Event Date: November 3, 2025 - 9:00am to 3:00pm
Location: FSS 4006 and online, 120 University Private, University of Ottawa

Registration: Google Forms

Presented by CIPS, the Asian Studies Network, the Research Chair on Taiwan Studies and the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, with funding from Global Affairs Canada

This one-day conference builds on one of the five pillars of Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, “Investing in and Connecting People,” and specifically its promise to pursue reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples in the region and support the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. One of the under-researched areas in International Relations is how museums mediate relationships between nations. Although museums emerged from the colonial actions of the 19^th century, they are now becoming sites of reconciliation and decolonization. With Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars from Canada, the United States, Taiwan, and Japan, we will explore the relations between nations as revealed through museum practices and collections, including the presence of Indigenous peoples in Canada’s museums. How can the museums across the Indo-Pacific contribute to reconciliation and the engagement of Indigenous peoples in people-to-people diplomacy?

Program

8:30am-9:00am – Doors open

9:00am-9:15am – Opening remarks

9:15am-9:45am – Keynote address – Robert Falcon-Ouellette

10:00am-12:00pm – Academic conference panels 1 & 2

12:00pm-1:00pm – Lunch

1:00pm-2:00pm – Academic conference panel 3

2:00pm-3:00pm – Graduate Student session

3:00pm-6:00pm – Visit to the Canadian Museum of History

Abstracts

Using Digital Sovereignty and Virtual Repatriation to Indigenize Museums of the Future

Pei-Lin Yu, Boise State University

Indigenous engagement with museums of previously colonizing nations is situated within the larger realm of sovereignty and self-determination. The growth of digital capacities offers new pathways for repatriation, co-management of Indigenous data and items within museums, and strategies for Indigenous-owned and managed museums that enhance the exercise of sovereignty. Indigenous communities have been ‘early adopters’ of digital sovereignty strategies in which Indigenous holders of tradition and heritage assume control over associated data, and virtual or engage in digital repatriation in which museums share archival and other forms of knowledge. This paper respectfully presents case studies from the Pacific Northwest United States and offers recommendations for using digital methods to strengthen relations within and among Canadian, Japanese, and Taiwanese museums and source communities; build resiliency and plurality in management strategies and communication with museum visitors; and enhance plurality and inclusiveness in museum stewardship of Indigenous cultural heritage items and knowledge.”

Dialogues through Material Culture: A Decade of Collaboration between Taiwan’s Indigenous Communities and the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan

Atsushi Nobayashi, National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan

This presentation examines over a decade of collaborative engagement between the indigenous source communities of Taiwan and the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. Initiated in 2007 as an individual undertaking, the project gradually expanded into a work studio and later encompassed multiple ethnic groups. In recent years, the principal participants have shifted to younger generations, particularly individuals in their teens and twenties, suggesting a process of intergenerational transmission and evolving participation.

Throughout these collaborative surveys, the discourse of “decolonization” has rarely been articulated by either the source communities or the researchers involved. Rather, the activities have been driven by a shared intellectual interest in observing and interpreting historical materials and a desire to establish a dialogic relationship with ancestral heritage through such materials. The museum has functioned as a custodian of material culture and a platform for reflecting on the intellectual legacies of humanity and specific ethnic groups. It has emerged as a connective node that facilitates encounters among individuals and communities across ethnic and generational lines.

The Encounter Between Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples and the Royal Ontario Museum: Identification, Empowerment, and Repatriation of collections

Liu Pi-chen, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan

An increasing number of countries are placing importance on the relationship between museum collections and the Indigenous peoples to whom these objects originally belonged. Improving this relationship has become one of the indicators of decolonization. The Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) holds over 200 artifacts from Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, collected between 1871 and 1890 by Presbyterian missionary George Leslie Mackay during the semi-colonial period following the opening of Taiwan’s ports to Western trade (after 1858). In 1893, Mackay brought these artifacts back to Canada to showcase the results of his glory missionary work. The inventory list of these objects has been lost, and their descriptions are incomplete. In 2000, I participated in a collaborative research and exhibition project between the two countries. Through the knowledge and memory of Indigenous groups who had interacted with Mackay (Kavalan, Taokas, Atayal, Saysiyat, and Pangcah/Amis), the artifacts were identified, at same time providing opportunities for these communities to reconnect with this collection. 

