Experiencing the State: The Making of Falangaw Amis Community in Taiwa

Seeing the state as an idea and as apparatus which intervenes in people's lives, this thesis addresses how the Falangaw Amis people of Taiwan have experienced these two dimensions of the state since 1896. This thesis presents how the Amis reflexively use these experiences to fulfill their project of community construction when being in a situation of fragmentation and marginality.;After introducing Falangaw Amis people's original and transformed concepts regarding historicity, the body/person/self, and different sorts of social relatedness, this thesis demonstrates how they have experienced the state in their ordinary daily life and on some extraordinary occasions such as stage performances, baseball games, and political festivals. Specifically, in response to the state idea and apparatus, Falangaw Amis people present a modern version of genesis that contains symbols of the state; a new concept of the body that relates to the statist hierarical value system; and use faki (MB) to connect and maintain different sorts of social relatedness when facing state regulations.;This thesis emphasizes that to understand the interaction between the margin and the center from a bottom-up perspective, we need to examine Taiwan's peculiar statehood and Falangaw Amis people's being conditioned by it. However, even in such a disadvantaged situation, Falangaw Amis people still gain some knowledge of the state in their practices and experiences, and materialize the knowledge to fulfill the task of community construction.;Moreover, not only does the result of their community construction illustrate how the Falangaw Amis claim the indigenous citizenship after negotiating with the power of state idea and apparatus, it also reveals how they give positive feedback to the schismatic colonial state system and the country's hardship in order to survive in global politics. In a word, when it comes to indigenous-state relation, the researcher should go beyond the rigid model of regulation from above and resistance from below. Instead, by taking the Falangaw Amis as an example, this thesis shows how complicated power relations sometimes counteract each other and sometimes connects things together in multi-dimensional ways and the surprising results of the connections and counteractions.