Special issue of the International Journal of Taiwan Studies (IJTS) on Public Diplomacy and Taiwan's Membership of the WHA

Indigenous peoples and the cultural/public diplomacy of Taiwan: a case study of Dispossessions: Performative Encounter(s) of Taiwanese Indigenous Contemporary Art

Carla FigueiraInstitute for Creative and Cultural EntrepreneurshipGoldsmiths, University of Londonc.figueira@gold.ac.uk

Dispossessions: Opening, 21st May 2018, Goldsmiths, University of London. Photo credit: Jhy-Yen Lo

Introduction

This paper explores how Indigenous people can through their arts and culture positively influence the foreign perceptions of Taiwan, and ultimately contribute to the achievement of the island’s diplomatic aims and create a favourable context for Taiwan’s visibility and representation in the world and its access to international fora. To demonstrate this, the paper critically examines, from a perspective of cultural diplomacy, an event: Dispossessions: Performative Encounter(s) of Taiwanese Indigenous Contemporary Art, an exhibition and series of events (talks, music, dance, performances) that took place between the 21st and the 25th of May 20181 at Goldsmiths, University of London, and discussed alcohol as part of rituals and as a health issue in Indigenous communities.1 A second edition of the event was foreseen to happen at a South London commercial gallery later that month but this did not take place.

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Before proceeding, it is important to make clear two main assumptions in this paper. One is that Indigenous peoples can garner attention and harness influence and leverage in the international sphere and in their domestic realm from a concerted approach to raise awareness of their condition(s) of dispossession and revendicate a fair and sensitive treatment of their issues – including health. The second assumption is that States in a responsibilities and rights partnership with Indigenous peoples – which implies for individuals the right of being a citizen of a particular country (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People art.33(1)) - have obligations towards those Indigenous populations in the domestic and international spheres. The fulfilment of these obligations contributes to a perception of the country as a good citizen of the international community (i.e. recognising the interdependence of humanity, and acting according to ‘human purposes beyond ourselves’ as per Hedley Bull’s concept). ‘Being a good State’ can be advantageous for public diplomacy and nation branding (e.g. Anholt-GfK Roper Nation Brands Index and Simon Anholt’s Good Country Index and Good Country movement), as well as benefiting humanity/the cosmos (Burke, 2013), in a beyond the nation-state perspective. Considering these assumptions and the analysis that follows, the author of this paper advances the following propositions: a) Taiwan can get the attention of the international community by using a social and cultural issue politically: being exemplary in the treatment of its Indigenous populations and by supporting the maintenance, development and visibility of their cultural and artistic knowledge; b) the Indigenous peoples, as non-state actors, and self-representing as Native Taiwanese, will be most efficient in advancing Taiwan’s soft power potential, since they are not tainted by the governmental ‘propagandistic’ stamp.

Many foreigners are oblivious of the existence of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. I was one of them. I thought the Taiwanese were ‘sort of Chinese’ and I was ignorant about the existence of Indigenous peoples in the island, which I mostly knew about under the name of Formosa as one of the places visited by the Portuguese in their maritime travels (I am originally from Portugal). Luckily my academic career introduced me to students and colleagues from Taiwan, and these encounters along with readings and visits to Taiwan have helped reduce (somewhat) my ignorance. One of those seminal encounters, that is at the root of this paper, was with Biung Ismahasan, from the Bunun Nation, one of the sixteen officially recognised Indigenous peoples of Taiwan, who was one of my first students on the MA Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy, a programme I convene at Goldsmiths, University of London. He went on to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Essex’s Centre for Curatorial Studies, and is en route to becoming the first PhD educated Indigenous curator in Taiwan. We share obvious academic interests pertaining to Indigenous peoples in the context of international cultural relations and diplomacy and I was excited by his proposal to host at Goldsmiths Dispossessions, ‘the first research-based exhibition of Taiwanese Indigenous contemporary art in the UK’ (Ismahasan, 2018b). This allowed me to engage in practice with what I often just teach in theory and, conveniently, it also fitted Goldsmiths’ institutional brief of supporting alumni, promoting access and diversity, being socially aware and engaged, while fostering reflection in a community beyond Goldsmiths and with impact locally and globally. This exhibition would also, importantly, demonstrate openness to programming challenging work of largely overlooked artists in the gallery and museum sectors of the major art capitals of the world: Indigenous artists – and particularly Indigenous artists from a non-Western country.

Dispossessions and its focus on alcohol drinking and alcoholism, by which one can simultaneously examine the cultural distinctiveness of the Indigenous people through its

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ritualist use and understand how colonialism has dispossessed these people of their health, along with general reflections on arts and health, were a departure point for my participation in the conference on Public Diplomacy and Taiwan’s campaign to join the World Health Assembly, on the 28th March 2018, at the Global Communications Research Centre, Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, at the kind invitation of Prof Gary Rawnsley. The idea for this special issue of the IJTS originates from that event and this paper distils my thinking from the convergence of the two events bringing together elements of cultural and public diplomacy.

