Colonial legacies and the barriers to educational justice for Indigenous peoples in Taiwan

ABSTRACT

Whilst in the past three decades Taiwan has developed a powerful policy and legal framework to protect and support Indigenous rights and development, culminating in the establishment of the Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee, Indigenous peoples are still the most disadvantaged, marginalised, and vulnerable group in the country. This article draws on 24 in-depth semi-structured and unstructured interviews with Indigenous educators, leaders, and academics. Drawing on postcolonial and de-colonial lenses the analysis demonstrates how the legacies of colonialism prevent efforts to address and redress the inequities and injustices Indigenous peoples face. I argue that for transitional and historical justice processes to be successful in supporting Indigenous justice, decolonisation of education needs to become a central purpose.

摘要

尽管台湾在过去三十年间制定了有力的政策和法律框架来保护和支持原住民的权利与发展，并最终成立了历史正义与转型正义委员会，但原住民依然是该国最弱势、最边缘化和最易受伤害的群体。基于对原住民教育工作者、领导人和学者的二十四次深入的半结构化和开放式访谈，本文采用后殖民和去殖民的视角，论证殖民主义的遗产如何妨碍解决和纠正原住民面临的不平等与不正义的努力。本文认为，转型和历史正义进程若要实现原住民的正义，教育的非殖民化需成为一个核心目标。

KEYWORDS:

• Indigenous education
• colonialism
• postcolonialism
• Taiwan

关键词:

• 原住民教育
• 殖民主义
• 后殖民主义
• 台湾

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The Justice Committee focuses on the martial law period whilst previous colonial periods are overlooked (Caldwell 2018) which precludes ‘numerous Indigenous claims sourced back to earlier times’ and ‘eras[ing] the indigenous existence prior to that period’ (Mona 2019, 655).

2 It was led by Zheng Chenggong, known as Koxinga, who was a Ming loyalist general who defeated the Dutch outposts on Taiwan in 1662, which was then Dutch Formosa.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yulia Nesterova

Yulia Nesterova, PhD, is Lecturer in International and Comparative Education in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. She also acts as Academic Lead for Low and Middle-Income Countries Research Network at Glasgow and Associate Editor of Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education journal. Yulia's main research interests center around inequalities and injustices in education, partnerships and community engagement for quality education, and education for peace, justice, and reconciliation. She is working on several research projects including investigating spatial inequalities in education in Africa and Asia and injustices and inequities Indigenous and other minority students face in education. Yulia is also exploring community-driven and indigenous approaches to peacebuilding and education and youth engagement in peacebuilding. Prior to joining Glasgow, Yulia was with UNESCO MGIEP and Asia-Pacific offices working on peacebuilding, sustainable development, and youth engagement. She has conducted extensive research in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Pacific.