Over the past two decades, this engagement has been especially significant for the Kavalan people—originally not officially recognized as Indigenous —who rediscovered lost weaving techniques through the artifacts. These techniques were used to find and revive traditional clothing and strengthen their ethnic identity. In this way, the museum, once a colonial site of missionary display, has been transformed into an example of how marginalized Indigenous groups can be empowered. In 2023, for the first time in history, the chief (noble) and pulingau(shaman) of the Mudan Paiwan tribe traveled to the University of Edinburgh to retrieve successfully four warrior skulls from its collection. Related issues such as the repatriation discussions surrounding the ROM’s Taiwan Indigenous collections have also become a focus of attention today.

The Ancestors are Watching

Antoine Laugrand, University of Ottawa

Colonial encounters with Chinese and Japanese powers unraveled many threads of Taiwan’s Indigenous worlds. Linen gave way to cotton and wool; tattooing was forbidden. Today, Atayal people navigate modern life in Mandarin and urban clothes, yet an ancestral call endures. In weaving, memory is rekindled. A new pattern has emerged: the diamond-shaped utux, the eye of the ancestors, watching over the living, guiding the departed. Woven into cloth, carved on objects and even traced in concrete, these eyes have become beacons of Atayal resilience. By reviving weaving practices and reconnecting with museum-held textiles—some whose meanings have been forgotten—Indigenous weavers can reclaim and strengthen cultural heritage and knowledge. Workshops and exchanges between Indigenous artists, curators, and anthropologists could create new pathways, promoting cultural heritage within international museum collaborations. Museums may become places not of preservation alone, but of living relation, renewal, and respect. Weaving across generations and oceans, Indigenous artists hold the promise of reconnection with their forefathers.

Pourquoi les chauves-souris sont-elles aussi invisibles dans les musées ? La matérialité des chiroptères en question dans les mondes chinois et austronésiens

Frédéric Laugrand, UC Louvain, Belgique

Les chauves-souris sont des êtres nocturnes, discrets et furtifs. Les musées leur accordent souvent peu de place, tant en Occident que dans les mondes chinois et austronésiens, avec de rares exceptions. Ces animaux sont pourtant très souvent représentés sur une multitude d’objets ordinaires ou rituels, sur des temples et maisons cérémonielles. Leurs images font réagir et suscitent craintes, admiration ou fascination. Chiroptophilie et chiroptophobie s’entremêlent. Leurs substances -poils, dents, ossements, sang, excréments, chair- sont abondamment utilisées dans de multiples contextes : pharmacopée, échanges cérémoniels, initiations masculines, représentation politique, événements artistiques. En Asie du Sud-Est comme en Océanie, ces animaux sont consommés et jouent souvent le rôle d’emblèmes identitaires. L’agencéité des chauves-souris a-t-elle été peu interrogée du fait qu’en Occident ces animaux ne jouent qu’un rôle liminal et ont longtemps été associés à des forces démoniaques ? De nos jours, la bio-écologie montre le rôle majeur que jouent les chauves-souris, insectivores et frugivores, pour la reforestation, la pollinisation, la fertilisation des sols, l’élimination des insectes ravageurs et la préservation de la biodiversité dans tout le Pacifique.

Taiwan and the People Without “Prehistory”: Exploring the Relationship Between the National Museum of Prehistory’s Three Permanent Exhibition Halls and Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples 

Futuru Tsai, National Museum of Prehistory, Taitung, Taiwan 

This presentation reflects on the future development of the National Museum of Prehistory (NMP) in Taiwan, approached from a decolonial perspective. As the new director, I’ve pondered the museum’s vision and mission, particularly its dual focus on Taiwan’s prehistoric culture and the Austronesian cultures, including Taiwan Indigenous peoples. The connection between Taiwan’s “prehistoric culture” and its Indigenous peoples is often overlooked, leading to a disjointed narrative between prehistoric humans and contemporary Indigenous groups. The NMP’s three permanent exhibitions—Taiwan Prehistory, Austronesian Culture, and Natural History—show significant gaps in continuity and relevance. This presentation critically examines these gaps, exploring the colonial structures that shape them, including Taiwan’s settler colonialism, academic politics, and bureaucratic museum governance. Additionally, I will discuss opportunities for museum staff to challenge and break free from these structural constraints.

The Material Worlds of Taiwan’s High Mountain Indigenous Peoples 

Scott E. Simon, University of Ottawa 

For two decades, I have done research with the high mountain Seediq and Truku Indigenous peoples in Taiwan. Although they identify with the mountains (dgiyaq), the lifestyle of hunting and swidden agriculture has long ago been replaced by work in modern labour markets. One of the best ways to re-create their previous lifestyles is by analysis of material culture, which can be found only in museums. Following the new materialism in anthropology, I examine artefacts from the Seediq, Truku, and related Atayal groups that are found in museums in Japan, Taiwan, and Canada. This consists mostly of weavings made from ramie. There are also items made from feathers and other bird parts, animal hides; and the tools made to catch animals. These things reveal much about the societies they represent and the creative evolution by which humans weave nature into culture everywhere.

