Cultural Governance and Intergenerational Nurturing Practices in a Paiwan Community: A Care Ethics Perspective

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 1:45 pm - Gold 1
  In Roundtable Session: Global Comparisons in Multicultural Education

Abstract

This study explores civic disengagement and distrust in systems shaped by functionalist logic, focusing on Takamimura, a Paiwan community in Taiwan. Through qualitative methods like interviews and participant observation, it reveals how cultural governance offers an alternative via relational practices, ritual rhythms, and intergenerational care. Guided by care ethics—relationality, responsiveness, contextuality, mutual subjectivity, and responsibility-generation—the findings show ethical roles arise not by design, but through participation and situated response. Indigenous cultural governance is reframed as a non-institutional space of ethical learning that addresses civic and educational breakdowns. Takamimura does not merely teach ethics or preserve culture; it enacts and practices them, presenting a lived model of engagement rooted in relational care and collective responsibility.

Author

• LIAO YUAN-HSUAN, NATIONAL TAIWAN NORMAL UNIVERSITY