Indigenous participation and knowledge justice in deliberative systems: Flooding and wild creek remediation controversies in Taiwan

Introduction

Indigenous peoples experience colonialism, marginalisation, and lack of recognition of difference in many parts of the world. Hébert (2018) argues that most state administrations continue to be top-down, with few channels of substantial deliberation and decision-making going up the governance chain, but Indigenous peoples have demonstrated resilience in maintaining their deliberative practices. For Hébert (2018: 101–102), the dual processes of deliberation are simultaneously at play, including those official modes within colonial or state institutions and those that continue to play themselves out in the interstices of colonial institutions and autonomous spheres of activity, such as the aspects of conflict resolution, governance of traditional territories, and forging and maintenance of alliances.

Research on deliberative democracy with detailed discussions on Indigenous democracy and the deliberative features of Indigenous activism is limited. The recent shift towards a deliberative system approach suggests that public deliberation is understood as a broad system that encompasses a diversity of communicative practices ranging from debates in parliaments and participatory forums to relatively informal conversations and communicative activities (Mansbridge et al., 2012; Stevenson and Dryzek, 2014). A deliberative system can be defined as ‘a set of distinguishable, differentiated, but to some degree interdependent parts, often with distribute d functions and a division of labour, connected in such a way as to form a complex whole’. (Mansbridge et al., 2012: 4–5). Tamura (2014) argues that social movements and the intimate sphere can be examined as sites or parts of a deliberative system as a whole in terms of the macro-deliberative effect of micro-deliberative actions, even if their modes of communication and actions are non-deliberative. Each social movement and the intimate sphere can be regarded as a deliberative system by itself because they can create opinions and would also be sites of decision-making. He argues for reconceptualising deliberative systems as “entities with a nested structure”, and urges us to rethink grassroots movement in deliberative democracy (p.81).

Theories of scale can give a more robust understanding of complex in environmental risks (Mabon and Kawabe, 2017) and how grassroot participation can help improve the integration of civic deliberation into the wider landscape of political decision-making and deliberative systems. Recent developments in relations between Aboriginals and non-Indigenous Australians highlights how the concept of scale can be put to use to construct new spaces of sociality, governance and accountability (Howitt, 2009). As Indigenous issues are being perceived as transcendent and global, some tribal groups have successfully enrolled international agencies, foreign government and citizens in their struggles of environmentally damaging resource developments by internationalization of Indigenous politics (Jhappan, 1992). In the analysis of the Unist’ot’en land defence against the TransCanada Coastal GasLink pipeline, McCreary and Turner (2018) argue for a multiscalar approach that illuminates how Indigenous struggles over authority on contested lands are shaping pipeline development.

Taiwan’s political system has transformed from authoritarian dominant-party system to a democracy in the late 1980s. The legacies of colonialism and authoritarian regimes have had a considerable negative effect on Indigenous peoples; examples include the storage of nuclear waste on the Tao’s homeland (Fan, 2006) and continuing neglect of their welfare and denial of their rights. Government policies concerning Indigenous peoples have evolved significantly over the past few decades. President Tsai Ing-wen issued a formal apology to the nation’s Indigenous peoples on 1 August 2016, Indigenous Peoples Day in Taiwan, pledging on behalf of the government to take comprehensive action to achieve transitional justice and promote social harmony and reconciliation. Despite well-intentioned moves towards greater recognition of Indigenous peoples, Chen et al, (2018) argue that for Tayal people in northern Taiwan both historical and current statutes have defined possession and property in ways which are not just inconsistent with Tayal law and culture, but are directly antagonistic to the Tayal ideas of rights, relationships and responsibilities. Similarly, the Tao rights to autonomy and control of the maritime and terrestrial have been ignored and reduced by colonial and national authorities, particularly in times of disaster recovery. Taiwan is widely acknowledged as one of the most vulnerable countries in relation to many hazards (eg. Dilley et al., 2005: 8; Wen et al., 2014) and Orchid Island (Lanyu) is vulnerable to typhoon risks. Recent research demonstrates that failure to recognise the complex simultaneities of “people-to-environment, people-to-people and people-to-cosmos” relations in disaster recovery settings is antagonistic to Indigenous rights and cultural survival (Chen, 2002; Hsu, 2016; Hsu et al., 2014; Huang, 2018; Taiban, 2013).

Across Taiwan, including in the Tao community, emergent young Indigenous activists and non-governmental organisations in the tribal communities actively participate in tribal public affairs, and they challenge the current relationships and interactions with the state and trial representative institutions. Indigenous groups and activists demand open access to information and participation in the policy-making process in order to achieve responsive policies that meet tribal needs. There are ongoing plural conversations within tribal communities and between tribes, and interactions between Indigenous peoples and non-Indigenous residents that shape Indigenous democracy and deliberative systems (Fan, 2020:122–143).

