Indigenous studies and Taiwan studies have a rather tenuous intellectual relationship. From a Taiwanese perspective, the study of indigenous peoples has been a part of the inward-turning indigenisation (本土化, bentuhua) of Taiwan scholarship; affirmation of a locally-rooted, non-Chinese national identity. The idea that Taiwan is the starting point of the Austronesian diaspora makes Taiwan important to the world in new ways. For indigenous scholars, indigenous studies can also contribute t...