Speakers

Iwan Pelin is a member of the Seediq nation, which was recognized by the state as one of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples in 2008. In 2015, she taught a course on Taiwan’s indigenous peoples at Jingyi University. She subsequently sought consensus with the Seediq Tribal Council, and established a Master’s degree program in Indigenous culture at Jingyi University, the first such program focused on the knowledge of a single Indigenous nation. It was officially approved by the Ministry of Education in 2018, with admissions beginning in 2019. The programme’s curriculum focuses on learning traditional culture, actively using Indigenous language in teaching, and reflecting on Indigenous issues in contemporary society. Additionally, since 2022, she has served as the director of the Seediq Knowledge Research Centre at Jingyi University, leading centre staff and indigenous people in discussing and collecting the nature and scope of Seediq traditional knowledge. In the same year, she began collaborating with the Swedish National Museum of World Culture, working with the museum’s curators to conduct research on Seediq cultural artifacts. She led students and faculty from the Master’s programme in Literature at Jingyi University, along with Seediq community members, in engaging in dialogue with domestic and international museums and their collections, including discussions on knowledge repatriation and artifact reproduction. 

Frédéric Laugrand is a professor of anthropology at the Catholic University of Louvain and the current director of the Laboratory of Prospective Anthropology (LAAP). His research focuses on Indigenous cosmologies, religious missions, and human/animal relations. His fieldwork is conducted in Canada and the Austronesian region, primarily in the Philippines. Together with Jarich Oosten, he has edited several bilingual (English/Inuktitut) series: Interviewing Inuit Elders; Inuit Perspectives of the Twentieth Century; and Memory and History in Nunavut. He is co-author of Hunters, Predators and Prey: Inuit Perceptions of Animals (Berghahn Books, 2014) and Inuit, Oblate Missionaries, and Grey Nuns in the Keewatin, 1865-1965 (MQUP, 2019), among others. With A. Laugrand, he published Des voies de l’ombre : Quand les chauves-souris sèment le trouble (MNHN, 2023). With A. Laugrand, G. Tremblay, J. Tamang, and G. Magapin, he has edited 24 multilingual works on the knowledge of four indigenous groups in the Philippines (Ibaloi, Alangan, Iraya, and Blaan) in the verbatim collection: https://pul.uclouvain.be/collection/?collection_ID=116

Antoine Laugrand is a postdoctoral researcher and part-time lecturer at the University of Ottawa. He holds a PhD in anthropology from UCLouvain (Belgium, 2023). A specialist in the Indigenous peoples of the Philippines, his work focuses on their relationship to land and the state, comparing systems of occupation, possession and ownership. He conducts collaborative anthropology, working in teams with anthropologists and indigenous partners, and has co-edited a series of eleven bilingual Verbatim volumes documenting local knowledge, narratives and practices. His research has resulted in numerous publications on the relationships between humans and non-humans: horses, pigs, birds, snakes, spirits, ancestors and bats among the Blaan, Alangan and Ibaloy peoples. His monograph Des nomades à l’arrêt (Nomads at a Standstill) was published by Academia in 2021. He is also co-author of the monograph Des voies de l’ombre: Quand les chauves-souris sèment le trouble (Paths of Shadow: When Bats Cause Trouble), published by the National Museum of Natural History in Paris in 2023.

Pi-Chen LIU is Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica Taiwan. She has long focused on studying male domination, the (re)construction of the Indigenous subjects in contemporary Taiwan, and the traditional ecological knowledge of those Indigenous peoples. She has conducted fieldwork in the changing matrilineal Kavalan and Pangcah/Amis communities since the 1990s. Through these ethnographies she discusses how the categorization and conceptualization of the gender is a tool of power integral to the process of social reproduction (biological, economic, political, cultural, and cosmological). In parallel, her research looks at the demands of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples for historical and transitional justice in decolonization. She has analyzed how shamanistic rituals, healing rituals, and divination interact with and negotiate the constantly changing external historical and social contexts in Taiwan. Responding to external pressures, elements of cultural performance originally part of internal organization within the communities have been gradually reconstructed as carefully planned types of behavior (performance). This remade them into folk performances or eco-tourism attractions and presented them to mainstream society as cultural heritage. The Amis/Pangcah and Kavalan people actively maintain biological diversity because many native plants have special significance and existential value in their social and cultural practices. Rituals performed by Indigenous shamans that she focuses on constitute an important complex for constructing the meaning of plants.

