Abstract
Food production systems, agricultural landscapes, and the distribution and consumption of valued products often reflect social dynamics. They are also a manifestation of the way societies decide on how to respond to environmental pressures. Using Ifugao (Philippines) and Tayal (Taiwan), two Indigenous Communities in highland Philippines and Taiwan as examples, this article aims to reveal the social ecological meanings of maintaining and revitalizing ritual crops in contemporary capitalist world. Adopting the methods of literature review, ethnographic study, and case study, the authors: 1) explain how the ecology, labor investment, social organization, and belief system made agricultural landscape an agro-cultural complex; 2) trace the landscape transition in the process of colonization and modernization; and 3) address recent efforts to revitalize the ritual crops in the landscape of both cases. By comparing these experiences, the authors point out the importance of continuous enactment and representation of traditions. With these efforts, the communal identities are sustained, and the alternative models of economy are made possible. In the end, the authors propose a dynamic view of landscape and make further suggestions for landscape conservation. Luzon Island of the Philippines is approximately three times the size of Taiwan and is located 300 km south of the smaller nation.
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Notes
- 1.
A mountain ridge across this township divides it into two watersheds: the “Front Mountain” in the north-west and the “Back Mountain” in the south-east. The “Front Mountain” and the “Back Mountain” are not official addresses but commonly used in the residents’ daily life. The “front” has a long history of confronting Han-Chinese that can be traced back to the Ching Dynasty’s military activities aiming to conquer this area and exploit the camphor resource here. During the Japanese colonial era, a local political, educational and economic center was formed in “Front Mountain”, as it is on the way connecting the interior “Back Mountain Region” and the lower non-indigenous plain area. For a long time, the “Front Mountain Region” was deemed more “developed” and “progressed” than the “less-developed” and “backward” “Back Mountain Region”. After the 1990s, some settlements in the “Back Mountain Region” area successfully established alternative models of development, such as community-based eco-tourism with their strong cultural identity. In the new discourse, the “Front Mountain Region” turned to be a “less authentic” place facing the crisis of losing their culture in contrast to the self-confident “Back Mountain Region” maintaining more “traditional” Tayal culture. (Stainton 2006).
- 2.
Raw meat fermented with cooked millet or rice, a traditional Tayal food.
- 3.
The government responded to the indigenous land rights movement by assigning more reserved land to indigenous peoples in 1990, and launched a series of surveys of indigenous traditional territories in 2002. After that, the Indigenous Basic Law enacted in 2005 states that the government needs to recognize indigenous peoples’ rights over both reserved lands and traditional territories (Kuan 2016).
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Acabado, S., Kuan, Dw. (2021). Landscape, Habitus, and Identity: A Comparative Study on the Agricultural Transition of Highland Indigenous Communities in the Philippines and Taiwan. In: Shih, Sm., Tsai, Lc. (eds) Indigenous Knowledge in Taiwan and Beyond. Sinophone and Taiwan Studies, vol 1. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4178-0_7
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