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The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of indigenous heritage rights in Taiwan. It examines how this pursuit is intertwined with the global indigenous movement, national political interests and rising local cultural awareness.

This paper focuses on the rise of indigenous rights in Taiwan by looking at political shifts, indigenous museums and changing frameworks through which heritage is understood. The paper uses two case studies: one is the implementation of a heritage protection law in Taiwan; the other is the launch of indigenous museums.

In Taiwan, heritage is often associated with political ideology, power relations and resource distribution. The development of heritage discourse is inseparable from the international heritage trend as well as the local political situation.

The pursuit of indigenous heritage rights in Taiwan is supported on the one hand by the government so as to define a distinctive Taiwanese culture and on the other to meet the demands of Taiwan’s indigenous movement. Two case studies are provided to examine the pros and cons of current indigenous heritage projects in Taiwan.

A survey of 19 museums across the USA sought to identify the change processes associated with the effective management of a specific case of legislated change imposed by The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act 1990 (NAGPRA). Interviews were also conducted with a sample of these museums to understand further the change process adopted. It was hypothesised that those organisations which were perceived by respondents to have achieved successful change outcomes, would have managed the change transition in accordance with generic change principles in the change literature, regardless of the legislated nature of the change. The findings provided strong support for these general principles of effective change management in situations where the organisation has little choice about the change initiative. However the legislated nature of the change and the initial lack of understanding of its scope and implications produced some deviations from these general principles, particularly with respect to the dimensions of visioning, participation and allocation of resources to the change program.

In 2019, the Kaurna Nation and traditional custodians of the Adelaide plains in South Australia, challenged the City of Holdfast Bay to walk alongside them to create an exhibition exploring the true history of South Australia’s colonisation. This collaboration ultimately became the award-winning exhibition ‘Tiati Wangkanthi Kumangka’ (Truth-Telling Together). This project was envisioned, led, and implemented by the Kaurna Nation at the Bay Discovery Centre in South Australia. Ultimately, ‘Tiati’ became more than just another exhibition. It became a pathway to healing and possibility for both the Kaurna Nation and the City of Holdfast Bay. When considering indigenisation of museum spaces, ‘Tiati’ demonstrates how smaller museums and/or local government can play a pivotal role in reshaping the traditional narrative of colonialism in Australia’s museums, with the voice of First Nations people at the forefront.

In museum research, museums are held as vital in maintaining the public sphere. This scoping review takes stock of the present status of museum–public sphere research by providing an overview of the existing literature as a point of departure for future research. In short, it maps the research aims, theoretical concepts, research methods and findings within the field and identifies research gaps.

A scoping review methodology is used to provide a knowledge synthesis of the museum–public sphere literature. This approach is instrumental for researching multi-disciplinary, fragmented or underdeveloped research fields. Reviews can help identify otherwise easily overlooked gaps in the research literature and are an essential tool.

Overwhelmingly, the published literature consists of case studies, some of which are theoretically ambitious. Still, cases are selected without explicit goals regarding analytical or theoretical generalization, and the studies are not placed within a theory-building framework. Moreover, the museum–public sphere research primarily focuses on museums in the core Anglosphere countries and is conducted by researchers affiliated with institutions in those countries. The museum–community relationship is a common research theme addressing engagement with the public through either visitor participation or community participation.

This is the first published scoping review or systematically conducted review and knowledge synthesis of the museum–public sphere research literature to our knowledge. The article finds and discusses a range of research gaps that need to be addressed theoretically and empirically.

In this chapter, Jared Thomas, a Nukunu person from the Southern Flinders Ranges and a Research Fellow at the South Australian Museum and University of South Australia, reflects on his efforts to enhance the Fire Exhibit within the Australian Aboriginal Cultures Gallery [AACG], which has not been updated in 20 years. Thomas draws from an international precedent of involving Indigenous communities in museum displays.

The author outlines the limitations of renovations in terms of budget, space, and Indigenous protocols, while considering the potential impact of the proposed Tarrkarri Centre for First Nations Culture. He emphasises the importance of fostering relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples, allowing Indigenous voices to speak for themselves.

Thomas focusses on the Fire Exhibit, discussing its significance in Aboriginal culture, the lack of contextualisation, and the need for improved representation. He proposes short-term actions such as adding QR-code-based text for context, and long-term ambitions like incorporating audio-visual and augmented reality elements. He highlights the importance of Aboriginal fire land management practices, especially in the aftermath of the 2019 Australian bushfires.

Thomas proposes strengthening the exhibit’s connection to foods, medicines, and fixatives that benefit from cultural burning. He envisions collaboration with the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and acknowledges the resource constraints faced by the museum. He concludes by envisioning a template for extending improvements across the museum and fostering better understanding and representation of Aboriginal culture.

Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid venture creation represents a significant opportunity for Indigenous peoples to build vibrant Indigenous-led economies that support sustainable economic development and well-being. It is a means by which they can assert their rights to design, develop and maintain Indigenous-centric political, economic and social systems and institutions. In order to develop an integrated and comprehensive understanding of the intersection between Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures, this chapter adopts a case study approach to examining Indigenous entrepreneurship and the underlying global trends that have influenced the design, structure and mission of Indigenous hybrid ventures. The cases present how Indigenous entrepreneurial ventures are, first and foremost, hybrid ventures that are responsive to community needs, values, cultures and traditions. They demonstrate that Indigenous entrepreneurship and hybrid ventures are more successful when the rights of Indigenous peoples are addressed and when these initiatives are led by or engage Indigenous communities. The chapter concludes with a conceptual model that can be applied to generate insights into the complex interrelationships and interdependencies that influence the formation of Indigenous hybrid ventures and value creation strategies according to three dimensions: (i) the overarching dimension of indigeneity and Indigenous rights; (ii) indigenous community orientations and (iii) indigenous hybrid venture creation considerations.

This study aims to develop a Web-based application system called Infomediary of Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples (ITIP) that can help individuals comprehend the society and culture of indigenous people. The ITIP is based on the use of Semantic Web technologies to integrate a number of data sources, particularly including the bibliographic records of a museum. Moreover, an ontology model was developed to help users search cultural collections by topic concepts.

Two issues were identified that needed to be addressed: the integration of heterogeneous data sources and semantic-based information retrieval. Two corresponding methods were proposed: SPARQL federated queries were designed for data integration across the Web and ontology-driven queries were designed to semantically search by knowledge inference. Furthermore, to help users perform searches easily, three searching interfaces, namely, ethnicity, region and topic, were developed to take full advantage of the content available on the Web.

Most open government data provides structured but non-resource description framework data, Semantic Web consumers, therefore, require additional data conversion before the data can be used. On the other hand, although the library, archive and museum (LAM) community has produced some emerging linked data, very few data sets are released to the general public as open data. The Semantic Web’s vision of “web of data” remains challenging.

This study developed data integration from various institutions, including those of the LAM community. The development was conducted based on the mode of non-institution members (i.e. institutional outsiders). The challenges encountered included uncertain data quality and the absence of institutional participation.

This paper illustrates how Taiwan has tried to mobilize its prehistory Austronesian linguistic heritage and indigenous cultural memories to reposition itself in the Asia-Pacific. It examines how the attempt has gradually evolved into cross-border exchange and partnership based on the interconnectivity across the Pacific on different levels.

The research is based on policy review of the Taiwan government's growing focus on indigenous culture in strategizing diplomacy and cultural policy from 2000 through 2021 and the researcher's participant observation in expert cultural heritage meetings (2018–2021). It is also complemented by semi-structured interviews with both selected state actors and civil actors.

The past connection among indigenous communities in Taiwan and the Austronesian peoples contributes to building up new cultural circuits across-borders based upon shared indigenous heritage and demonstrates the extraterritorial role of heritage, which can be the potential base for developing diplomacy.

The research is limited in not directly engaging with actors in the Pacific given limited time, budget and mobility under the coronavirus disease (COVID) pandemic. The author would like to follow on that in her future research.

The paper sheds light on the uneasy relationship between indigenous heritage making and nation building and its cultural implications. This study demonstrates that the state framework of heritage is not necessarily appropriate to deal with these complicated historical matters, especially when the notion of heritage per se is not decolonised in a settler state.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the underlying meanings, effects and cultural patterns of metadata standards, focusing on Dublin Core (DC), and explore the ways in which anticolonial metadata tools can be applied to exercise and promote Indigenous data sovereignty.

Applying an anticolonial approach, this paper examines the assumptions underpinning the stated roles of two of DC’s metadata elements, rights and creator. Based on that examination, the paper considers the limitations of DC for appropriately documenting Indigenous traditional knowledge (TK). Introduction of the TK labels and their implementation are put forward as an alternative method to such limitations in metadata standards.

The analysis of the rights and creator elements revealed that DC’s universality and supposed neutrality threaten the rightful attribution, specificity and dynamism of TK, undermining Indigenous data sovereignty. The paper advocates for alternative descriptive methods grounded within tribal sovereignty values while recognizing the difficulties of dealing with issues of interoperability by means of metadata standards given potentially innate tendencies to customization within communities.

This is the first paper to directly examine the implications of DC’s rights and creator elements for documenting TK. The paper identifies ethical practices and culturally appropriate tools that unsettle the universality claims of metadata standards. By introducing the TK labels, the paper contributes to the efforts of Indigenous communities to regain control and ownership of their cultural and intellectual property.