Beyond the Fifth Wave: Traditional Maritime Knowledge among Amis Spearfishing Men in Taiwan

Key information

Date
Venue
Brunei Gallery
Room
BGLT

About this event

Futuru Tsai
As part of the 2022 SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies Summer School, we kindly ask that you register to attend.

 

*Please be aware that this session follows British Summer Time (BST) .
Also available via Microsoft Teams

Abstract

This talk explores the nature of the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) about the sea through bodily practice among freediving spearfishing men of 'Atolan Amis people, interpreting the dynamic system of near-shore marine TEK responding to social and environmental changes. A dynamic conceptual framework of marine TEK to analyze the TEK system of the Amis underwater hunters. Based on human-marine interaction, the framework of this analysis is entangled with ecological, social, and cultural perspectives. It then examines their dynamic processes subject to environmental and social changes.

Speaker Bio

 

Futuru C.L. Tsai is an associate professor of Ph.D. Program in Austronesian Studies at National Taitung University in Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology in 2010 from National Tsing Hua University and has researched Indigenous Taiwanese arts, culture, and history. He is the author of The Anthropologist Germinating from the Rock Piles (石堆中發芽的人類學家) (2009) and From Dulan to New Guinea (從都蘭到新幾內亞) (2011). He is also an ethnographic filmmaker whose work includes Amis Hip Hop (2005), From New Guinea to Taipei (2009), The New Flood (2010), Wings for Takasago Giyutai (2017), and Lives and Deaths between Ebbs and Flows (2019). His recent research interests are Amis maritime culture and the influences of regional revitalization policy on Amis People and making an ethnographic film entitled "Breathing Between."

Organiser: Centre of Taiwan Studies

Contact email: hl55@soas.ac.uk