The paper starts with a brief discussion of the intersection of the above mentioned disciplinary areas. Then I provide a contextual discussion of Indigenous issues in Taiwan, highlighting matters related to identity and politics, rights, international relations and representation. In the light of this context, the bulk of the paper is a critical analysis of the Dispossessions event. I seek to establish how Taiwan’s public and cultural diplomacy and its efforts to make the country seen internationally – including participation in the World Health Assembly / World Health Organisation - can gain from the visibility of the culture and arts of Taiwan’s Indigenous communities, as well as from the Taiwanese government’s behaviour as a good (international) citizen towards those populations. The conclusion summarises the findings of the paper and provides a final reflection on the content.

The author of this paper presents herself as a critical constructivist researcher (Kincheloe, 2005) and uses critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2018) on the following data: interviews with the curator, artists, other participants and members of the audience of the Dispossessions event; social media (mostly public Facebook announcements and posts related to the event); published literature and other secondary resources. Interview material is, in most cases, not attributed directly as agreed with the interviewees, but a full list of the interviews conducted is provided in the appendix.

Theoretical and Contextual Background

Considering the focus of this issue of the IJTS on public diplomacy, this paper is situated in cultural diplomacy, sometimes viewed as a subset of the above. Since my main aim in this paper is not theoretical discussion of disciplinary areas, the reader will have to excuse the brief terms in which I present my theoretical assumptions. I will refer to cultural diplomacy as the use of culture and the arts by governments to achieve their foreign policy goals and a prime activity for achieving ‘soft power’ as a relational outcome (Figueira, 2018). In this sense, cultural diplomacy can be seen to intersect with public diplomacy, since it is also a communicative act that uses the means of culture to inform, engage and influence publics overseas to advance national and strategic interests (Rawnsley and Rawnsley, 2018). My focus on government in terms of the use of the label cultural diplomacy does not imply that government officials/institutions have to be the direct agents of the activity, but there has to be some involvement and a (direct or indirect) support of foreign policy objectives. Often the difficulty in ascertaining government agency, involvement or benefit, makes it easier to use, instead of cultural diplomacy, the broader expression (international) cultural relations.

Cultural diplomacy encompasses many different types of arts and cultural activities and it relates with (internal) cultural policy. In the literature and in practice, the reader may see it referred to as cultural exchange, cultural engagement or cultural co-operation. In this context, underlying the diversity of the artistic and cultural activities and their labelling is a meaning

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associated with the interaction of discrete cultures be it for representation or promotion, communication, mutual knowledge and understanding, or negotiation. With the increased processes of globalisation and the consequent rise of transnational communication and activity, the role of the State as a cultural mediator, via cultural centres and libraries abroad and the figure of the cultural attaché, has greatly diminished. Literature has captured some of those changes in cultural diplomacy (e.g. Ditchley Foundation, 2012; Goff, 2013), but for the purpose of this paper, I would like to highlight that artists and other cultural professionals and the organisations and networks they engage with to operate across borders do work directly, only really needing governments to allow access (visas) and provide financial support (within the remit of their public diplomacy, cultural and foreign policies briefs and strategies). The instrumentalisation2 of the work of non-state actors by governments for the support of diplomacy is most effective as it allows avoiding the pejorative association of government communications and activities with propaganda (as highlighted by Rawnsley, 2014). This has led, in terms of ‘traditional’ cultural diplomacy, to noting in governmental activity, the importance of partnerships, or some sort of association, with non-state actors to achieve its aims – part of a broader trend towards ‘network’ diplomacy (Heine, 2013).

The emergence of global challenges/issues and the development of a network society highly connected by the media (see for example Manuel Castells’ work) have led to the erosion of the domestic and foreign domains of a State, which is important for us to consider at two levels: the issues themselves and their visibility. For the purpose of this paper, the emergence of the Indigenous peoples’ dispossession as an international issue (Samson and Gigoux, 2017) is significant to consider as a contextual background. Indigenous identity and politics gained traction after the Second World War, and allowed for the development of international level identity-based fora - in which the Indigenous Taiwanese peoples were able to participate - such as the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, the International Working Group on Indigenous Peoples and the World Council of Indigenous Peoples. This international movement culminated in 2007 with the ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is particularly concerned with their relationship with specific environments and their need for land, water and natural resources to allow for the maintenance of unique lifestyles, cultures and economies. Globalisation processes have enabled Indigenous peoples to organise themselves at international level in transnational networks to pursue their campaigns, making use of new information and communications technology (Kradolfer, 2011). Thus how Indigenous peoples are dealt within the territorial borders of a State is ‘regulated’ and visible internationally. This visibility, which was first enabled by the development of media outlets with international reach, has a more recent significant development, which is important for us: the role of social media in enabling individuals and groups to directly engage with the ‘whole’ world – and thus also leading to a further diversification of the sources of influence of foreign perceptions of a country.

Unlike many Indigenous socio-political movements which developed during the Cold War, in Taiwan this only gained importance in the mid-1980s. This needs to be understood in the context of the singular history and situation of Taiwan. Until 1620, Taiwan was mostly inhabited by Indigenous peoples, then the Dutch (1624-1662) and the Spaniards (1626-1642) invaded and occupied Taiwan – these were later replaced by the Cheng (Koxinga Kingdom) rule and the Manchu colonial period (1662-1895). It followed the Japanese colonial period (1895-1945) and then from 1945, the Republic of China (ROC). The colonial occupations gave rise to the topic of Indigeneity in Taiwan, which can be roughly divided into a stage of 2 I am not developing any discussions of instrumentalisation, but I don’t see it as necessary something negative.

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assimilation and/or marginalisation until the democratisation of the ROC (Taiwan) in the mid-1980s, and the current stage of establishing minority rights and multinationalism. It is this last stage that is more relevant as a background for us – although the consequences of the prior stages are unescapable in the way they have framed the present situation.

In the 1980s, the democratisation of Taiwan politics and the opening of space for institutionalised opposition allowed the ‘mountain compatriots’ to be ‘aboriginal people’ (and later ‘original peoples’) and to make revindications regarding livelihood issues (namely regarding the dispossession of land) – this was also the context for emergence of contemporary artists from indigenous backgrounds (Harrell and Yu-shih 2006). As indigenous activism grew, government began to seriously develop protection for the rights of the Indigenous peoples. In 1995, Indigenous peoples were allowed to use their tribal names on official forms of identification. In 1997, the Constitution was amended to require the state to safeguard the status and political participation of indigenous peoples. Then in 2005 the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law was issued. The above developments demonstrate that the indigenous peoples have been able to work in, across and beyond party politics to secure their rights. Currently, the Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen is committed to improve social justice and in her inaugural speech on May 20, 2016, she promised to ‘work to rebuild an indigenous historical perspective, progressively promote indigenous autonomous governance, restore indigenous languages and cultures, and improve the livelihood of indigenous communities’ (Presidential Office n/d). Later, in August of the same year, an official apology was issued acknowledging the Indigenous peoples as Taiwan’s ‘original owners’ and recognising the need for a revision of the 400 years during which these peoples were brutally treated by the Dutch, the Koxinga Kingdom, the Qing Empire and the post-war ROC government. Further, as recently as February 2018, the government’s Council of Indigenous Peoples declared 1.8 million hectares – about half of Taiwan’s total land area – to be traditional territory (Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2018). This is promising and could be an indicator that Taiwan is in the right path to implement an exemplary domestic policy. However, the current political use of Indigenous communities seems to be rather superficial, serving the public relations of political candidates about Taiwanese society, as demonstrated in Davies (2018) ongoing research, who notes that the references to Indigenous communities are often culturally reductive or fall into misrepresentation and do not actually focus on aboriginal issues.

The democratic turn in Taiwan and the consequential empowerment of different voices in civil society, also gave rise to an ongoing debate on the national identity of Taiwan. Here, indigenous identity has been used, at different times, to differentiate the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). It is beyond the scope of this paper to examine the party politics in the use of Indigeneity in the development of Taiwanese nationalism (see Ku 2005 and Chang 2015) since our focus is the present. Thus we just briefly note, as an example, that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as then an opposition party in Taiwan, proposed in 1992, the notion of a multicultural Taiwan. However, the notion was in effect Han-Chinese centred, since the four ethnic groups accounted for, were besides the Indigenous peoples: the Hakka, the Haklo and the Mainlanders, which have their origin in mainland China (Wei 2017). This domination of the Han culture is still very much felt by the Indigenous peoples, as I later report when analysing Dispossessions. The current DPP government claims a separate identity for Taiwan (distinct from the PRC) and has reframed the national identity narrative away from Taiwan being the preserver of traditional Chinese culture: ‘Taiwan is known as a culturally diverse society’ (Presidential Office, 2016). This instrumentalisation of Indigeneity for foreign policy and

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identity purposes is important as one cannot forget that Taiwan operates in a ‘disabling environment’ (Rawnsley, 2014), where the forging of alliances in the international community needs to be creatively alternative.

