Ying-Tang Wang
Graduate Institute of Building and Planning National Taiwan University
This paper deals with two issues based on a case study of the “Home-returning Movement” of Kochapogan, Rukai tribe of Taiwan. Firstly, by tracing one’s identity on the way home, the author tries to explore the meaning of home and its relationship to one’s tribal tradition for a person from the perspective of existential analysis. Secondly, through everyday life practice on the homeland, the dwelling characteristic of one’s home environment is dealt with from the perspective of human-environment relationship. It shows that, by articulating identity and the meaning of home, one understands one’s existing situation through linking one’s own tradition in order to project one’s future life, and to dwell poetically at home is creating an alternative out of modern way of life dominated by modern technology.
Keywords: Rukai tribe, meaning of home, identity, existential analytic, place attachment