側記 | 《ACT：多物種專刊》新書分享會：在生態碎片中思考：多於人的共感與寫作（線上場）（上篇）
2026-04-16
Date & Time: November 30, 2025 (Sun) 14:00-16:00
Speaker:
Moderator:Chen Kuan-Chang (Resident Researcher in Yizhu, Taiwan Cultural & Creative Foundation)
Report Writer: Kuo Yu-Ling (MA, Institute of Social Research and Cultural Studies, NYCU)
Event Link: Link
Event Photos:
Affiliated Project: 21st Century Environmental Crisis and Multispecies Justice: Towards a More-than-Human Decolonization
Project Lead: Tsai Yen-Ling
On a Sunday afternoon as the weather gradually warmed, 73 participants from diverse backgrounds gathered via various media in an online meeting room for the "ACT: Special Issue on Multispecies" New Book Sharing Session—Thinking Amidst Ecological Fragments: More-than-Human Empathy and Writing (Online Session). As the first event in the book launch series, this session brought together four authors and one editor, leading the audience into their respective fields of thought, concern, and fieldwork to collectively outline an imagination of a "more-than-human" world.
The event was opened and moderated by Chen Kuan-Chang, one of the co-editors of this special issue and a resident researcher at the Taiwan Cultural & Creative Foundation. The screen first displayed the cover of the special issue: a Formosan Sambar deer staring into the camera within a forest. This photograph, provided by Basu'e Yakumangana, a Tsou hunter from the Chashan tribe, led us into a critical reflection on the relationship between humans and nature.
Chen explained that the theme of this special issue originated from the "21st Century Environmental Crisis and Multispecies Justice" cross-university research group under the International Center for Cultural Studies (ICCS) at NYCU. Following the main project "Conflict, Justice, Decolonization," the group aims to shift the research perspective from "human species-centrism" to a "more-than-human" multispecies perspective through interdisciplinary methods. It views the intertwining of human and non-human life as a vast "Web of Life," focusing on what Bruno Latour calls "Gaia Politics," while attempting to provide a multispecies decolonial perspective rooted in Taiwan through local research and practice.
This special issue is the research group's first attempt at collective writing. The writing style is not restricted to academic norms but encourages diverse themes, genres, and forms of expression. Through the unique concerns of different researchers and creators, they weave a more pluralistic, polyphonic web of possibilities, co-constructing the imagination and exploration of "multispecies" research. Today's speakers, based on their own reflections and styles, presented their versions of "Thinking Amidst Ecological Fragments."
Figure 1: The event poster (left) and the cover of ACT: Special Issue on Multispecies (right). The Sambar deer staring at the camera was photographed by Basu'e Yakumangana, echoing the core of the issue: attempting to reweave the sensory connection between humans and species from the perspective of non-human actors.
Figure 2: Moderator Chen Kuan-Chang introduces how the special issue brings together writers with different expertise and concerns, providing a cross-disciplinary dialogue platform to explore the possibilities of human and non-human life practicing together in a multiverse.
The session kicked off with Huang Han-Yao, an expert in ecological research and illustration and winner of the 2023 Taiwan Literature Award. He shared his article "What Lies at the End of the River," discussing his observations on the Dadu Plateau.
In Huang’s writing, the "end" of the river refers not only to a spatial limit but also to the disappearance of time and species. Due to his time teaching at Providence University, Huang encountered the Dadu Plateau—an ancient estuarine alluvial fan that rose due to tectonic activity. Huang believes the uniqueness of the Dadu Plateau lies in its ancient sedimentary layers and its history as the "Kingdom of Middag," a political alliance formed by several indigenous plains (Pingpu) ethnic groups. Furthermore, the Taichung Metropolitan Park on the plateau is a vital hub for contemporary ecological conservation. His reflections unfold through these interconnected perspectives.
Figure 3: Huang Han-Yao shares landscape observations on the Dadu Plateau. These ubiquitous rounded pebbles are not just geological remnants but silent storytellers of millions of years of alluvial history and tectonic uplift.
The screen showed rounded pebbles. Huang explained that these stones, which appear to have been moved by humans, actually originated from the ancient Syue Mountain and Central Mountain Ranges. Carried down by rivers and worn smooth, they settled at the "end of the river" before being lifted by plate tectonics. Each stone may contain millions of years of geological history. Huang noted that in areas like Shalu and Longjing, one can find "Earth-brick Houses" (Tujuecuo). Their architecture cleverly illustrates the plateau's composition: pebbles telling the river's history, joined by red bricks and red soil formed over millions of years. Because the plateau’s geology is loose and drains easily, it is prone to erosion without vegetation. Consequently, the edges of the plateau are marked by lightning-like erosion gullies. These gullies caused floods during heavy rains, leading the modern state to intervene rapidly under the guise of "soil and water conservation" and "remediation" engineering.