This article considers Indigenous activism and political communication as a part of the macro-deliberative system as well as a micro deliberative system in itself. Drawing on the controversy regarding flooding and wild creek remediation on Orchid Island in Taiwan, this article explores how Indigenous participation produces politics of scales, address knowledge injustice and democratise deliberative systems. It offers insights into the linkages of deliberative practices at multiple scales and the contributions of Indigenous political participation in deliberative systems. It begins by the discussion on Indigenous deliberation at multiple scales. Second, it discusses the Indigenous situation in the changing political context of Taiwan and the controversy over the wild creek remediation program. Third, it analyses how Indigenous civic organisations and activists engage in transmission policy ideas across time and space and visualisation of the Indigenous knowledge system to address knowledge injustice and implications for deliberative governance.

Indigenous deliberation at multiple scales and knowledge justice

For theories on deliberative democracy, it is promising that “democratic deliberation can narrow the range of political disagreements not only in contexts of moral and religious pluralism but also in contexts of cultural pluralism”. Deliberation might enable discovering analogies or parallels between cultures, thereby making shared moral reasoning possible (Weinstock and Kahane, 2010: 13–14). Hébert (2018) argues in favour of multi-scalar deliberation and that Indigenous deliberation and agency go hand in hand. They are involved in regional organisations, themselves linked within broader national, continental, and global networks of indigeneity. As he argues:

The various scales at which Indigenous people express their political agency can have a mutually reinforcing effect on each other and contribute to countering these dynamics of exclusion. The maintenance and revitalization of collective decision-making processes, the elaboration of formal structures of autonomous government, and the participation in global networks of solidarity all nourish one another. They can be seen as both products of deliberation and as spaces facilitating it.

Stevenson and Dryzek (2014) identify seven components of a deliberative system, including: the private space; public space; empowered space; transmission; accountability; meta-deliberation; decisiveness is the degree to which the previous six elements acting together actually determine collective outcomes. Building on Stevenson and Dryzek (2014), Davis (2018) outlines some characteristics of Indigenous deliberative systems as follows: less distinction exists among the private, public, and empowered spaces in Indigenous deliberative systems. Empowered space involves authority vested collectively in Elders chosen for intelligence diligence and talent. Public space involves consultative and deliberative mechanism in group decision making; closeness between elders and society creates frequent and direct transmission between public and empower space; closeness creates accountability between elders (empowered space) and society (public space). Meta-deliberation is the capacity of a deliberative system to reflect on the qualities of a system and transform itself. In Australia, Annual Sovereign Union Forums is an example intended to examine ways Indigenous sovereignty can be recognized by government. As to decisiveness, examples include treaties with other aboriginal nations, agreements and petitions to the state, Uluru Declaration, Voice to Parliament to create a deliberative forum linked to the state. In the study of the controversy of Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, Davis (2018) argues that Indigenous deliberative forums can improve Indigenous environmental governance. Forums legitimate and transmit Indigenous values, help counter dominant state and scientific perspectives, and develop legitimate shared narratives for water co-management.

Mansbridge et al. (2012: 18) argue that protest movements contribute to the macro-deliberative system as ‘a remedial force introduced to correct or publicize a failure or weakness in fulfilling any or all of its key functions’ (Mansbridge et al., 2012: 18). Protest movements can bear each of the three functions in a deliberative system. First, an epistemic function is ‘to produce preferences, opinions, and decisions that are appropriately informed by facts and logic and are the outcome of substantive and meaningful consideration of relevant reason’ (p. 11). Protest can facilitate and promote the circulation of useful information. Second, the ethical function of the system is to promote mutual respect among citizens. Being open to being moved by the words of another is to respect the other as a source of reasons, claims and perspectives. Protest can facilitate and promote respectful interactions among citizens. Third, the democratic function entails the inclusion of a plurality of voices, interests, concerns and claims on the basis of feasible equality, which is the core of what makes deliberative democratic processes democratic. Protest can correct inequalities in access to influence by bringing more voices and interests into policy making processes. The realisation of the three epistemic, ethical and democratic functions promotes the legitimacy of democratic decision-making (Mansbridge et al., 2012: 11–12, 18–19).

Engineering and technological development may also generate new risks and should not be ignored, as they can cause people even more uncertainty about their environment. Hébert (2018) argues that expert knowledge has often become a serious limit to deliberation. Inappropriate formatting of information, impregnable jargon, and thousand-page long impact studies often leave discussions in the hands of a few technical and legal experts on both sides of the table. Research on water planning in the complex cultural context in Australia put emphasis on the importance of interactive and deliberative tools to engage Indigenous and non-Indigenous and collaborative water planning processes (Mooney and Tan, 2012; Tan et al, 2012a, 2012b).

