Faculty of Social Sciences University of Helsinki Finland SOCIAL POLICIES AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN TAIWAN ELDERLY CARE AMONG THE TAYAL I-An Gao (Wasiq Silan) DOCTORAL THESIS To be presented, with the permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Helsinki, for public examination in lecture room 302, Athena, on 18 May 2021, at 8 R¶FORFN. Helsinki 2021 Publications of the Faculty of Social Sciences 186 (2021) ISSN 2343-273X (print) ISSN 2343-2748 (online) © I-An Gao (Wasiq Silan) Cover design and visualization: Pei-Yu Lin Distribution and Sales: Unigrafia Bookstore http://kirjakauppa.unigrafia.fi/
[email protected] ISBN 978-951-51-7005-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-951-51-7006-4 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2021 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores how Taiwanese social policy deals with Indigenous peoples in caring for Tayal elderly. By delineating care for the elderly both in policy and practice, the study examines how relationships between indigeneity and coloniality are realized in today’s multicultural Taiwan. Decolonial scholars have argued that greater recognition of Indigenous rights is not the end of Indigenous peoples’ struggles. Social policy has much to learn from encountering its colonial past, in particular its links to colonization and assimilation. Meanwhile, coloniality continues to make the Indigenous perspective invisible, and imperialism continues to frame Indigenous peoples’ contemporary experience in how policies are constructed. This research focuses on tensions between state recognition and Indigenous peoples’