主題演講與講者


主題演講一：Seeds of Relation: Planting as World-Making from Braiding Sweetgrass to Tayal Millet Ark and Pangcah Foraging Ecologies



主題簡介

This keynote explores Indigenous seeds and planting as foundations for alternative worldmaking across the transpacific, bringing into conversation Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, Tayal Millet Ark Action, and Pangcah (Amis) ethnobotanical knowledge as documented by Wu Hsueh-yueh, widely known as Taiwan’s “godmother of foraged plants.” Across these diverse contexts, seeds emerge not merely as biological units of reproduction but as carriers of (trans)Indigenous memory, relationality, and ethical obligation.


Kimmerer’s Indigenous teachings frame planting as a reciprocity-based practice in which the nourishment of sweetgrass reflects a worldview structured around gratitude, kinship, and ecological responsibility. The Millet Ark, a contemporary Tayal revival Action in Indigenous Taiwan, similarly positions seeds as cultural anchors and vehicles of resistance against colonial agriculture. By preserving heirloom varieties and reviving millet cultivation, the Action articulates a seed-centered ethics of resilience, biodiversity, and communal stewardship.


Complementing these perspectives, Wu Hsueh-yueh’s extensive work on Pangcah’s edible wild landscape illuminates the Pangcah practice of nosa’—relational foraging grounded in seasonal attunement, respectful harvesting practices, and an understanding of plants as co-inhabitants of a shared environment. Wu’s ethnobotanical work revitalizes Indigenous plant knowledge while challenging colonial and modernist hierarchies of cultivated versus wild foods.


By juxtaposing these seed-centered epistemologies, this keynote identifies a convergent agrarian humanism that values care, regeneration, and multispecies reciprocity. Together, they offer a powerful critique of extractive agricultural paradigms and propose a transpacific framework for “planting otherwise”: cultivating land, community, and futurity through practices rooted in humility, ecological intimacy, and an ethics of mutual flourishing.