新作坊 Humanity Innovation and Social Practice

Abstract

Given the banner of “Stable living in Eastern Taiwan: Social empowerment and participatory governance”, the Humanities Innovation and Social Practice Project at National Dong Hwa University collaborates with local partners to seek alternatives to state power and economic power. This paper discusses the focus of this project in term of the three sites (Ciyakang, Tavila and Nakahila, Jiqi indigenous communities) and the three main issues that link them (cultural care, indigenous land and indigenous education). Theoretically, this paper engages with the seven models of social empowerment and participatory governance formulated in Envisioning Real Utopias by Erik Wright to investigate possible development and challenges encountered as they are practiced in the context in Eastern Taiwan. The positive outcomes that have emerged from this project can be attributed to the various collaborators’ attitudes and approaches: knowledge-based action, careful consideration of potential site-specific impacts of resources, and an emphasis on field ethics.

This paper analyzes according to categories put forth by Wright and finds that models operating in the three sites and three subjects in this project are primarily statist socialism, social economy and associational democracy. Secondary models are participatory socialism and social democratic statist economic regulation. Evidence of social capitalism and a cooperative market economy was not found. These findings suggest that current operative models are focused more on the interaction between social power and state power and less on economic power, which signals a direction for future involvement. We therefore believe that Wright’s structure requires adjustment—particularly in the fourth pathway toward social empowerment, adding the idea of state power affecting social power, and making what is currently a one-way relationship reciprocal. This does not mean that state power is the primary or only source of social power, since long-term self-training can serve as a foundation for social power held by local groups. Further, appropriate state interventions such as the Humanities Innovation and Social Practice Project can add new vigor to social power initiatives.

Regarding three institutional forms of participatory governance, associational democracy is currently the most widely observed and the most likely to strengthen direct democracy; the development of direct democracy can be observed to be in emerging in some sites and subjects; to date, little in the way of participatory governance has been observed in representative democracies. Our conclusion is that associational democracy has, to varying extents, achieved the following goals: reducing imbalances in resource distribution, advancing civil participation, resolving information-related issues for policy implementation, and serving as a key factor in collective problem-solving.