An increasing number of studies have stated that the national government’s hazard reduction programs employ only the technical and engineering approach and ignore people’s perceptions of risk and adaptive behaviors will be ineffective (Fan, 2015). Local, lay and experiential and intuitive knowledge have all been identified as having a contribution to controversies and policies (Chiou, 2019; Fan, 2016; Ockwell and Rydin, 2006; Wynne, 1992). In the study of counter-expertise of the backyard poultry farmer whose ways of knowing are foreign to science and policy experts who frame the H5N1 issues, Egert and Allen (2019) argue that the concept of knowledge justice provides a way of thinking about science that can include locally situated counter-expertise, rethinking who counts and whose knowledge counts, as a matter of social equity. In the study of the complex articulation of knowledge repertoires among migrant peasants in southeastern Nicaragua, Nygen (1999) argues that there is an increasing need to recognize the ongoing hybridization of local knowledges and knowledge production as a process of social negotiations involving multiple actors and complex power relations. Lin and Chang (2020) argue for involuted disaster knowledge as a new type of knowledge that integrates local knowledge with scientific knowledge through an involution process, which could help governmental disaster management succeed in meeting community-level needs. Indigenous struggles to reconfigure their knowledge and to reconstruct their lives with meaning in current networks of hegemonic knowledge claims and power are crucial to addressing knowledge injustice.

The context and the research

Orchid Island, homeland of Tao people, situated off the east coast of Taiwan. Fishing is central to the Tao economy, and supplemented by farming. The sociocultural lifestyle of Tao people is inseparably interdependent and connected with the natural environment of Orchid Island. The Tao social life is intertwined with the geographical relationship of residence and the blood relationship of relatives. Tao people maintain a patriarchal family system. No obvious social classes exist in the tribe. Tao society can be divided into family and kinship groups, as well as regions and fishery organisations. A geographical group refers to a fixed living group of Tao people, of which there are six. The six tribal villages on Orchid Island are Langdao, Dongqing, Yeyin (Ivalino), Hongtou, Yurean (I-ratay) and Yeyou (see Figure 1). The tribal area in which the Tao people live was called a ‘social’, but it is now called a ‘village’. Traditionally, each tribal village has its own fisheries, pastures, and agricultural lands. Property developed through labour, such as irrigation systems, pastures, and fruit trees, is shared by the patrilineal group using a collective management system. Deliberations on the village public affairs were limited to members of the same tribal villages who have close and frequent interactions with each other. ¹

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

The map of tribal villages and wild creeks on Orchid Island.

Indigenous environment governance can be described as a distinct deliberative system. Indigenous peoples maintain systems of governance that reflect customary processes of communication and deliberation occurring in formal and informal settings, transmission, accountability and decisiveness. Less distinction exists among the private, public, and empowered spaces in the traditional Tao deliberative system (cf. Davis, 2018). Tao people regard tribe elders as the main authority. It seems that elders play crucial roles in empowered space. Each village has several highly respected elders. Among these elders, the oldest or highest-ranking person is promoted or elected as the head. In addition to age, whether Tao men are elected as tribal leaders is usually determined by whether their actions on a daily basis have established status and influence. In the flying fish season, small fishing groups comprising several fishing families form large fishing groups, which are gathered in tribal units. When catching flying fish, each fishing boat has a captain, although this position is rotational. ² Customary deliberative systems persisted as the foundation for many tribal villages’ economic, political and disaster response systems. The customary systems governing marine resources, agricultural activities and responses to the natural hazards that affect Tao tribal villages such as typhoons and associated flooding and landslides. These systems have co-evolved with natural landscapes and deliberative processes at the local landscape scale have often come into tension with formal colonial processes of resource and environmental management and disaster response and community development. Tao tribal actions provide a crucial connection between ancestral spirits and the Indigenous ecological knowledge containing emotional, moral, and economic meanings embedded within the local landscape (Hu, 2008).

Decisions on tribal affairs are made in tribal assemblies dominated by Tao men. But the status of women is rising and the dominant role of men in tribal decision-making weakening as women take the initiative to participate in public affairs in the younger generations resulting from green economic practices and intercultural marriage. In recent years, women have taken the lead in activism involving environmental and human rights issues. Tribespeople’s acceptance of women in politics is higher than before. Female candidates for public office have more than a quarter of the votes (Hu, 2015). The island is currently under the jurisdiction of Taidong County. Orchid Island is classified as a township and public offices and councils are set up to govern the Island. The head of township and councilmen elected by citizens of the island have four-year terms of office.

Since the 1960s, land use deregulations and external investment has led to the island’s tourism boom. Most of the low-level nuclear wastes from the three nuclear power stations on the island of Taiwan have been temporarily stored on Orchid Island since 1982. The Tao’s anti-nuclear waste movement, supported by Christian church and environmental groups and broader social groups, has forced the state-owned Taipower to halt further shipments in 1996. However, the final low-level radioactive waste disposal siting issues have remained unresolved. The Tao elites regard autonomy as a way to solve the problem of domination and declared the establishment of The Aboriginal Parliament Preparatory Committee on 25 October 2002 (Fan, 2006: 438–439). Following a talk between President Tsai Ing-wen and people on the island in August 2016, Council of Indigenous Peoples said the government will issue a decree giving the island the legal status of a “public entity” to effectively accelerate a process toward the island’s autonomy. ³

Typhoon Tembin swept over Taiwan in August 2012, devastating the Tao tribal lands. To accelerate the reconstruction work, the Taidong County Government planned the Wild Creek Remediation Program, and the Public Construction Commission (Central government) proposed the Orchid Island and Green Island reconstruction project in 2013. There are 14 water conservancy projects, and each tribal village has about two to three engineering projects. A majority of island’s wild creek are incorporated into the flood control projects, which led to disputes and controversies, including the hegemony of certain knowledge system on which experts based their decision that are disconnected from the Tao society and traditional ways of knowing and responses to natural hazards; the negative and irreversible impacts of engineering projects on the environment, Tao tribal life, and the irrigation customs (Fan and ZhangJiang, 2016).

