Decolonizing the Governance of Indigenous Land Use: Possibilities and Dilemmas Under Taiwan's Transitional Justice Practices

Since the Qing Dynasty, Taiwan's Indigenous peoples have been subjected to the rule of various foreign colonial regimes until the current Taiwan government in 1947. The land used by Indigenous peoples has been continually reduced due to these foreign colonizers. More significantly, the introduction of the European individual land ownership registration system led to the establishment of the "Indigenous Reserved Land" system, which caused Indigenous peoples to gradually abandon their previous traditional of communal land use and mobile farming practices. Instead, they were forced into "modernized" individual ownership and fixed-point farming methods, which resulted in even more severe land fragmentation. Additionally, although the Indigenous Reserved Land system limits ownership to Indigenous peoples, the upper limit of compensated ownership has not been restricted. Furthermore, through practices like borrowed name registration, lands intended to safeguard Indigenous rights have instead become part of the modern property exchange market, completely contradicting the original purpose of the Reserved Land system.

Starting in 2018, Taiwan implemented a series of transitional justice legal frameworks. Then-President Tsai Ing-wen became the first head of state to apologize to the Indigenous peoples and established the " Presidential Office Indigenous Historical Justice and Transitional Justice Committee". However, the governance of Indigenous land remains governed by the " Regulations on Development and Management of the Lands Reserved for Indigenous People" established in 1990, and the legal framework has yet to align with Taiwan's transitional justice discourse to achieve decolonized governance that meets the contemporary needs of Indigenous communities and individuals. Instead, it appears to continue replicating colonial governance logic, keeping Indigenous peoples trapped under colonialism. This paper will analyze potential future reform directions and the challenges that must be overcome by examining Taiwan's transitional justice theory, including constitutional recognition, legal frameworks, changes in Indigenous land use regulations, and relevant case studies.