When analysing the potential importance of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples as a component of the national identity of Taiwan and for the communication/visibility of Taiwan to/in the world, it is important to briefly note demographic developments that can be defining factors to orient Taiwan further to de-Sinicisation, as there has been increased migration to Taiwan from other Southeast Asian countries. Taiwan’s inhabitants are mostly Han Chinese and the aboriginal population is constituted by around 530,000 individuals, corresponding to 2.3% of the total population in the island (Taiwan Today, 2018). They are organised in 16 recognised tribes3 - soon to be 174 and with a further tribes seeking recognition. However, in recent years the overall number of foreign residents in Taiwan has surpassed the number of Indigenous population in the island. Globalization trends since the 1980s encouraged international migration to Taiwan: this includes labour migration and marriage migration, particularly from Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia. The ‘Taiwanese new immigrants’, now roughly 3% of Taiwan’s population (with over 600,000 people), are transforming how Taiwanese perceive themselves and the country’s relations to Southeast Asia (see recent developments noted by Chiang and Yang 2018). Although outside of the scope of this paper to examine the socio-political consequences of these changes, as it is any reflections on the concept of ‘population quality’ and the categorisation of individuals and migrants as being of lower and higher quality in the context of Taiwan’s migration and citizenship policy – which Wang (2011) rightly characterizes as emanating from a class-based ideology – it is something that needs to be keep in mind as potentially impactful in the development of a national identity narrative, beyond any favoured ruling party approach.

Despite being a minority of the population, the Taiwanese Indigenous peoples have an important role in the international relations of Taiwan. They were attending the United Nations when the ROC had already been expelled, and they continue to be important, as they enable the development of important international connections. Considering that many scholars believe Taiwan is the source of all Austronesian peoples5 (Jacobs, 2017), governments have used the projection of the Austronesian narrative in their public diplomacy. This connection is now further reinforced by the ‘Taiwanese new immigrants’ originating from Southeast Asia. Currently ‘Southeast Asian-ness’ is particularly visible in diplomatic missions and international conferences, but it is also reported in domestic events (Davies, 2018). The present Taiwanese government seeks to develop a New Southbound Policy to expand trade and people-to-people contacts with Southeast Asia (Sautin, 2017; Bondaz, 2017). On this matter it is interesting to register the words of the New Zealand government: “While we do not maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan, we do have a vibrant trading, economic and cultural relationship” (New Zealand Foreign Affairs & Trade, n/d). Taiwan signed in 2013 a free-trade agreement with New Zealand - its first with a developed economy. According to Davis (2018) this was very much encouraged by aboriginal cultural exchange. This sort of exchange has been increasingly institutionalised: in November 2017, the Pingtung County-headquartered Indigenous Peoples Cultural 3 The Council of Indigenous Peoples lists: Amis, Atayal, Paiwan, Bunun, Tsou, Rukai, Pinuyumayan, Saisiyat, Yami, Thao, Kavalan, Truku, Sakizaya, Sediq, Hla’alua, Kanakanavu.4 Taiwan’s courts recognised the Siraya people as the island’s 17th indigenous group and they are awaiting official proclamation by the government (June 2018). See Morris (2018).5 The matter of the origins of the Indigenous peoples in Taiwan is contentious and has being object of various uses in relation to China. Some theories claim that these people originate from mainland China and not Southeast Asia. See Ku (2005 for details).

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Development Center and Darwin-based Artback NT signed a memorandum of understanding on a residency exchange programme for 2018-19 for indigenous artists from Taiwan and Australia replacing previous ad hoc projects (Taiwan News 2017). The instrumentalisation of Indigeneity is a way to build bridges with other countries and shaping foreign publics’ perceptions, and the arts seem to be an effective means. Wei’s (2017) analysis of Taiwan’s cultural diplomacy, from a cultural policy point of view, evidences the importance of arts and culture for the international visibility of Taiwan. Her work (ibid, p. 112) also prompts the reflection that if, for many countries/organisations, a focus exclusively on Taiwan, may be too narrow, the Taiwanese Indigenous peoples can facilitate links to broader issues/areas such as Indigeneity and Austronesia. Davis (2018) offers examples of the importance of indigeneity as a bond and motivation for further action: a cooperative act with the Philippines for the protection of aboriginal peoples; and Taiwan’s participation is the Pacific Arts Conference involving artists from the Austronesian region that, after 20 years of refusal, finally accepted Taiwan’s participation. The Taiwanese government is making some use of these connections between cultural and economic diplomacy, and they are becoming aware of the need to develop cultural policy domestically, being mindful of their minority populations, as demonstrates the discussions of the cultural diversity and cultural rights of the ‘new immigrants’ in the National Culture Congress 2017, which should be included in the forthcoming White Paper for Culture (Wei 2018, personal email communication).

Considering Taiwan’s diplomatically crippling status and its shrinking number of diplomatic partners, different Taiwanese governments have developed different strategies supportive of its diplomatic aims, closer or further from the PRC depending on the party inclination, but all have recognised the important role of culture and the arts (for a broad review of these see Wei 2017), and these have been a defining theme of Taiwan’s external projection (Rawnsley 2017). However, in my view, those internal and external narratives, should give more space for the self-representation of the Indigenous populations that are key to define a Taiwanese national identity that is separate or goes beyond traditional Chinese culture. Furthermore Taiwan needs to empower others (namely its civil society) to shape the narratives that favour them, since government machineries are too slow to agree and approve reactions to news and communications, as noted by Rawnsley (2017). Examining Dispossessions allows us to see how this can happen.