Connectivity of life narratives and Tao ways of knowing

Tension and conflict between the Tao tribe and government reflect Taiwan’s problems with flooding and water conservation. Serious concerns have been raised by Tao people, Tao civic groups, and environmental groups, such as the government’s failure to carefully diagnose the underlying causes of flooding, preferring to blindly increase the flood budget, and the lack of consultation with local residents and civic groups before they plan and implement policy programs. As to engineering designs and methods, although the government claims to adopt “ecological engineering” that will not damage the ecology, Tao civic groups and tribal people on Orchid Island question the fact that the materials used in the project still show the use of a water beam for flood control. The engineering units rely on the model’s analogue image, but ignore contextual factors Creeks are diverted and will flow in directions difficult to predict (Fan and ZhangJiang, 2016).

Tao activists set up a Save Lanyu River Alliance in 2013 to build tribal coalition, declaring tribal sovereignty and calling for the right to participate in the policy-making and creek remediation process. Indigenous civic organisations on Orchid Island mobilized and utilized resources to collect data on the local ecology and to document the traditional culture, and investigate the destruction of the engineering project. They used the virtual community as both an internal and external communication platform. The tribespeople published information and pictures of local ecology and traditional culture and practices on the website to transmit messages, tribal narratives, and knowledge practices. The storyline describes how tribespeople used stones from landslide debris in the water as main materials. Traditional practices contain norms and taboo. Traditional methods are based on materials from soil and stones, rather than the government’s use of cement. By observing the weather, currents, and seasonal distribution of rainfall, tribespeople follow social norms to plan, practice and meet environmental changes. Tribal people of all ages work together to complete the work (interviewee Y).

The Tao activists established links with the main non-governmental organisations that concern water issues in Taiwan. Facebook and the blog of the Save Lanyu River Alliance have attracted public and media attention and concern from outsiders. There are 1983 persons following their event. One citizen received a message from Facebook and left a message asking for more information regarding the design of the engineering project and record of public meeting, and the Tribal Cultural Foundation replied that they have recorded the meeting and left a contact number. The blog was set up by young Tao activists. The blog posts articles and comments on the creek remediation controversy in an attempt to increase the event’s media coverage; reach more people who are concerned about ecological, social, cultural, and ethnic issues; support their action; and strengthen their influence. The blog has 24 articles, which have attracted 18,063 viewers in August 2013. Most articles reflect on the negative impacts of the projects and stress that ‘the Tao tribe is the landowner of Orchid Island’. The Facebook page and blog have attracted the attention of the virtual community and citizen media, who echo their message by posting and writing related commentaries to accelerate transmission. The Public Construction Commission also uses an official website to post news and respond to online campaigns, and it has explained that the Taidong Government invites experts and community residents to attend public meetings to enhance communication and emphasises that the project is safe and ecological.

In July 2013, Indigenous TV broadcasting made a special report to depict the distinct methods and practices of the Tao people and their traditional methods of coping with floods, highlighting the need to deconstruct the logic of the government’s policy and respect tribal worldviews and knowledge systems. The Indigenous TV programme Voice from Indigenous Towns broadcast a special forum titled “Reconstruction Engineering Projects on Orchid Island after Typhoon Tembin–Discussions on Wild Creek Remediation Engineering”, which invited policy stakeholders to participate in discussing the problems and provided audience members with the opportunity to call in and ask questions of the panel directly. Three panel members were from the Tao tribe on Orchid Island, namely from the Orchid Island Mountain and Sea Cultural Protection Association, Yeiyin Community Development Association, and the principal of Langdao Primary School. Other participants included government officials from the Public Construction Commission and the Taidong Branch of the Council of Agriculture Soil Conservation, members from the Flooding Governance Supervision Alliance, and a professor of ecology. The professor of ecology mentioned that the disaster is a sequel to the past engineering project, thus Tao people have no confidence in the government. Many engineering people ignore the ecological survey materials that ecologists have done in the past, it is necessary to incorporate ecological information into engineering considerations. 8 audience members called in and questioned the government officials. The government officials explain to other participants and audience members why the engineering units would do so, and emphasise that the government will make efforts to communicate with local residents and incorporate their opinions. ⁵ The programme attracted public attention and facilitated ongoing conversations.

