Cultural Identity, Ecological Conflict and Ethnic Relations: Discourse on the Traditional Territory by the ‘Amis of ‘Tolan

This paper aims to discuss the local response and influence generated by the“Traditional Territory Movement” and “Indigenous Community Mapping” in the Amis society of ‘Tolan on the eastern coast of Taiwan. Through this survey of a series of environmental movements, we see how the new landscape constructed by the local Amis people interacted with their original socio-cultural value system. Moreover, members of the society consolidated their cultural identity during the course of these various mass protests. After experiencing ecological destruction prompted by development projects and conflicts over different environmental management maneuvers within the village community, the Amis society is confronting the dilemmas of traditional ecological knowledge versus environmentalism as well as having to build a consensus on future development. In the end, this paper points to the potential crisis of the re-marginalization of Taitung Houshan and its indigenous people when the call for eastern coast development was at its height.