Atsushi Nobayashi is Professor and Director of the Department of Globalization and Humanity at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan. He also holds a professorship at the Graduate University for Advanced Studies. After graduating from the University of Tokyo, he worked as a JSPS Research Fellow. He subsequently joined the National Museum of Ethnology. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in 2002. His specialties include anthropology, Formosa studies, and ethnoarchaeology. His research explores the ethnicity of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, the evolutionary history of human technologies related to ecological adaptation, and food and foodways across civilizations. Among his recent publications are Paleoasia: The Formation of Modern Human Cultures (co-edited, 2025, in Japanese) and Contemporary Snacking: A Study of Human Diet from the Margins (edited, 2025, in Japanese). In addition to his academic work, he has curated exhibitions both in Japan and abroad. His upcoming curatorial project is “Formosa ∞ Arts: Contemporary Indigenous Art from Taiwan” (2025, the National Museum of Ethnology).

Robert Falcon Ouellette is from Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. He is a dedicated community organizer and educator. Currently he is an associate professor of education at the University of Ottawa. He is an anthropologist doing research in the areas of Indigenous education, military ethics and political science. A veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces for 29 years where he served as a company commander in the 5th Field Ambulance. He is currently a reservist and was the first Indigenous Knowldeg Keeper Chaplain in the history of the Canadian Armed Forces. He recently helped create the new Yellowquill University College, the only Indigenous post-secondary institution in Manitoba. He has a PhD and two Master’s degrees from Laval University in Quebec City and he was only the second Indigenous person to graduate from Laval in 350 years with a PhD. He is a former Member of Parliament where, incredibly, he obtained unanimous consent to change the Standing Orders of the House of Commons for the full inclusion and interpretation of Indigenous languages. He was the Chair of the Indigenous caucus, where he helped lead change in Child and Family Services & languages legislation. He also helped lead the transformation of the institution of government to advance reconciliation. He speaks four languages and most importantly, he enjoys spending time running, politics, and canoeing with his family, all while playing their musical instruments.

Scott E. Simon, trained in both Japanese and Chinese, works in East Asian Studies. He did his Ph.D. in Anthropology at McGill University, and his postdoctoral work in Sociology at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taipei. Co-holder of the Chair of Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa, he has lived in Taiwan for ten years and returns annually for field research. He has done research in Seediq, Truku, Tao (Yami), and Han Taiwanese communities. He has also done field research as a visiting researcher at the National Museum of Ethnology in Japan and in Anthropology at the University of Guam. His research interests include Indigenous and human rights, legal anthropology, the contribution of Taiwan to the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan’s international status, and Canada-Taiwan relations. He has written four books and numerous articles about Taiwan. His most recent book is Truly Human: Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa (University of Toronto Press, 2024). He also co-edited with Frédéric Laugrand the volume Feathered Entanglements: Human-Bird Relations in the Anthropocene (UBC Press, 2025). He also does policy-oriented research as member of the Centre for International Policy Studies and the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa, and as Senior Fellow at Ottawa’s Macdonald-Laurier Institute. 

Futuru Tsai is currently a professor of Anthropology at National Taitung University and has served as the director of the National Museum of Prehistory since August 1, 2024. He has held various positions, including serving as a board member of the Public Television Service Foundation and an advisory member of Hakka TV. Dr. Tsai’s research interests include visual anthropology, historical anthropology, ritual and performance, the Amis people, Taiwan’s Indigenous war experiences during the Pacific War, Indigenous social movements, and the maritime culture of the Amis people. He has published several works and has also produced multiple award-winning ethnographic documentaries. Furthermore, he is a member of the “Future Earth Taipei Ocean Working Group,” dedicated to promoting collaboration between Indigenous marine traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and marine science.

Pei-Lin Yu is the Tribal Liaison Officer for the US Army Corps of Engineers. She is also Affiliate Professor of Anthropology at Boise State University, and a Fulbright Senior Fellow. Yu grew up in New Mexico, USA. Her Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology is from the University of New Mexico, and Masters and PhD degrees from Southern Methodist University. Pei-Lin has worked as a federal archaeologist, museum curator, forest firefighter, tribal repatriation specialist, and federal science program coordinator. She has taught archaeology and ethnoarchaeology at Sacramento State University, University of Montana, and Boise State. Pei-Lin also worked with Dr. Atsushi Nobayashi at Minpaku, studying Indigenous ecological farming knowledge and material culture of Taiwan. She also studies hunter gatherer societies, Neolithic food transitions, and climate change vulnerability of US national parks. Yu is engaged in research partnerships with Native American tribes, and researchers in Taiwan, Thailand, Canada, Japan, and China.