Tao tribespeople narrated the interdependent relationship between the Tao tribal life and stream water and tribal traditional ideas and perceptions on flooding. The Tao tribe regard flooding as a natural phenomenon. Tribespeople know that the riparian land by the river can be washed away by flood at any time. Although taro fields are an important source of livelihood for the Tao tribe, based on past experience, the taro fields located in the streams are not frequently used because of their unstable nature. Unless the tribespeople need a lot of taro to be distributed during traditional festivals, people will not cultivate the fields by the streams. A local civic group interviewee mentioned the traditional functions of streams:

The first being diversion channels for our taro fields. The second, as a place where taro and sweet potatoes can be washed. In the traditional way of life, there is no room to take a bath, people wash their bodies in the streams, and then return home. …The Wild Creek has flowed for thousands of years, and will not cause great damage to the tribe. What we can do is to repair the fences between the fields. (interviewee C)

The tribespeople will not intentionally change the creek’s direction because it involves the tribe’s traditional way of distributing water among its people. The typhoon caused landslides and damaged tribal water sources, and affected the irrigation of the surrounding and downstream taro fields. Some areas and streams in Yeyin village are not incorporated into the central government’s reconstruction project. The Yeyin tribespeople held tribal assembly eight times by themselves to integrate tribal people’s ideas and decided to use a traditional dredging method of construction. As the director of the Yeyin Community Development Association mentioned:

We [Tao people in the Yeyin village] have different opinions; so, we hold eight tribal [village] assemblies. The idea of design is to use a traditional way to deal with it. I put the photo on Facebook of Yeyin. We use stones to build a U-shaped walls and piles of stones to prevent farmland flooding. Engineering projects might damage the fruit trees and ecology. Longan trees and bread trees can be building materials for boats and houses, but excavators can ruin the fields. All tribespeople collectively inspect to avoid damage and observe where an excavator can go to avoid destruction of trees.

Tribal activists and local Indigenous civic organisations reframe risks of the government’s engineering project as uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as an irreversible impact on the environment. For many of the tribespeople, only a few might need remediation, these being the ones that have a large debris flow that destroys farmland. Most of the Wild Creek has very little flowing water and only contain water during typhoon seasons. But the government carried out large-scale construction, a substantial widening of the river and covered it with cement. Local Tao tribespeople think that the government’s ecological engineering methods, which involve combining cement structures with vegetation, will destroy the local ecology, landscape, and aboriginal culture. The front page of the blog states the following: “We want to appeal to everybody. You can use your pens, blogs, and websites to guard this beautiful but vulnerable island. If the creek engineering projects are completed, it will bring a disaster to Orchid Island.”

Deliberation at multiple scales: Shaping knowledge production and policy-making

Local Indigenous organisations and tribespeople were dissatisfied with the lack of respect for Tao people and lack of substantial participation by the tribespeople in the government’s decision-making process. Many tribespeople did not know the project until the engineering units started to implement their plans in the tribal villages. As one interviewed tribesman states:

They (government officials and engineers) come here and do not respect our views. They did their assessment and made the final decisions on their own. They said there would be a public meeting before the start of the engineering work. However, we have a lot of ideas, but do not know who to talk to. The government designed the project and just told us how to do it, saying that this is good. (resident D)

At beginning of the planning process, the engineering units tend to the regard the advanced “ecological engineering” in Taiwan fit the creek flooding context of Orchid Island, and the government made the decision to adopt the dominant Taiwanese remediation model by excluding the local people’s participation in the administrative process. Government official tend to think that it takes time to communicate and have stereotype of tribespeople’s participation and protest that will impede policy implementation. One technician mentioned:

When people’s needs are proposed, and we think it is necessary and feasible, it will be awarded to a planning unit to do the planning and budgeting. When the local government gets the budget, they contract the work quickly. So we generally do not consider the people’s views … It is difficult to communicate. If a public meeting is held, we could almost not implement the plan because people have so many diverse opinions. (technician A)

Tribal activism engages in political communication at multiple sites that connect the online community and public space on Orchid Island and Taiwan and makes efforts to ensure that Indigenous knowledge, cultural meaning, and traditional practices are visible to strengthen the credibility of their claims. Under the pressure of public opinion, the Taidong Branch of the Council of Agriculture Soil Conservation and the Taidong government stopped the engineering scheme in Langdao and Dongqing and held a public meeting on Dongqing wild creek remediation on 9 July 2013 on Orchid Island. At the public meeting, tribespeople expressed their concerns about the negative and uncertain impacts of the project on the tribe and the environment. Local Indigenous organization critiqued that the Government’s ecological engineering method combines cement structures with vegetation, which will not only cause damage to local ecology, landscape and culture, but also affect the marine resources, the tribe’s main source of livelihood. They also critiqued that the government did not consult the tribesman when make decision to promote the reconstruction project.

