A place for Indigenous articulation: A Kacalisian slate house in the Pingtung County Library

Abstract

In 2020, when the city of Pingtung in southern Taiwan decided to upgrade their county library, a slate house that had been previously installed began to transform from a specimen haphazardly collected to display Indigenous culture to a place for reconsidering Indigeneity. Whereas the municipal officials and Indigenous peoples who originally assembled the slate house inside the old library seemed unconcerned about the significance of home in Rukai/Paiwan culture, the re-design transformed a hidden relic into a place for Indigenous articulation. Through the materiality of the slate house, this article investigates Indigeneity as a “generative, sociomythic tradition” that allows for pragmatic retrieval of practices and stories that can produce alternative futures.