*2.2. Mobilizing Resilience in Tayal 'Country'*

Applying the Australian Aboriginal notion of Country in the Taiwanese setting, Hsu, Howitt and Chi [9] felt there was an opportunity to "inspire a novel and constructive approach to questions regarding Indigenous experiences of disaster relief and reconstruction in Taiwan" (p. 371). They go on to argue that First Nations' social, political and environmental histories shape their resilience and capacity to recover from disruption. In disaster recovery, they say, the idea of Country helps to understand how effective and culturally appropriate recovery activity will "consider the social dimensions of community (people-people), the cultural and spiritual dimensions of identity and community (people-cosmos) and the socio-ecological dimensions of community well-being in terms of livelihood, history and values (people-environment)" (p. 374).

In *Tayal* domains, however, the complex histories of colonization, dispossession and displacement have produced a range of institutional arrangements that claim to exercise power over *Tayal* people, *Tayal* environments and*Tayal*lives [37]. Despite this, many aspects of*Tayal* spirituallife, self-determination and governance persist in relationships guided by the philosophy of *Gaga* [38] and the processes of managing *Tayal* resources for survival [39,40] and shape the ways in which *Tayal* communities respond to changing circumstances in their lives. Developing a research methodology to understand and support local resilience has required significant entangling with *Tayal* people, language, culture and

history and developing a strong sense of belonging within *Tayal* communities and places. While some elements of my own experience have been intensely personal, there are many aspects of the work that offer methodological lessons with wider application. The work of listening to and learning from *Tayal* mentors, rather than assuming that *Tayal* experience and understanding is simply data to be collected and analyzed using already-colonizing tools, for example, has required recognition of the ontological foundation of their experiences of resisting, responding and asserting their custodianship of their Country despite Settler State's consistent ignorance, hostility and denial that *Tayal* autonomy could pre-date and persist beyond the creation of the state. In particular, in the *Tayal* context, it has been through engaging with stories of connection, place and belonging and *lmuhuw* (migration history chanting) that I have come to understand that the notions of climate change and disaster management that have been normalized in mainstream international and domestic discourse are themselves colonizing in their impact and erase the insights and opportunities created within *Tayal*-centric discourses (see also [41,42] for parallel examples elsewhere in Taiwan).

That is, understanding and supporting *Tayal* resilience in *Tayal* Country requires a methodology that recognizes the ontological politics of resilience, acknowledges the ontological priority of Country and context in *Tayal* settings, and engages with resilience as situated rather than as some sort of universal abstraction disconnected from people, place and context.
