This project aims to rebuild relations within Tayal society by revitalizing millet cultivation, ritual knowledge, and the ethical principles of malahang, a Tayal concept of relational care, responsibility, and healing. Phase 2 expands and deepens our earlier work by foregrounding Indigenous understandings of care rather than Western frameworks. While Phase 1 drew upon Mayeroff’s notion of “helping others grow,” we now center malahang as a culturally grounded lens to explore how relations between humans, land, crops, ancestors, and non-human beings are restored and strengthened.
Millets remain our core. They are central to Tayal identity, ecological knowledge, and food sovereignty, yet were largely displaced through colonization, forced assimilation, and modernization. As a result, not only agricultural practices but also language, rituals, kinship relations, songs, and well-being were severely disrupted. Rebuilding relations through millet cultivation is therefore both a form of healing from historical trauma and a pathway toward social justice, cultural survival, and renewed connections with Mother Earth.
In Phase 2, we will systematically document the full cycle of millet cultivation—including rituals, seed varieties, linguistic expressions, ecological indicators, and intergenerational knowledge transmission—within Tbahu (田埔) community in the Tayal territory of Jianshi. This documentation will strengthen Tayal cultural heritage within Taiwan’s emerging Indigenous heritage frameworks and contribute to biodiversity conservation.
A major new development is the powerful role of arts-based engagement, which has successfully brought children, young parents, and adult learners into the project. Earlier efforts depended heavily on elderly women; now, through children’s arts classes, weaving workshops, and creative community sessions, both youth and parents have begun to play active roles. Arts are now a primary interface for transmitting Tayal language, ritual terms, stories, and ecological knowledge. Tayal language revitalization is a key goal, and Phase 2 will integrate language learning into planting, rituals, storytelling, arts, and food activities.
Food will also serve as a vibrant cultural interface. By incorporating millets into diverse food creations—using locally sourced ingredients and involving learners in preparing and tasting meals—we will help reanimate the Tayal lifeworld in everyday practice and strengthen relationships around health, land, and identity.
Finally, Phase 2 deepens the international Indigenous network established through our trip to Panama. Tayal youth will co-design activities, contribute to documentation, and participate in building formal structures that strengthen the Millet Ark as a Tayal-led institution for long-term cultural and ecological resilience.
Research collaborators: Dr. Yih-Ren Lin
台灣將邁入超高齡社會，發展高品質、彰顯社會公平且著眼永續的老年照護體系非常迫切。本研究提供原住民族、性別和高齡在照顧情境中交織的理論和方法論洞見，並以原住民族社會生態連動的全局思維，回應迫切的社會需求。除了推進科學卓越，更透過與芬蘭薩米族經驗對照，將台灣納入全球原住民族研究討論中，接軌轉型正義、永續、氣候變遷、生物多樣性和全球福祉等議題。本研究透過創新和跨領域的研究方式，豐富性別主流化與族群主流化的政策實踐，特別關於原住民文化健
康福祉的社會福利政策制定，可形成新的法案、更進一步實質上改變政策。影響不侷限學術領域，更進一步提供原住民族知識為本與現代知識共構的基礎，回應《促進轉型正義條例》、《原住民族健康法》以及《消除對婦女一切形式歧視公約》中台灣轉型的需求。
NSTC number: 114-2410-H-259 -001 -MY2
The BIRGEJUPMI project aims to strengthen community engagement and relational environmental decision-making in Arctic coastal regions by bringing together diverse knowledge systems (Indigenous, Western, and local), grounded in a holistic, ethical, and equitable community-based approach to research with strong Indigenous leadership. Empowering communities to use and develop their own knowledge is vital for fostering resilience, cultural preservation, socio-ecological well-being, and mobilizes coastal communities to address local challenges effectively while promoting social cohesion. To this end, BIRGEJUPMI focuses on three Arctic areas: western Sápmi, northern Sápmi, and Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), following three objectives: 1) document, revitalize, and integrate Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge-informed practices connected to marine and coastal resources management and conservation in fjord socio-ecosystems, and inform decision-making processes for coastal management and governance models rooted in Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK); 2) assess the environmental, socio-economic, cultural, and demographic changes experienced by Arctic coastal communities in relation to climate change adaptation and mitigation measures, focusing on young people's visions for a sustainable future and their involvement in regional, national and EU-level environmental decision-making; 3) investigate the transformative potential of sea- and landscapes as living archives to inform TEK-rooted resource governance and empower local institutions and knowledge centers to become open spaces for dynamic community-led research. The role of Indigenous art, handicraft, and art-based methods is highlighted as they contribute to healing, reconciliation, and environmental coping mechanisms in Arctic coastal regions. BIRGEJUPMI is grounded in Indigenous methodologies and adopts a Co-Production of Knowledge (CPK) and Two-Eyed Seeing approach to advance decolonial research and responsible policy.
For more details, check out BIRGEJUPMI official website and BIRGEJUPMI at the EU website
Pairing grant from NTSC: 海洋環境地景與關係連結：賦權新行動者與空間，促進包容性知識、韌性與全人健康 (114-2923-H-259-001-MY3)
The purpose of the project is to demonstrate how human health and well-being has interlinked relationship with biodiversity and sustainability through elevating and practicing Tayal Peoples’s knowledge about millets. Check out a summary of our project in the 2025 January Newsletter!
Research collaborators: Dr. Yih-Ren Lin
Project leader: Mai Camilla Munkejord
Funding: NORCE – Norwegian research centre
This project examines ageing, quality of life, and home-based care among two indigenous peoples: Sámi in Norway and Atayal in Taiwan. we will combine perspectives from culture-sensitive nursing, human geography and indigenous studies to disclose gendered and generational expectations and experiences of ageing and care. This will help us understand how cultural and spatial aspects of care related to family networks, cohabitation patterns, distance and climate may shape the everyday lives of older indigenous women and men in specific locations. Overall, this project has decolonizing ambitions, and aims at bridging indigenous ways of knowing and Western perceptions and policy building.
Researcher: I-An Gao (Wasiq Silan).