Yih-Ren Lin, Taipei Medical University Contesting “home-making” imaginations under the natural disasters: The Morakot typhoon case and its relations to bureaucracy, religious charities and indigenous peoples

This paper attempts to address the issue of how we respond to the happenings of natural disasters under the modern world. If natural disasters can be a symbol of nature, this paper could also be an enquiry of “what nature is about?”. The Morakot typhoon occurred in Taiwan in 2009 and the reconstruction process by the inflicted sectors are the case examined. A participatory action research is adopted to work with the inflicted Tsou indigenous tribe for over 7 years. The political ecology that emphasizes sustainability and social justice is a key approach to understand how the Tsou communities reconstruct after the impact of Morakot typhoon and their relations to the “helpers” like governmental agencies and different religious charities including Tzu-Chi Buddhist charity and World Vision. The “home” imaginations of different social groups are analyzed according to their social practices and actions. There are three major findings in the study. Firstly, while the related governmental agencies and religious charities are more keen to provide “houses” to the inflicted peoples, the indigenous people demonstrate a strong capability of “home-making” inspired by their long and deep migratory history of interacting with the everchanging environment. Secondly, different religious charities show different attitudes toward their support to indigenous “home-making”. While World Vision adopts a “transitional house” policy in indigenous people’s familiar mountain home range and traditional territory, Tzu-Chi would prefer to create a brand new and modern green designed “long lasting house” far away from their supposed dangerous mountains. Thirdly, for over 7 years until now indigenous people come back and forth between different “homes” no matter it’s their primary living place before the disaster or the remote houses provided by the government or the charities. This paper concludes Tsou people’s “home” concept is an expanding living place network rather than an original, fixed, and authentic location. Like nature, indigenous home is often defined and redefined by their interaction with changing environment. Nevertheless, natural disaster is not merely a negative impact to their living, but also a regeneration of their home range and imagination, which is quite different from the government and religious charities’ thinking.