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From the 1950s to the 1960s, a survey team organized by the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica visited nine ethnic groups of Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples, as well as the living areas of several Taiwanese Plains Indigenous peoples. During the field investigation process, their cameras recorded various activities and objects in the field. The survey work spanned about 10 years, and by 1965, a large number of field record images had been accumulated. The contents of this batch of field photos include: photo images of the villages visited (far, medium, and close), the natural environment around the tribe, local plants, people, rituals, material culture, buildings, statues, weaving looms and utensils, etc. If the contents of the images are viewed in accordance with the sequence in which the photos were taken, it is possible to grasp the movement traces and routes of the investigators at that time to a considerable extent. Although the black and white photos are old, they can still show the people, things and details that are brought into focus by the lens. These field photos have also been widely used in research papers and ethnographic publications, and have survived to this day. These photographs of field investigations spanning 10 years enrich and illustrate three-dimensionally the research results written in each text, assist the presentation of early studies of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan, and support research hypotheses and concepts. These field photos not only “recorded” the social and cultural outlook of Taiwan’s Indigenous people at that time, but also left field footprints and genealogical knowledge for early research on the Austronesian peoples in Taiwan.This article adopts the analysis framework of the photographic ecosystem to sort out the field photography archives of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, from 1950 to 1960, and annotates three important nodes of the photos’ biography: (1) From the 1950s to the 1960s, photographic images were included in the monographs published by the Institute of Ethnology as research results, highlighting the social biographies of this batch of photo files. Here, photography has witnessed fieldwork on the ground, describing the interactions within fieldwork and the production process of scientific knowledge. The developed photos and images assist in the presentation of encyclopedic knowledge of subjects. (2) Archiving of physical photos taken in the 1950s and 1960s and subsequent digital files points out the material biographies of the photo files. The conversion from analog to digital material/interface makes the images more “freely” released from the photographs. These photo files that survive in the binary material world of 0 and 1 have more diversified possibilities for application and knowledge extension paths. (3) This batch of photographic images from 60 years ago, through the multiple possibilities of materials/interfaces, has moved into the field and ecosystem of academic publication in response to changing academic thinking, social actions or events. As photo archives move from one ecosystem to another, their use, value, and meaning, including the value of their biographies, have also changed. The scope or boundary of the aforementioned important identifiable nodes is distinguished, described and explained through specific examples and activities. I also discuss the fieldwork conception, knowledge production methods, researcher--subject relationships, and the evolution of the power interactions of the Taiwan Indigenous peoples research at the Institute of Ethnology of Academia Sinica based on this, as well as the important figures in its development and institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the impact of neo-liberalism and global capital flows, as well as the rapid social changes and the flourishing of individualism, the traditional tribal cultures of the indigenous peoples in Taiwan have become increasingly emptied out, and the tribal collective support systems have gradually declined. In view of this, the Council of Indigenous Peoples started the Indigenous Tribe Vitality Program in 2012, hoping to unite the strength of the tribal members through mutual assistance, co-eating, sharing, and co-production to maintain the stability of tribal survival. The Indigenous tribal vitality program is implemented through tribal meetings to form consensus and complete its public affairs participation. In addition, in order to truly understand the implementation of the vitality program of each tribe and the effectiveness of the promotion of the program, the administrative part of the promotion program requires a mid-term visit and a final local evaluation meeting. Experts, scholars, and administrators make up the members of the mid-term visit and the local evaluation meeting at the end of the period. They are also used to screen the tribes that can be continuously funded in the next year and that can serve as models for the guidance and development of the vital tribes in the future. The mid-term visit and final evaluation mechanism is to guide and identify the foundation and structure of tribal activation and the vision of sustainable management. This article takes the final evaluation meetings of the Indigenous Tribes Vitality Program as the field for observation and proposes a different research approach from the existing humancentered perspective of the meeting. It observes, describes, and discusses the "parliament of things" composed of the agentive perspectives of objects, the environment, places, bodies, and materials, as well as their revealed trajectories, and their relationship with other entities. Through the speaking and self-narration of things, researchers will be able to detect and identify all kinds of things and their dynamic generation in the evaluation meeting, as well as understand how they penetrate the evaluation meetings, affecting the form, boundaries and connotations of the meetings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the usual asexual experiential perspective of fieldwork methodology, this article examines how the entanglement of sex/gender consciousness and the socio-cultural background of the researcher affect his/her observation, interaction, and meaning-creating in the field. Due to the divergences in identity, positionality, and location, the researcher and her research subjects develop different sex/gender concepts and practices. The processes of encounters and negotiations modify or open the dimension of knowing and understanding of the researcher, which then influences the formation of knowledge. The public dimension of sex/ gender issues and the potential dynamics of related debates are revealed in the researcher's reflection, positioning, and writing. This article will explore the above-mentioned phenomena via the transgender fieldsite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]