Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This article is based on a practice of public anthropology in constructing soundscape database in indigenous communities in Taiwan. This paper not only explains this project sparked the community’s interest in listening to and recording daily life sounds, but also reflects on its limitation.

Paper long abstract

This article reflects on soundscape research in indigenous communities in Taiwan. Since 2019, I have conducted soundscape research in a Puyuma community. Puyuma people is one of the indigenous groups in this island. This research was designed as a practice of public anthropology and cooperative research with indigenous people, beginning with information sessions and sound workshops in the community. This paper explains this project sparked the community’s interest in listening to and recording daily life sounds, leading to nearly four years of work on the digital sound database. Although these sound recordings are fragmented and diverse, they piece together a multifaceted sensory world encompassing the community's relationships with environment, memory, identity, and emotion.A key challenge that emerged as we constructed the database was preserving indigenous intellectual property while also making the database accessible to the public. The solution to this problem was not straightforward. I also explain the experience of collaborating on a podcast with the community over the last three years to document the process of turning practical sensory ethnographic research into innovative social practice. Finally, I reflect on the challenges of this public and practical social science research, discussing the limitations as well as possibilities of collaborative, community-based social science research in contemporary indigenous societies.