Yearning for Recognition: Indigenous Formosans and the Limits of Indigeneity

Abstract

Abstract Indigeneity, enshrined in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, is an international governance model that promises sovereignty and self-government to indigenous nations. Anthropologists have expressed concern that indigeneity may become an avatar of neoliberal governance that benefits a small elite and contributes to the hypermarginalisation of the poor. This multi-scalar ethnography explores the meaning of indigeneity in Seediq and Truku communities. The author concurs that legal indigeneity fails to meet the needs of the poor. Most ordinary indigenous people perceive that they already benefit from Taiwan’s existing legal framework and fail to understand the need for new institutions. For the case of Taiwan, moreover, the limits of indigeneity are most evident in the exclusion of Taiwanese indigenous peoples—and Taiwan—from United Nations mechanisms. As indigeneity degenerates into great power politics, it falls short of its aspirations to recognise indigenous nations as ontological equals to established states.