22 Feb2022

TALK-2022.03.01 1-3p.m Inequality of Equalities: The Negotiation of the (In)Commensurable Ontologies of Han Buddhists and Atayal Hunters in Taiwan

Inequality of Equalities: The Negotiation of the (In)Commensurable Ontologies of Han Buddhists and Atayal Hunters in Taiwan

Speaker / Dr. Jeffrey Nicolaisen
Date / 2022.03.01 (Tue) 1-3 p.m
Venue / 101 Conference room, CHSS building,TMU

Abstract
Taiwan’s Life Conservationist Association (LCA) advocates for laws supporting “equality of life” as an alternative to “human equality.” According to Taiwanese Buddhism, equality of life stems from the capacity of all sentient beings to suffer, as opposed to the human capacity for rationality that underlies “human equality.” In 1994, LCA used an amendment to the Wildlife Conservation Act to tighten restrictions and enhance criminal penalties on hunting. In response, Taiwan’s indigenous people allied with the global indigenous rights movement and expanded their hunting rights in the 2005 Indigenous Peoples Basic Law. Taiwan’s indigenous people contend that their traditional ecological knowledge sustains the balance of their local ecosystems, and many indigenous people point to the Buddhist release of life ceremony as a threat to ecological balance. Nicolaisen will argue that by seeking to substitute “equality of life” for “human equality,” LCA aims to liberate sentient beings from the constraints of liberal humanism, but in doing so, they also propagate Han colonial policies toward indigenous peoples. Yet, as the indigenous people ally with the indigenous rights movement and their Christian churches, they rely on the institutions of liberal humanism and Christianity to resist Han colonialism.

Biography
Jeffrey Nicolaisen is currently a Ministry of Science and Technology International Postdoctoral Fellow at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. His research uses Taiwanese traditions and teachings to rethink networks of human and nonhuman agency and the ethics of multi-species interaction between Han and indigenous people, dogs, and monkeys in Taiwan. Nicolaisen was a Duke-DKU Global Fellow at Duke Kunshan University in 2020-2021, a Charlotte Newcombe Fellow at Duke University in 2018-2019, and Fulbright-Hays Fellow at Taipei Medical University in 2017-2018. Prior to pursuing an academic career, he worked as an environmental consultant with the global sustainability consulting group Environmental Resources Management.