1 - Genderized Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Transmission of Women's Plants Knowledge and Conservation in-situ in the Indigenous Amis Communities in Taiwan

The Amis of Etolan uses around 100 plants while approximately 50 are wild edible plants often found in their home garden ( 2022 Lo and Hu, 2023 Lo and Hu). It is a locally bound knowledge system with practiced transmission, regional environmental difference and different community’s preference. This paper discusses how to revive the system of TEK for the younger generation with the female teenagers’ training camp, and how to face with the difficulties that the traditional male dominated age organization did not favor this sort of innovation. While in the migrant environment in Keelung, the modern senior high school surrounding with urban Amis communities, the teachers try to integrate traditional plant collecting knowledge and indigenous house building courses for young students. Difficulties still prevail but some interesting influences occur, too. Female students compose most of the class members and the tends to organize their learning with age class which is considered as male organization in most Amis societies were refused by the consultants from nearby communities. In this paper, I will discuss these genderized dilemmas in between tradition and innovation, whether it’s in the indigenous village or in the rural area. The importance of evoking the notion of genderized traditional ecological knowledge and the transmission of this knowledge system will be discussed. We can see how these phenomena recall the uneven Geographies, Ecologies, and gendered bias which are essential in understanding how nature is deeply connected to culture in these conflicts and possibilities for our human nature.