Dispossessions: The Event

Dispossessions is presented by its curator as ‘the first research-based exhibition of Taiwanese Indigenous contemporary art in the UK’ and ‘a gathering of artistic and curatorial activism, showcasing the latest Austronesian performative knowledge from a Taiwanese Indigenous perspective’ (Ismahasan 2018b and 2018c respectively). The terminology used indicates that the event and its participants are situated in a complex intertwining of geopolitical, anthropological and artistic/curatorial spheres.

Dispossessions displays Taiwaneseness as diversity. The event counted with the participation of eight individual artists and a musical troupe (Ismahasan 2018a). Besides the artist-curator-academic researcher Biung Ismahasan (Namasia’s Dakanuwa Community, Bunun Nation), the artists participating in Dispossessions were: performance and installation artist Don Don Hounwn (Truku Nation) with co-performer Temu Basaw; installation artist, environmental and textile sculptor Eleng Luluan (Rukai Nation); interdisciplinary painter Eval Malinjinnan (Takitudu group of the Bunun people from the Bukai community); interior and product

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designer Hsu-Hung (Sean) Huang (Han Nation); choreographer and dancer Yu-Hsien Hsueh (Han Nation); the group of eight singers of the Ayi-yanga First Taiwanese Ethnomusicology Ensemble (Paiwan Nation). In addition to the above, Marita Isobel Solberg, a performance artist from Northern Sápmi in Norway was a special guest. From the above list it is evident the diversity of peoples represented in the exhibition, which besides including different individuals of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples, included two members of the Han Nation and a guest from Norway. This curatorial decision points, in my view, to a conception of Taiwan as diverse and open to the world. Furthermore, the fact that the curator is Indigenous and the expression ‘Taiwanese Indigenous’ is used in the title of the event indicates a voluntary self-representation bringing those (potentially dissonant) identities together – while opening identity beyond the nation-state, with the reference to Austronesia. This mirrors a complex process still being negotiated in Taiwan, since discrimination continues to be reported as afflicting domestic relations, and the situation in relation to the PRC continues unresolved.

A continued colonial condition in Taiwan was reported by many of the interviewees. Indigenous interviewees reported feeling outsiders in Taiwan, and the word discrimination was often used to describe the situation of Indigenous peoples. One interviewee noted ‘We are different from the Han Nation. The main issue is that the Taiwan Indigenous people are not equivalent to the Han people’. Interviewees reported that Indigenous people, if they could (i.e. if visually they could blend with the Han ethnicity) they would not reveal their ethnicity. Some would only do it, if they were overseas – one noted that in London, they had met more Indigenous people than they ever did in Taiwan. Other Indigenous interviewees, particularly from a mixed Han-Indigenous background and from a younger generation, were on journeys to make sense of their identity and were actively looking to revive its traditions. This tension between identities was aptly captured by one the interviewee saying: ‘The new generation of Indigenous people are in between worlds as they will think that they are not Indigenous enough (“you have to learn your own language, but they don't have a chance to practice it”), and if they go outside their communities, they feel they are not Chinese enough. The parents will actually say, don’t learn our language, learn English or Chinese. Very conflicting…’. This is a problematic situation that the Taiwanese governments needs to tackle with a view to building a harmonious and fair society, otherwise public diplomacy narratives presenting the country as a model of democracy will be open to criticism. Indigenous populations (and other minorities) need support to participate in the Taiwanese multicultural polis and be able to keep their cultural identity, which will be beneficial for the forging of international links.

Dispossessions is an example of an cultural/artistic event where Indigenous people are in control of the narrative being put forward (thus avoiding cultural appropriation and misunderstandings, as it has been the case in other circumstances, see for example Wei 2017 on the International Youth Ambassadors Exchange Programme) that can also be read as a cultural and public diplomacy event, where examples of international representation and links were present. My labelling of Dispossessions as a diplomatic event emanates from several reasons: the event communicates messages valuable for Taiwan’s foreign policy; it was financed by Taiwanese governmental institutions with foreign policy responsibilities; and it was also financed by Taiwanese institutions that although having only a domestic remit, would like to raise their international affairs significance (Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation, Council of Indigenous Peoples). Dispossessions communicates to (foreign) audiences a particular cultural representation of the geopolitical unit ‘Taiwan’ both in its title and content (an exhibition of ‘Taiwanese’ Indigenous contemporary art), which reinforces perceptions of Taiwan as a modern and independent political unit, cultural and politically distinct from the PRC, upholding democratic and pluralistic values, and hinting at a wider

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Austronesian affiliation (which opposes traditional and narrow narratives vis a vis Mainland China). The event was fully sponsored by the Taiwanese government, with concurrent funds from different institutions: Council of Indigenous Peoples, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Culture and Arts Foundation, Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation – along with the support of private Taiwanese institutions - Taipei Indigenous Contemporary Art Gallery, Chen Mei Arts & Culture Social Enterprise – and other foreign organisations: Goldsmiths’ via support to Alumni (in terms of making the space of the Lower Atrium of the Professor Stuart Hall Building available, but also through some competitive funds available through the Students’ Union Friends and Alumni Fund) and the support of the Office for Contemporary Art of Norway. This concurrence of efforts by state and non-state actors in the organisation, funding and delivery of an event is increasingly a favoured modus operandi of cultural diplomacy, as evidence seems to indicate that this will be the most effective for an instrumental use of arts and culture in the shaping of foreign perceptions by governments (Ditchley Foundation 2012).

