From Strategic Scientific Essentialism to De-Essentialism: Genetic Science and the Name Rectification Movement of the Thao Aborigine

• In Event: Reimagining and Remaking the World: Decolonial and Indigenous STS

Abstract

Efforts of aboriginal peoples to obtain recognition of the Name Rectification Movement are a global phenomenon. In the making of aboriginal ethnicity, genetic research play an important role in the global and local context. Using the name rectification movement of the Thao people in Taiwan as an example, this article analyzes how name rectification activists used human genome research to achieve their re-naming goal. I use historical and field data to argue that Thao ethnic activists used DNA evidence as an example of “strategic scientific essentialism” in Thao identity formation. After the Thao was officially recognized by the Taiwan government in 2001, DNA evidence was deemphasized compared to land ownership, the establishment of a Thao national council, and the promotion of Thao language learning in the construction of Thao ethnicity. This shift from “strategic scientific essentialism” to “strategic scientific de-essentialism” confirms that ethnic identity is not primordial, but a product shaped by social and political change.

Author

• Yu-yueh Tsai, Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica