The Articulation of Modern Fetishisms and Indigenous Species

Modern conservationism and natural resource management (NRM) can be portrayed as contemporary forms of fetishism, of using or not using certain biological species; these articulate with indigenous ideas or ＂traditional＂ fetishisms, which hold that these species control human beings. With their shared mechanistic worldview, the global discourses of conservation biology (CB) and natural resource management have promoted the rational use of key material resources among the Yami fetishisms, under the influences of ever-expanding global commodification and conservationism, have become a hybrid that expresses contested worldviews and social relations between genders and across generations. Through the introduction of new commodities and modern projects, young men and poor women gain access to the means to challenge traditional ideas or rituals about indigenous species. Many indigenous species, already powerful elements in Yami epistemology, have acquired new meanings under Taiwan’s national capitalist agenda. Borrowed modern techniques have proved useful in local fetishist practices against spirits of the dead, but are not fully in sync with the ecological concerns of conservationists. Furthermore, the transition of Yami fetish species from traditional ＂sensuous beings＂ to scientific species has meant that they have gone through a dual conversion, first from a vehicle of the human-Otherland engagement to modern market commodity; then, from materialist inventory to the object of scarcity tracking. In this sense, natural species constitute a busy conjuncture of the materialist imaginary through which the Yami have experienced modernity.