Author ｜
Jong-kang Lin
Abstract ｜
This study takes the Tafalong community in Hualien County as an ethnographic site to examine how its spatial practices have undergone processes of toponymic replacement, semantic detachment, and the marginalization of landscape knowledge under Japanese colonial rule and the postwar modern governance system of the Nationalist government. Through thick description documenting place-name songs, ritual spaces, and oral vocabulary practices, this paper argues that Tafalong’s spatial knowledge constitutes not only a form of cultural practice but also a localized conceptual system characterized by historical layering and semantic tension. By integrating Koselleck’s notion of “semantic tension,” Lydia Liu’s concept of “conceptual hybridity,” and James Scott’s theory of “hidden transcripts,” the article critiques the long-standing limitations of East Asian intellectual history that center on sinographic texts and imperial knowledge frameworks. This study contends that indigenous spatial practices should be recognized as one of the primary subjects in conceptual historiography, not merely to supplement existing narratives but potentially to reconstruct a “decentralized conceptual history” paradigm originating from tribal practices.
keywords ｜
Tafalong community, spatial practices, conceptual hybridization, toponymic politics, East Asian conceptual history