Following from that line of reasoning that the effectiveness in communicating a message is best achieved through non-state means, I note the use of mass and social media in Dispossessions. Social media was used for promoting the exhibition and also to captured some of its content for future use. The transmission of this content has unintended impacts for the organisers of the event (or for that matter for the Taiwanese government) which can only be superficially grasped here. There is a web page for the event (Ismahasan 2018c), a Facebook page (Ismahasan 2018b), and videos are available on YouTube (Ismahasan 2018d and e). The exhibition was also systematically covered by the Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV), which broadcasted four different pieces (IPCF-TITV 2018a, b, c and d) of almost three minutes each, during the week long duration of the event. Unfortunately an English transcript of the TITV videos is not available (yet), which means that this narrative is only going to be consumed by a narrower (mostly domestic or at least Mandarin Chinese speaking) audience and not by an international audience. Thus in this immediate case, Dispossessions’ online reach may not be as ample as it could be (although Facebook interactions via the event’s and participants’ personal pages was intense - by this I mean the number of posts and likes), but the potential is there - the videos are online and some on YouTube, so anyone could undertake that task of transcription and translation for a wider audience in different languages. This would enable the multiplication of representational and communicational gains for both the Indigenous peoples and the Taiwanese government: in the diplomatic sphere as I have already highlighted above, and in the social and cultural sphere, for example through raising of awareness of Indigenous dispossession, or Indigeneity as a strand of contemporary art practice.

Regarding the analysis of Dispossessions as a cultural diplomacy event, it should be noted that the Facebook page of the Taipei Representative Office in the UK – Cultural Division (2018), one of the sponsors of the event, also featured their own photos and videos of the exhibition and highlighted that the focus of Dispossessions was in understanding how an Indigenous exhibition can help foster cultural relations and diplomacy - a panel on this subject was part of the event but did not include diplomatic representatives. The opening of the event was attended by the Deputy Representative of Taiwan in the UK - but overall the involvement of Taiwanese governmental authorities in the event was kept low key by the organisers of the event, so not to distract from their main aim, which was getting the audience’s attention to the plight of the Indigenous peoples of Taiwan. However, interviewees were generally positive regarding ‘being used’ by government to make Taiwan seen/visible internationally.

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The distancing from government and the focus on the audiences’ experience worked well. From my observations and experience as a member of the audience, I can say that the emotional exchange between the artists and the audience was intense – the impact of which although not measurable, can be deemed to exist, and of potential benefit to both the Indigenous peoples and to Taiwan. Dispossessions by focusing on people-to-people meaningful engagement provided unique moments of connection between ‘discrete’ cultures embodied in individual experiences, manifesting themselves in/during the artistic performances. Examples include: the blending of cultural traditions brought by dancer and choreographer Yu-Hsien Hsueh combining contemporary dance with flamenco and Indigenous Taiwanese music and dance; the performative encounter between Marita Isobel Solberg, a performance artist from Northern Sápmi in Norway, and performance artist Don Don Hounwn of the Taiwanese Indigenous Truku Nation; and the spontaneous participatory exercise of singing and dancing that brought together the public and members of the Ayi-yanga First Taiwanese Etnomusicology Ensemble. These are personal choices – constituting limited evidence – that illustrate moments in a week-long event that by its own nature and design was a cultural exchange event, where artists and performers of Taiwanese Indigenous contemporary art came into direct contact with a diverse audience, composed of people from London and elsewhere in the UK/Europe/World and members of the Taiwanese diaspora (Indigenous and non-Indigenous), while also having a digital footprint with potentially multiplier effects.

As noted, Dispossessions: Performative Encounter(s) of Taiwanese Indigenous Contemporary Art6 was described by its curator as ‘a gathering of artistic and curatorial activism’ (Ismahasan 2018c). It is a reflection of times of social disruption, instability and change for the Indigenous communities and a site of discursive struggle regarding alcohol. The curator explicitly says that: ‘this exhibition aims to vindicate the allegedly genetic explanation of Taiwanese Indigenous drinking problem as a counter-narrative to defy the consistent slander and degradation by non-Indigenous authorities and peoples’ (Ismahasan 2018c) and presents ‘alcohol abuse as a continuing colonial scourge’ (Ismahasan 2018a:7). The central subject matter of the exhibition – cereal crop millet and its fermentation into traditional millet wine – carries with it a claim to the redefinition of the understanding of alcohol in an (Taiwanese) Indigenous context. This challenge to a hegemonic/Otherly discourse regarding alcohol brings to the fore an internal gaze on the matter, that of the Indigenous people. This alternative reading is both a history of the past and a story of the present, a situation that although happening within a country is shared by populations elsewhere.

