Wounded Land and People: Inspired Insights from the Attitudes of Paiwanese People and Tao People Toward Nuclear Waste

The East Asia Center at the University of Washington will present a talk with Hsi-Wen Chang, a PhD student of the Department of Anthropology. 

The East Asia Center at the University of Washington will present a talk with Hsi-Wen Chang, a PhD student of the Department of Anthropology. 

In 2008 and 2010, Taiwan Power Company (TPC) consecutively selected two Paiwanese villages as candidates for nuclear waste repository sites. Surprisingly, Paiwanese villages were willing to accept storing nuclear waste on their homeland in the hopes of facilitating local development through TPC's monetary compensation. Compared to Paiwanese villagers’ positive attitude, Tao islanders have demonstrated a contrasting manner towards nuclear waste since they founded the state-owned “fish can factory”, which is actually a nuclear waste repository. The overarching question I would like to ask is why there are different attitudes from different people on the issue of nuclear waste. Drawn from previous literature on nuclear relevant issues, three theoretical perspectives including environmental justice, sense of place and tourism are used to interpret why the two indigenous communities hold different attitudes toward nuclear waste. Particularly, in order to integrate the multiple sources shaping people’s opinions toward nuclear waste to explain the attitude formation toward nuclear waste, I develop a new concept based on my field work- a fluid relationship between people and land, which reflects the indigenous view of nature and the spatiotemporal influences from contextual factors such as geography, economic system, colonial history and religions.