The Tao cultural groups used a research survey done by the National Museum of Marine Biology to strengthen the knowledge base and credibility of tribal claims. The tribespeople stressed the uniqueness and diversity of species found on Orchid Island and emphasized that each river is unique and has diverse and varied species. They introduced the traditional methods to demonstrate the government’s engineering and pointed out that the materials used are pebbles, coral reefs and vegetation covered with flood control functions. At the end of the public meeting, the chair from the Taidong County Government announced that the participants had reached an agreement on the three working items: 1) to ask the contract engineering company to collect various actors’ opinions and adjust the original design towards utilising local materials; 2) to ask the Orchid Island Township Office to actively deal with examining the data and situations of the creeks; and 3) to suggest handing over responsibility for implementing affairs related to Orchid Island’s creeks to the Orchid Island Township Office.

Tribal activism forced the government to conduct face-to-face communication with the Indigenous civic organisation and tribespeople and to negotiate the design of the project directly rather than through the official channel of the Orchid Island Township Office. In October 2013, a public meeting on revising engineering design on Dongqing and Langdon was held by Taidong County Government. The public consultation was held to consult local tribespeople and to reply to participants’ inquiries and questions.

Tribal participants were dissatisfied because the government changed the time of the public meeting many times, and the Taidong County Government did not make efforts to ask the Orchid Island Township Office to inform the tribespeople of every village; consequently, only small numbers of tribal residents attended the public meeting. The chairperson of the Tribal Cultural Foundation mentioned that the Taidong County Government should hold public meetings both on the design and implementation of the engineering project, and the chairman argued that the government’s failure to ask the Orchid Island Township Office to inform policy stakeholders was a sign of administrative defect. However, the Taidong County Government replied that the government had held public meetings before starting the engineering project.

The government official who chaired the public meeting demonstrated a respect for local knowledge and contributions to the projects at the beginning of the public meeting. The official emphasised that the aim of the public meetings was to consult the tribespeople regarding the two engineering projects in Dongqing and Langdao, invite the tribal participants to provide opinions, and help the design and implementation units improve their understanding of local geography and land conditions in order to complete the policies of the Wild Creek Remediation Program. The chair noted that the government intended to strengthen communication with tribespeople regarding changes in the design of the engineering project and hoped to reach consensus among the government, company, and tribespeople. Only through this process could the project restart; in other words, the tribespeople were not present to simply provide endorsement at a public meeting. ⁶

The engineering technicians from the contract corporation also demonstrated respect for local voices and opinions. They emphasised that they had adopted tribal opinions according to the previous public meeting and made several changes to the project, which they then explained. One technician indicated that the engineering changes had been made according to the suggestions proposed by local tribespeople, adding that they had tried their upmost to make use of local materials for green engineering that met the tribe’s expectations. The technician then explained the details of the changes made and the reasoning behind them. He explained that local people had doubts about the construction of consolidation works. The Orchid Island Township Office hoped to complete two consolidation works to avoid laxification of the sand; in addition, the works can also be used for local water withdrawal due to horizontal blocking. However, the local tribespeople people suggested in the last public meeting that horizontal blocking would block the original ecological traceability corridor; therefore, they proposed removing this design. Thus, the proposal was a reduction of engineering and mixed soil design.

The technicians and government officials answered the questions and suggestions proposed by the tribal participants to the greatest extent possible, regardless of the proposed construction methods and environmental restrictions. The interaction between the technicians and tribespeople demonstrated deliberative features, including the technicians’ respect for and listening to local people’s opinions, reflecting on the problems of substantive issues and policy procedures, and justifying their design and changes. This sort of deliberation was promoted because of tribal activism. Tao participants expressed their opinions constructively and communicated rationally with others. The Tao participant’s narratives of how tribal life relates to the wild creek and suggestions on the redesign reflect their reasoning:

Tao participant: You should consider human beings as users rather than from a mere engineering perspective. If the work will protect the slopes on both sides, because taro fields are on both sides, I will go through the river while walking and people will go up and down. Have you considered designing steps so that we can go up and down? This part you have to think about. At present, the engineering design will remove the footholds. The height of the taro fields is higher than that of the stream, so this really needs to be taken into consideration during the design. This project needs to think about not isolating the river from the people…

Government officials clarified the change in design of the consolidation works and explained that works on both sides of the Dongqing revetment were now reduced to one location, mainly because of ecological consideration; therefore, the two consolidation works were removed. They stated that they were most concerned about the strength and safety of their work. Therefore, although the consolidation works were to be removed, the footing part was to be strengthened using another method. In addition, the engineering technicians mentioned that the work was limited by the contents of the tender contract, and therefore some of the works could not be modified and could only be reinforced. For the design of the dike, because of the implementation of the procurement contract, the main project had to be executed according to the original contract, but other small areas could use the local mud and sand as backfill to reduce the use of concrete as much as possible. In addition, the slope part of the embankment employed a pore design to enable planting of native plants.

The Tao participants used identity language strategically in the forum to represent their difference and sense of place on Orchid Island in order to justify their argument for considering local practices. This is indicated by an exchange between a tribal participant and technician:

Tribal participant: The government needs to consider our Tao tribe’s way of life rather than designing the project to earn money. You only consider your own way of life, but this island is different from Taiwan. Kuohsin Engineering Corporation is well known in Taidong County. When you come to Orchid Island, you have to live here for 1 year at least to experience our way of life, and then, it could be called a ‘conscientious business’. We are very dissatisfied with this design.

