**5. Methodological Principles toward Resilient** *Tayal* **Futures**

Three methodological principles are conceptualized from the above discussion to better engage with local knowledge and Indigenous peoples.

1. Decentralize top-down governance

As Australian Aboriginal concept 'Country' has been introduced in this paper, I argue that it is vital to recognize Indigenous peoples' connections to Countries and acknowledge that their custodianship always was and always will be nurturing their Country. To achieve this, it demands that researchers and government agencies rethink privileged top-down governance mentality. A top-down governance system favors universal and generalized solution for a resilient future and rejects contextualizing environmental issues in a specific-temporal-and-spatial scale and cultural-and-geographical-appropriate context. It projects a singular imagination of a resilient future. However, paying attention to local impact and listening to local responses will situate the notion and practice of resilience in a context. As I mentioned in Section One, the concept of 'situated resilience' provokes a radical recognition of place, where the knowledge is generated, maintained and practiced. It is the importance of place in knowledge systems making the impossibility of having a universally applicable climate change strategy. Acknowledging Indigenous peoples' custodianship and hearing local stories of connections will enlighten a very different pathway toward resilient governance.

2. Deauthorize expert-centric narrative

It is important to rethink how Indigenous peoples' knowledge and custodianship of their Countries have been omitted, marginalized and deauthorized by settler states' discursive constructions. In the *Tayal* people's context, their custodianship of Country has been ignored and their knowledge of their Country has been overlooked. It is critical for settler states and Western-science-trained experts to treat, think and view Indigenous peoples as intellectually equivalent partners, not as subordinate subjects or innocent victims. Sharing and valuing cross-cultural knowledge to each other does not devalue one or both. On the contrary, it demonstrates a great reciprocity that would bridge different knowledge systems. Only by justly valuing all stakeholders' knowledge can the partnership be bonded and the mutual trust can be built. To mitigate climate change and manage natural disaster, sharing cross-cultural knowledge will not solely enrich different knowledge systems' understanding to each other. More importantly, it will provide a strong sense of sharing obligation to all stakeholders as their knowledge are equally weighted.

#### 3. Decolonize taken-for-granted ontological understanding

Nature is never natural. The constructed dichotomy of 'nature/culture' has been subjected to critical examinations across disciplines (for instance, see [58–62]). Drawing from the *Tayal* experience, I maintain that in *Tayal* ontology, nature is never separated from human society. In *Tayal* ontology, nature, the mountains and rivers, is not only the environment on which their livelihoods depend. It is their identity, their sense of belonging and their Country. For *Tayal* people, environmental issues, including climate change and natural disasters, are not separate events from their culture. It is their Country. *Tayal* ways of seeing, thinking and doing are fundamentally built on and shaped by their mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers are not just non-human agencies for *Tayal* people. It is a significant agency in their more-than-human ontology. To achieve resilience environmental governance, it is necessary to recognize and respect ontology pluralism in the contested cultural landscape, a lesson not only for the Taiwanese government, but also for other settlers' states.

### **6. Conclusions**

Three key notions mobilize this paper: Country, ontological pluralism and situated resilience. This paper starts with how acknowledging *Tayal* Country would shift the taken-for-granted research paradigm of resilience study. Then this paper argues that it is pivotal to recognize ontological pluralism in contested cultural landscapes, such as Taiwan. It deprivileges a conventional framework that deems resilience strategy to be universally applicable. This paper demands a careful rethinking and argues that resilience strategies, on the contrary, are embedded in a specific-temporal-and-spatial scale and cultural-and-geographical-appropriate context. Developing methodological principles to listen to and learn from local resilience requires immersing researchers in the local context. This paper draws from my own experience of working with *Tayal* mentors. Through in-depth and long-term fieldwork, I came to understand that for *Tayal* people, stories of connection, place and belonging and *lmuhuw* (migration history chanting) all play critical roles in their more-than-human ontology. *Tayal* people's custodianship of their Country is persistent and resistant despite colonial interventions. There is no way to truly understand *Tayal* resilience without acknowledging their custodianship of Country. In order to achieve so, it is critical to develop methodological principles. Three methodological principles were abstracted from my own experience of working with *Tayal* people: (1) Decentralize top-down governance; (2) Deauthorize expert-centric narrative; (3) Decolonize taken-for-granted ontological understanding.

As mentioned earlier, the insight to be drawn from *Tayal* Country is that responding to climate change in the contemporary era requires listening to and on Country. Implementing existing methodology on Indigenous peoples would be duplicating the settler-sanctioned research paradigm, which has been forcibly imposed on Indigenous peoples during colonial/imperial periods. The three methodological principles developed in this paper are hoping to provide a guidance for interested researchers and practitioners to ethically engage Indigenous resilience. In the Taiwanese settings, I argue that understanding the value of local governance, seeing Indigenous peoples as research partners rather than subordinated participants and learning to recognize the ontological politics of resilience are critical to achieving resilient *Tayal* futures.

However, the three methodological principles are not the panacea to the global climate crisis. I have emphasized in Section Three that Indigenous people are not a homogenous group, nor are they a conflated imagination that served as the opposite categorization against 'settler'. Indigenous peoples' cultures are diverse. It is important to acknowledge the multiplicity and complexity of connections. This paper conceptualizes and argues three methodological principles that I have learnt from ethical engagements with my *Tayal* informants. I hope these three principles can be utilized as a foundation for framing resilience science research in the Anthropocene. Engaging culturally diverse Indigenous groups to climate change adaptation is never easy. It involves careful listening to the Indigenous people, their connections to their Countries. It also involves fundamental de-learning on taken-for-granted understanding for disaster and climate. It requires a humble and respectful re-learning on what Indigenous people can offer to us, not solely as small communities but also as a whole human society. It needs determination to take actions to be responsible for ethical engagement. It is requisite to have a deep commitment on framing resilience science in not only centered on ethical engagements but also to frame studies in the ethical way. This requires an attentive rethinking on framing the Indigenous research participants not just as objects, but as active audience for the research itself.

Before concluding this paper, I would like to acknowledge *Tayal* Country. *Tayal* people and their Country have profoundly taught me a different way to view the world. People are not disconnected from the environment in *Tayal* ontology. On the contrary, rivers, mountains and people co-weave into existence in *Tayal* Country. This concept of weaving into existence is such a prominent component in *Tayal* philosophy and ontology. It is pivotal to adopt the culturally appropriate methodological principles in order to provide resilience plans for *Tayal* people when it comes to climate change. This will open up the possibility to improve Taiwanese government's responses to both Indigenous

rights and climate change in the Anthropocene by acknowledging *Tayal* people's custodianship to their Country, and it will also offer more resilient futures to *Tayal* people and the Taiwanese society.

**Funding:** This research is supported by Higher Degree Research Funding from the Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University (the sponsored: Yi-Shiuan Chen; Macquarie University Ethics Approval No 5201600433).

**Acknowledgments:** I would like to acknowledge *Tayal* participants and their families involved in this research. I acknowledge *Tayal* custodianship and caring that nurtured, and continue to nurture *Tayal* Country. We also acknowledge the use of Linda Tuhiwai Smith's words in our title from her 1999 book: Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
