of pedagogical interactions are the focal channels of its operationalization. In recent times and earlier, various forms of contestations had emerged against this dominant agenda, particularly from subaltern contexts. These took the form of democratic resistances seeking to establish democratic cultures in classrooms and schools (Apple C James, 2007; Darder et.al, 2009). Creating a sphere of this order would promise to enable children to become transformative human beings and autonomous intellectuals. Viewing the regime of education as both liberatory and oppressive (McLaren, 2009), this paper is an attempt to engage with democratic concerns in the realm of schooling in India within the relations of culture, knowledge and its politics.

¡Fuera de Aquí! (Get Out of Here!)

This chapter suggests that just as during the 1960s American evangelicals idealized the Waorani as examples of missionary success, a decade later critics of missions and especially of the Summer Institute of Linguistics looked to the Waorani as evidence of the way missionaries damaged tribal cultures. After 1975 the criticisms in Ecuador became more widespread, coming from, among others, the anthropology department of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador and from ¡Fuera de Aquí! (Get Out of Here!), a film by the Bolivian director Jorge Sanjinés seen by millions of Ecuadorians. Although ¡Fuera de Aquí! accused missionaries of a secret sterilization campaign against indigenous women, in the Amazonian rainforest the Waorani maintained healthy birth rates, and SIL staff helped them cope with more pressing matters of health: appropriate use of medicines, sanitation, and the prevalence of poisonous snakebites.

Curatopia

What is the future of curatorial practice? How can the relationships between Indigenous people in the Pacific, collections in Euro-American institutions, and curatorial knowledge in museums globally be (re)conceptualised in reciprocal and symmetrical ways? Is there an ideal model, a ‘curatopia,’ whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia, which can enable the reinvention of ethnographic museums and address their difficult colonial legacies? This volume addresses these questions by considering the current state of the play in curatorial practice, reviewing the different models and approaches operating in different museums, galleries and cultural organisations around the world, and debating the emerging concerns, challenges, and opportunities. The subject areas range over native and tribal cultures, anthropology, art, history, migration and settler culture, among others. Topics covered include: contemporary curatorial theory, new museum trends, models and paradigms, the state of research and scholarship, the impact of new media, and current issues such as curatorial leadership, collecting and collection access and use, exhibition development, and community engagement. The volume is international in scope and covers three broad regions—Europe, North America and the Pacific. The contributors are leading and emerging scholars and practitioners in their respective fields, all of whom have worked in and with universities and museums, and are therefore perfectly placed to reshape the dialogue between academia and the professional museum world.

The Opioid Epidemic in Indian Country

The national opioid epidemic is severely impacting Indian Country. In this article, we draw upon data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to describe the contours of this crisis among Native Americans. While these data are subject to significant limitations, we show that Native American opioid overdose mortality rates have grown substantially over the last seventeen years. We further find that this increase appears to at least parallel increases seen among non-Hispanic whites, who are often thought to be uniquely affected by this crisis. We then profile tribal medical and legal responses to the opioid epidemic, ranging from tribally-operated medication-assisted therapy to drug diversion courts rooted in traditional tribal cultures.

Asmita Basu, The role of corporate sectors in preserving archaeological & cultural heritage in India

At present, in India, companies are funding different projects, vital for social and cultural development, in order to meet the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) norms. West Bengal, in the eastern part of India, has a deeply rooted culture and a rich archaeological heritage. It is a hub of tribal cultures. Along with the urbanization process there is a need to sustain our culture, societal values and preserve our cultural heritage, particularly when these parameters are changing rapidly. The present paper aims at highlighting the role of the corporate sectors in the preservation of archaeological and cultural heritage with the help of the newly adopted CSR principle.