ABSTRACT
There is an increasing awareness of the importance of collaboration in understanding indigenous ecological knowledge and modern resource management. It is widely known that this approach has the potential to politically reconcile the state-indigenous relations, economically reduce the cost of implementation, and ecologically enhance the society’s capacity to adapt to the environmental change. However, the collaboration often encounters political and intellectual obstacles. This article presents the efforts made to facilitate dialogue among indigenous ecological knowledge, modern science, and state policies for land management in Taiwan. Based on the author’s extensive involvement of participatory mapping and ethno-physiographic research in the indigenous communities, this article: (1) reviews the context community mapping was introduced to Taiwan as a tool for indigenous traditional territory survey, and turned into a form of grass-roots movement; (2) demonstrates the example of how the human-environment relations are expressed; and (3) addresses a recent progress in the state’s spatial planning policy, which could not be achieved without the mediation between indigenous and modern scientific knowledge. In the end, this article concludes with the reflections on the experience of engagement (with the community, landscape, and management regime) and further discusses how these reflections help to conceptualize an engaged scholarship.