Indigenous people have been dispossessed of many things, most importantly of land - which continues today (in Taiwan and elsewhere), despite legislative measures protecting Indigenous ownership. Since land is intrinsic to the definition of Indigenous lifestyles and culture7 (Samson and Gigoux, 2017), not being able to manage and live off it exacerbates social and health issues such as alcohol abuse (Simon 2016). People are thus also dispossessed of their health (e.g. diabetes, alcoholism) and of their knowledge (e.g. 6 It is impossible in the limited word count of this paper to examine fundamental questions, such as what is Indigenous art , particularly if we think back to what is historically labelled as such. Dispossessions reinforces an emerging way of narrating the intersection of (Modern) Art and Indigeneity, blending the worlds of academia and activism. One could say that partly distinguishes Indigenous contemporary art is its activism – albeit other characteristics can be called into play, such as themes or materials.7 One interviewee described it as: ‘Indigenous people think they belong to the land, while non-Indigenous people think they possess the land’.

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traditional healing, knowledge of herbs). Indigenous interviewees told me how the slow process of making alcohol from the millet left over after the distribution of the crop to the whole family and the act of drinking alcohol were traditionally associated to rituals connected with purification and healing, the blessing of family and activities like hunting. Colonialists, by taking away Indigenous land, silencing the use of their languages and replacing them by others (in Taiwan: first Japanese, then Chinese), and thus breaking the contexts, mechanisms and processes enabling cultural transmission between generations, and by making alcohol readily and cheaply available, actively worked for the demise and marginalisation of these populations. One could argue, that nowadays, these populations have agency and some powers of self-regulation – there is in Taiwan, the Council of Indigenous Peoples, which is a governmental ministry-level body looking after their rights. However, disagreements for leadership on different matters between tribes are reportedly common and there is also the issue of the co-option of the small (educated and ‘modernised’) Indigenous leadership into the governmental apparatus, which one of my interviewees compared to bullies inside their Indigenous communities, colonising from within, instead of being brokers and mediators. If the Taiwanese government is able to make internal progress on these complex matters (be it tackling the alcohol/health issue, or the overall condition of the Indigenous peoples), this can be considered evidence of an exemplary behaviour of a State and beneficial to its international status (including how it is perceived).

Beyond content issues, Dispossessions as an arts event can support the affirmation of Taiwan’s independence in the international community and its public diplomacy narratives. The event links Taiwaneseness (as a national identity) with a construction and display of indigenous identity in a (foreign) intercultural space: Goldsmiths has a culturally diverse body of students - some of which engaged in the organisation of the event – and many of the external visitors shared similarly culturally diverse backgrounds. In this cross-cultural/social relations platform, the curated exhibition fashions a view of ‘Taiwanese Indigenousness’ for double consumption: of its members and for an ‘Other’ audience/public. As Graham and Penny in their edited book Performing Indigeneity (2014:4) stress: ‘ “Insiders” and “outsiders”, performers and audiences, publics and individual subjects continually interact to shape emergent Indigenous identities in public arenas and intimate spaces’. This performance thus produces new knowledge, contributing to a shaping of Indigeneity (and also of Taiwaneseness) for the members of the group and a shaping of perceptions of that cultural identity for those outside (and potentially enacting other impacts in terms of self-perception and relationships with Others).

Dispossessions is part of an international movement of contemporary art where Indigeneity is a marker, but since this is not a mainstream movement, just the happening of such a multidisciplinary event is a feat in itself. In this matter, the role of the curator is very important. As noted by the Dispossessions curator, Biung Ismahasan, in conversation with the author, his aim was to enable the communication of and reflection upon contemporary issues affecting Indigenous communities, and at the same time showcase the confidence of Indigenous artists. He sees the role of curators as being to connect people around the world. This is why the international links via artistic practice and consumption are so important in Dispossessions. Held abroad, the event has a character of ‘diplomatic’ representation. It also enabled connections: it included a guest from Norway; the artists taking part in Dispossessions went to Oslo immediately after to attend a symposium; the event was attended by specialised public coming on purpose from continental Europe (e.g. a cultural officer from the European Union and a multicultural Moroccan born artist and activist). Governments have much to gain from funding such events as it enables them to showcase its

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values and its peoples to specialised publics, but the sustainability and multiplication of those links needs to become a priority. Interviewees noted that the government should innovate their practices by investing in building and maintaining connections beyond just sending artists for one-off visits. This could be done via the sponsoring of training/visits abroad of curators and arts managers, as well as making funding available to create archives of practice-based knowledge. Furthermore, the way the Taiwanese government funds cultural exchange activities, where funds are only provided after the event, creates logistical nightmares that can be unsurmountable, if there isn’t a ‘benefactor’ that can take the risk to advance ‘the cash’ in the meantime. Some may advance that the commercial gallery circuit could be of help here. However, in my interactions with some of the Indigenous artists there was a rejection of those galleries, because they had non-Indigenous curators, that reportedly misunderstood Indigenous art, and because their emphasis was in making money by taking advantage of Indigenous artists. This is obviously debatable, but some interviewees indicated preferring that the State would take the role of promoter of Indigenous art by setting up a publicly funded gallery. However, at the same time, I saw evidence of very entrepreneurial activity in the Indigenous artists, which sold their art, while making a living from portfolio careers, or resorted to developing cultural and creative tourism activities around their cultural and artistic practices.