The public consultation meeting reached two acceptable agreements: 1) The Taidong County Government will ask the Orchid Island Township Office to be responsible for submitting further plans about problems related to the wild creek dredging to the county government. 2) Although the company has changed some parts of the design, the design still needs further improvement and refinement. The government will ask the engineering consultant to consider local tribespeople’s suggestions. The company will complete the administrative process of design change in the shortest time and then restart construction work in 2014.

TV news reported the public consultation and highlighted that the Cabinet asked someone to take responsibility for the design faults. The tribal views on the wild creek remediation project is actually heterogeneous. The Tao tribe has been inevitably affected by modernisation. Local residents have gradually learned the rhetoric of mainstream flood control, which has affected their knowledge discourses. Those tribespeople who oppose the project are mainly from three tribal villages in the back hill. They have built alliances to challenge the government’s engineering methods and engineering inertia, and to fight for their cultural and ecological uniqueness in addition to the validity of Indigenous knowledge practices. On the other hand, the dominant Taiwanese engineering thinking on creek remediation also affects some tribespeople. Some tribespeople who support the government project believe that ecological engineering in Taiwan does indeed have an effective function for flood control (local Tao residents B). Some tribespeople do not oppose the official remediation project, as they hope that the government can incorporate traditional tribal practices and techniques which are seen to be more environmental-friendly. In this way, it could provide a job opportunity for them.

Public consultation practices on Orchid Island have been also criticised for their effectiveness (e.g. in terms of participation representativeness, deliberative inclusiveness, trust-improving potential). Those who did not attend the forum doubt that the government did not totally adopt the tribal opinions and the project could only control the symptoms without curing the problem. However, a Tao interviewee also mentioned a dilemma: those who oppose the official project need to propose alternatives that might prevent flooding and the loss of taro fields. As one interviewee mentioned, ‘if the government does not do anything, both sides lose. The point is to let the engineering project represent local opinions and elements.’

The construction work was suspended for more than 1 year and restarted in November 2014 before completion in September 2015. This was much later than the date of the outsourcing package, which was originally estimated for completion in April 2013. The delay was in part a result of certain engineering units integrating local terrains and knowledge practices.

Discussion

This article highlights complexity at the scale of Tao governance on Orchid Island, which has been intersected with wider regional and national scales in Taiwan. The Wild creeks governance model of political system that involves authority of Township Office, Taidong County Government, the Public Construction Commission and the Taidong Branch of the Council of Agriculture Soil Conservation has conflicts with Tao traditional rules of land use and management and tribal governance. It provides some insights on how Tao tribespeople have used deliberative opportunities to influence political processes at multiple scales. Indigenous democratic practices and the relationship and interaction between Indigenous peoples and the Taiwanese government have been shaped through and by social processes. Tao people do not accept top-down model and one-way administrative communication methods. Tribal activism has forced the government to communicate with tribespeople and respond to their inquiries directly rather than through the official channel of the Orchid Island Township Office. The government changed their methods of interaction with Tao people on Orchid Island from neglect and ignorance to willingly undertaking face-to-face communication by holding further public meeting and forum. The government officials’ and technicians’ interaction and dialogue with the Tao participants on the public forum demonstrated responsiveness and respect for Tao differences. This interaction highlights the dynamic process and continuing political and social shaping of democratic practices.

Tao participation contribute to reflection on multiple ways of knowing and shaping knowledge production. A dynamic, fluid and evolutionary relationship exists among the Tao people, nature, and land on Orchid Island, which is influenced by its colonial history and the process of modernisation. Indigenous and local situated knowledge plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between the engineering theory and practice, and the problem of implementing technology. Government officials and technicians learned the interdependent relationship between the Tao people and wild creeks and their traditional knowledge and practices, thereby coming to realise that professional engineering expertise is interdependent on local and cultural conditions.

This case provides some insights on how concerns with the Wild Creek Remediation Program intersect with intertribal conflicts. Some tribal people disagree and are dissatisfied with government policies, such as delays in removing nuclear waste repositories, land use, and development planning projects, which have caused a lack of trust in the local township office. The head of the Orchid Island Township Office and the village head tended to frame the wild creek project as a development project that provides economic benefits and protects people’s lives and properties from flooding; they believed that only a small number of tribespeople opposed the project, and their intentions were to politicise the issue. Those who opposed the project also demanded improvement of the township office’s administrative communication system. Community development associations have become increasingly crucial and now provide a key platform for information flow and engagement in the communication and transmission of tribal ideas.

Tao people have different ideas of how to make policy decisions, and express expectations on deliberative ways of dealing with tribal public affairs. As one Tao interviewee proposed holding a Tao tribe assembly:

The official method used in the past was enforced by the government, that is, policy programmes were implemented directly. Now, young people are coming back. If we see that this kind of policy implementation enforcement is not good, we will directly report to the township office. We rely on local government officials to transmit messages for people to discuss, but if local officials cover some facts for their own benefit, we will oppose and protest. As for conflict solving, it is better to discuss such matters through a Tao tribe assembly.

