Living Dead in the Pacific

Contested Sovereignty and Racism in Genetic Research on Taiwan Aborigines

By Mark Munsterhjelm
Categories: Regional & Cultural Studies, Asian Studies, Social Sciences, Race & Ethnicity, Indigenous Studies, Science, Technology & Society
Publisher: UBC Press
Hardcover : 9780774826594, 292 pages, January 2014
Paperback : 9780774826600, 292 pages, July 2014
Ebook (PDF) : 9780774826617, 292 pages, January 2014
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Table of contents

1 Taiwan Aborigines’ Genes as Black Boxes

2 Aboriginal Peoples’ Genes as Narrated and Contested Assemblages

3 Imposing Genetic Distinctions: Aboriginal Peoples and Alcoholism in Genetics Research

4 Informed Consent in the Austronesian Homeland

5 Were the Maori “Made in Taiwan”?

6 Internet Shopping Carts and Patenting Taiwan’s “Gift to the World”

7 Conclusion: The Agency of the Living Dead in Contested Sovereignty

Notes; References; Index

A powerful indictment of racially configured genetic research that has been conducted on the Aboriginal people of Taiwan over the past thirty years.

Description

Colonized since the 1600s, Taiwan is largely a nation of settlers, yet within its population of twenty-three million are 500,000 Aboriginal people. In their quest to learn about disease and evolution, genetic researchers have eagerly studied this group over the past thirty years but have often disregarded the rights of their subjects. Examining a troubling revival of racially configured genetic research and the questions of sovereignty it raises, Living Dead in the Pacific details a history of exploitation and resistance that represents a new area of conflict facing Aboriginal people both within Taiwan and around the world.