Conclusion

The issues underpinning Dispossessions are of international relevance and this is why such a relatively small event can be so important for the public diplomacy of Taiwan. I have evidenced how the event made Taiwan seen/visible to internationally publics via a showcasing of the artistic work of its Indigenous people, and how this helps reinforce foreign perceptions of Taiwan as an independent country in the international community (despite the issues with official recognition) and as a multicultural society where democratic values are upheld. However, as I noted throughout the analysis, the messages conveyed through Dispossessions about the Taiwanese state and society are not always positive. The impact these messages (which remain digitally available) have in the audience is something outside of the scope of the paper, but one can safely assume that there will be a range of effects on perceptions of Taiwan: from positive impressions of a thriving Taiwanese Indigenous artistic practice engaging in modern art sponsored by its government, to less positive perceptions concerning the continuous dispossession(s) these communities endure (captured in the event through the focus on the relationship between the value of millet wine and alcohol drinking and dispossession of health).

Taiwan’s authorities need to be ambitious and seek to innovate in their understanding of international engagement and cultural/public diplomacy practices. Just getting the attention of the international community should not be enough. In the case studied, the attention should be given to Taiwan because of exemplary ideas and values, policies and practices developed towards the betterment of its (Indigenous) populations. Be it in the area of health (which is relevant to the circumstances prompting this IJTS issue) by supporting the recovery of Indigenous cultural health knowledge; or in the area of arts and culture, by supporting the maintenance, development and visibility of their artistic practice. Besides a more systemic change, that is more visible to foreign audiences, there are small improvements that can support this change and these need to be made within existing institutions and processes (better understanding of the cultural and social causes of alcoholism leading to the development of different health solutions; or in the case of the arts, changes on how funding

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is provided by the governmental institutions, and its use of activities that have a multiplier and sustained effect) which will improve how cultural exchange can be carried out and be more impactful. Ultimately the internal and external domains of activity of the State interact in the formation of foreign perceptions.

What I suggest above is in the domain of good international and domestic citizenship of the State. These enabling activities of government will empower Indigenous people (and should also empower other minorities and the rest of Taiwanese society), enabling them to also be international champions of Taiwan in people-to-people relations, in their relations with governments of other countries and also in international fora. Public diplomacy needs non-state actors and cultural diplomacy would be nothing without them.

But can Taiwan go further? If Taiwan faces in the international community from lack of recognition and thus continues to live in the diplomatic margins of international community, perhaps it is high time to shake the foundations and processes existing in that structure. Can Taiwan learn from the core beliefs of its Indigenous peoples and embrace a new outlook in terms of managing the relationship with the land under its jurisdiction prototyping behaviours conducive to tackling the contemporary global ecological crisis? Can Taiwan go beyond the logic of the nation-state and contribute to real change in the international community?

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Appendix - List of Interviewees

Biung Ismahasan (Bunun Nation), artist-curator Don Don Hounwn (Truku Nation), performance and installation artist Eleng Luluan (Rukai Nation), installation artist, environmental and textile sculptor Eval Malinjinnan (Bunun Nation), interdisciplinary painter Pea-Chen Tseng (Han Nation), Director of Taipei Indigenous Contemporary Art

Gallery, Northern Taiwan Muni Pasasauv (Paiwan Nation), MA student in Social Anthropology at SOAS,

University of London, event moderator and interpreter Guo Ting Lin (Amis Nation), PhD candidate in Media Studies, School of Media, Arts

and Design, University of Westminster, London, curatorial assistant Vava Isiingkaunan (Bunun Nation), artist and cultural worker in Taiwan, curatorial

assistant

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The above interviews took place at Goldsmiths during Dispossessions. I thank Muni Pasasauv and I-Ying Liu for their assistance in the interpretation/ translation of some of the interviews. Thank you also to all those anonymous participants and members of the public that took the time to answer questions or approach me with comments. I have learnt immensely from all of you. A final thank you to the postgraduate Goldsmiths’ students Nadezhda Ponomarenko and I-Ying Liu for their help in making Dispossessions happen.

Further personal email communications were maintained with Taiwanese cultural policy and cultural diplomacy researcher Chun-Ying Wei and with Taiwanese Indigenous curator-artist Biung Ismanasan, who both commented on final drafts of this article in early October 2018. Thank you to both.

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