Tao civic groups and activists have reflected on potential participatory mechanisms to increase the legitimacy and deliberative quality of Tao democracy. For example, local Indigenous organisation the Tribal Cultural Foundation proposed a Tribal Treaty and Autonomous Region Preparatory Committee on the basis of UNESCO’s ‘Indigenous Rights Declaration’ and ‘Declaration of Permanent Sovereignty of Natural Resources in the Aboriginal Traditional Areas’ and the Basic Law of the Indigenous Peoples. However, this raises questions about whether Taiwanese migrants who have lived and worked on Orchid Island for some time are included in the decision-making processes and whether Tao people who have not lived on Orchid Island for many years have the right to participate in the affairs of the autonomous regional government.

Ezrahi (2012: 1) argues that ‘democracy, like any other political regimes, must be imagined’. A democratic public have constructed a powerful resource for imagining both the entities that make democracy and the mechanisms and processes through which democracy works. Although colonial history and the state’s power and policies have challenged the traditional norms and rules of Indigenous tribes, various events and tensions connect conversations among tribespeople in different tribal villages and sites, providing spaces to reconstruct Tao tribe subjectivities. The Tao case demonstrates that Indigenous activism and participation have the epistemic, ethical and democratic functions and effects for a larger deliberative system (see Table 1).

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Functions of deliberative practices and governance.

Functions	Epistemic function	Ethical function	Democratic function
Progress	Tao tribespeople narrate and visualize traditional knowledge system and situated practices to address knowledge injustice; networking and the virtual community as a communication platform that contributes to transmission; a series of communicative activities gave access to information and made decision-making transparent	From government’s neglect to face to face communication that reveals mutual respect between tribal participants, government officials and technicians in the public meeting and consultation on design change	Tribespeople have equal opportunity to express opinions and participate in communication at multiple sites
Defects	The government fails to conduct complete investigation of local ecological and sociocultural conditions before project planning; the government made changes to integrate local materials but is unable to totally adopt traditional practices.	The government held the public meeting when the project has been implemented rather than listening to local residents and promoting public deliberation at the beginning	The government’s failure to ask the Orchid Island Township Office to inform tribespeople; tribespeople complain the government change the date and time of public meeting a few times that would affect tribespeople’s attendance

Conclusion

This article provides insights into Indigenous deliberation and how it relates to the governance of states by combining deliberative systems and politics of scales. It shows that deliberative ways have been crucial in addressing knowledge injustice pertaining to science and environmental management. The Tao case revealed the interplay of traditional and contemporary forms of environmental knowledge and governance that occurred through political participation at multiple scales to shape governance processes. Indigenous participation and deliberative practices across scales contribute to the coproduction of knowledge and knowledge inclusiveness. Tribal activists problematised the government’s dominant policy of applying modern engineering practices to the tribe by questioning its necessity and the validity of its design, and they redefined and reframed the problem as tribal subjectivities and ecological uncertainties that the engineering project might cause.

Indigenous activities have important roles in mediating parts of deliberative systems. The case presents how the emergence of Indigenous spheres of deliberation can have impact on governance. Tao tribal activism demonstrated new discourses and created networking and coalition in response to the state’s dominant policy, and this contributed to transmission and connection with communications, narratives, and dialogues in multiple spaces in the wider deliberative systems that enhanced the deliberative capacity of environmental governance. The Tao people’s political participation demonstrates the ability of Indigenous peoples to respond to contemporary political and environmental changes. In addition to campaigns and protest against the controversial projects, Tao activists set up and used the virtual community as both an internal and external communication platform and engaged in transmitting and visualizing Tao traditional knowledge system and practices. Tao activists participated in negotiating with government official and technicians and reshaping the design of the engineering projects. Their arguments and activism pressured the government to adjust the existing official environmental policy positions from a taken-for-granted status quo to integration of local materials and knowledge.

In addition to insights into the changing Indigenous politics of Taiwan, this article describes the particular contribution of Tao people to wider national politics of indigeneity in Taiwan. The ongoing collective action among tribespeople continues to redefine problems of water conversancy and social relationships, reshape tribal political subjectivities, and contributes to integrate tribal interior heterogeneity and Indigenous political agency transcends the village level. It demonstrates that a ‘hybrid forum’ that include both laypeople and experts provides a space to discuss the technical and social aspects of engineering projects with uncertainties (cf. Callon, et al., 2009). It is crucial that affected tribal people and community need to play central role in policy making process, and recognise Indigenous cultures, situated knowledge and practices to facilitate and connect deliberative forums at multiple sites. Through this, they can propose the most appropriate context-based improvements for each particular area regarding disaster reduction. Developing and connecting deliberative forums to components of deliberative systems is necessary to facilitate close interaction between experts and laypersons for deliberation on science and policy and seeking knowledge justice.