Displacement as Unfolding Spatial and Gender Politics: Indigenous Women’s Participation in Place-makingin Rinari
Journal
Community Responses to Disasters in the Pacific Rim: Place-making in Displacement
ISBN
9781003817314
Date Issued
2023-01-01
Author(s)
Abstract
The idea that place/place-making plays a role in community recovery is testified to by the many cases in which Typhoon Morakot brought about large-scale community relocation in Taiwan, especially for Indigenous communities living in the south and east of the island. This chapter illustrates how place-making matters in the particular post-disaster context and then focuses on the gendered aspect of place-making by looking at a bottom-up effort to construct a tablengan (meaning women’s weaving hut in Rukai) with traditional building techniques. The project has attracted attention and yet, the hut was eventually completed without substantial plans until now to actively use its space. The Rukai women of Kucapungane, who are considered as the main user group, are expected to play an ambiguous role in the family and community and the project exposed how they are simultaneously centered and marginalized in the process of place-making. While they are continuously shouldering caring work to ensure the livelihood of the family and community as they have been in the past, the Rukai women are largely excluded from directly undertaking the mission of carrying on tradition and authenticity despite some gestures of tokenism. They are considered less knowledgeable and less capable of representing the community to negotiate with the government. Meanwhile, the resettlement is also constantly remade by the government. A critical reflection on place-making as to community recovery is provided through the comparison of two kinds of place-making in the context of community recovery, with a focus on politics of gender, space, and lands.
SDGs
Type
book part