Alluvial Fan: A fan-shaped landform created when a river flows out of a valley onto a plain, slowing down and depositing silt and pebbles.
Kingdom of Middag: A 17th-century multi-tribal alliance of indigenous peoples in the Taichung/Changhua area. Its history witnesses a political and ecological order constituted by indigenous subjects before the intervention of modern technical governance.
Figure 4: In the cracks of modernization on the Dadu Plateau, historical layers remain visible. Early "Earth-brick Houses" demonstrate the wisdom of using local materials, turning million-year-old geological matter into a carrier for daily life. (Source: Provided by Huang Han-Yao)
Beyond its geological makeup, Huang believes Taichung occupies a subtle position. It was the meeting point for various plains indigenous groups and far from the pre-18th century political centers, allowing for cultural diversity to persist under late state intervention. This "subtle balance of configuration led to the survival of a political alliance" and preserved diverse vegetation. It wasn't until the late Qing Dynasty that the alliance was dismantled and integrated into state governance; the area became sugarcane fields during the Japanese colonial period and has now shifted toward various dryland farming and conservation efforts.
Figure 5: Material dialogues of the Dadu Plateau. The left image shows the plateau landscape of red soil, pebbles, and grassland; the right image shows a late Qing residential ruin. (Source: Provided by Huang Han-Yao)
On the Dadu Plateau, landscapes and traditional architecture echo one another. Red soil, pebbles, grasslands, and distant forests intertwine. Near the houses, "water pits" (Shuiju) foster important ecologies, their alternating wet and dry environments echoing the plateau’s erosion gullies. Beside springs, Frangipani (Egg Flowers) are planted—a plant with ethnic significance that operates on a unique temporality.
From archaeology, faith, and indigenous textiles to pangolins; from stones and soil to plants and forests—these clues help us re-examine the landscape. Huang concluded with a question: If the entire plateau were viewed as a "house," what would be the core of its operation? Could a house become a field where various cultures intertwine to maintain the integrity of the plateau? These remain central issues in his ongoing exploration.
3. Frangipani (Plumeria): Commonly known as "Egg Flower" in Taiwan. It often serves as a cultural indicator of ethnic migration and settlement development, marking specific territories and local memories.
The next speaker was freelance writer Hsu Chen-Fu, who also has an ecological research background. As the winner of the 2021 Taiwan Literature Award, he shared his prose piece "Searching for the Orange-headed Thrush." The story begins with a long field trip to Indonesia in 2024 with his friend Xiao Hei, focusing on the layers of reflection triggered during their journey to find the bird in Bali.
The Orange-headed Thrush is widely distributed in tropical Asia, with a unique subspecies in Bali. Beyond its appearance, its melodious song makes it highly popular in the Southeast Asian caged-bird community. These birds are trained for singing competitions; a high ranking can cause their market value to skyrocket.
Figure 6: Hsu Chen-Fu introduces the Orange-headed Thrush. Its capture and domestic fate reveal how birds cross borders to intertwine with human aesthetics, trade, and social life.
Most of these birds are caught from the wild in Bali, with over 100,000 supplied annually to the Indonesian bird market. However, as birdwatchers, Hsu and Xiao Hei hoped to see "wild birds," not "caged birds." A local guide and bird-keeper, Arya, led them to a coffee plantation on a hill, telling them it was the "best 'quality' production area for Orange-headed Thrushes in Indonesia." This phrase piqued Hsu's interest, as birdwatchers typically do not distinguish birds by "quality," only by whether they can be spotted.
Figure 7: Hsu Chen-Fu and birdwatching enthusiast Xiao Hei (left) in Bali, 2024, for a field trip on "birdwatching." (Source: Speaker’s PPT)
At this meeting point between bird-keepers and birdwatchers, the difference in how birds are perceived emerged. Hsu realized that the "birdwatching" we take for granted—inherited from Anglo-American traditions—is actually a specific cultural practice. He began to wonder: What are birdwatchers actually chasing? What knowledge framework do they follow? In his dual role as birdwatcher and observer, Hsu observed the birds' habits and their relationship with the Balinese agricultural landscape while reflexively considering: on what knowledge basis do we judge "keeping birds" as "strange" or "wrong"?
Figure 9: Xiao Hei is a key subject of Hsu's long-term fieldwork. Collecting birdwatching experiences like stamps demonstrates how the community builds a knowledge system to connect with non-human life through classification and recording. (Source: Speaker’s PPT)
Based on these observations, Hsu developed a double-thread narrative in his article: writing about modern birdwatching culture while presenting Indonesian bird-keeping culture. By juxtaposing these two distinct perspectives, he reflects on the transnational conservation system. When scholars criticize Asian bird-keeping cultures, they may overlook that the values we hold are also formed within specific human-bird relationships. Only by acknowledging that conservation concerns themselves stem from specific values can we more keenly perceive the politics operating behind them.
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