Collective Action as a New Approach to Rural Rejuvenation: Exploring Mobilization of Indigenous Community in Eastern Taiwan

Abstract

The “Rural Rejuvenation Act” was legislated on 4th August, 2010 by the government, which was designed to revitalize the overall development of rural areas in Taiwan. As rural decline fell into a vicious circle, problems such as rural migration, aging, lower education, lower average labor productivity, and overall low levels of public service, the government would like to actively solve the so-called “declining industry”. It is enacted to establish a rural rejuvenation fund and hope to take care of the farmers and fishermen in rural areas. The aim of this fund is to make the rural community filling with “vitality, health, and happiness”. To implement rural rejuvenation policy, besides top-down integrating strategies, the bottom-up promoting strategies are also considered as an important method. The Amis indigenous community in Eastern Taiwan was encouraged to apply Empowerment Program. According to the rejuvenation course rule, once organizations which make their farmers or residents finish four stages of course (including beginner’s course, advanced course, core course, and rejuvenation course) are qualified to propose a Rural Rejuvenation Plan. The indigenous community was very happy about the four-year project which was approved by the government. However, whether the mobilization of whole community to execute Rural Rejuvenation Plan and achieve their rejuvenated goal of community development is needed to be investigated deliberatively. We propose an analytical framework to understand the role of collective action based on the interaction of two dimensions: group characteristics of the indigenous community and external environment which is depended on external support by government and non-government organizations. The implementation of the project depends on financial and non-financial support, such as subsidy to verification fees of organic farming or training and empowering farmers with specific knowledge. This study finds that: (1) The community did retain Amis culture; the leaders have been directly involved in strengthening operational capacity; (2) Leaders’ efforts of mobilizing the whole community to implement the project collectively resulted in rational ignorance of the villagers and even resource centralization; (3) The central and local government were lack of coordination; the inequality of resource allocation may hinder the indigenous community development. Our findings reveal that collective action is not a panacea to mobilize the villagers to attend community-oriented project.