都市阿美族的聚居生活型態－－以西美社區為例

URBAN COMMUNITY LIFESTYLE IN THE AMI ENCLAVE: A Case Study of Si-May

本研究以台北縣西美社區為例，說明阿美族在都市地區的聚居社區如何孕育獨特的移民生活型態，這種型態又如何受制於大社會環境的變化。全文首先回顧社區的創立過程，並由人口組成和社區組織兩方面來引述族裔社區的基本特徵。由於阿美族住戶在社區內佔絕大多數，社區的組織活動幾乎都以阿美族居民為核心，族群內的互動也異常密切。密集的互動和殊異的族裔活動提供阿美族居民增強族群意識的媒介，對部份居民更是社會支持和庇護的溫床，彷彿成為原居村落的移植地。但是由於密集的社區生活和社區組織運作構成明顯的社會控制體系，對阿美族居民也容易發揮制裁力量，異於其他都市生活型態所允許的隱名環境，而自成一種聚居式的生活型態。族裔社區內的族群人口比例跟外在移居地社會的狀況相反，社區內的阿美族居民得以享有主宰支配性的地位，漢人住戶反而常要從弱勢的角度來要求權利。這點差異再次說明大社會的弱勢族群如何在族裔社區裡過著特殊的移居生活。文中對這種特殊的族群互動舉例說明，但隨後指出因為阿美族在大社會環境中明顯位居劣勢，族裔社區內的庇護作用和特殊的族群互動其實基礎薄弱，很容易受到大社會環境的影響。阿美族在自己的聚居社區中雖然人多勢眾，在整個移居地社會中畢竟勢單力薄；即使是移居地社會裡的小角色（例如常到社區來叫賣的小販），都能利用這種族群地位間的不平衡來謀利。社區生活有其封閉的一面，但是在整個大環境政經因素的制約下，這種封閉的生活隨時會受到外來力量的強烈衝擊，從根動搖族裔社區的庇護功能。加上社區本身欠缺完整的族裔別機構，阿美族所能尋獲的政經資源相當有限，更難抵擋這股外來力量。文章最後以正進行中的社區部份改建大樓為例，說明阿美族聚居社區如何面臨脆弱而不穩定的未來。

This study focuses on Si-May community in explicating how an Ami ethnic community in an urban area furnishes a characteristic enclave lifestyle. The paper first explores how early Ami migrants established this unique ethnic community in urban north Taiwan and how its residents were organized along ethnic lines. Since its founding in 1978, more than 70 percent of Si-May residents have been Amis, and all major community organizations and events have been exclusively Ami or heavily associated with the Amis. Away from their place of origin and living in Han-dominated destination cities, many Ami residents find it easier to interact within their own ethnic group, where fellow residents can offer social support within the migrant community as a form of asylum. This asylum, however, is not welcomed by all Amis. While for most residents it provides solace, for others close interaction can be felt to be too intensive, generating unsolicited intimacy. Unlike the anonymous social milieu that most other Amis face in the city, social sanctions prevail in the Si-May Ami enclave, both through personal scrutiny and through a community control system. Both asylum and sanction result from the enclave's residential pattern and are rare outside communities like Si-May. The unique demographic composition in Si-May has brought about a reverse ethnic inequality: while the Amis dominate most community activities, their Han neighbors often complain and mutter about unfair treatment. Nevertheless, Ami domination proves only precarious and fictitious, a situation which becomes particularly clear when we reconsider Si-May community life in the context of the wider society. In example after example, we see how the wider society influences this small community, and how the Ami residents interact differently with the Han within that community than with the Han outside of that community. However dominant they may be within the community, the Amis are an aborigine group which is clearly subordinated to wider society. In light of their Ami minority status, of which both Han and Ami residents are repeatedly reminded, the unusual reverse ethnic domination within the Si-May community easily becomes ephemeral. Other than protecting Ami residents from being discriminated against, their aggregation into an ethnic enclave sometimes disables aborigine consciousness, which in turn facilitates outside agents like Han vendors in exploiting their already-scarce resources by daily trading and vending. Living in the Ami enclave can provide a certain insulation of the Amis from wider society, but this insulation is incomplete and subject to change by outside forces. Both ordinary Ami residents and their community leaders usually have to submit to these outside forces in the absence of well-organized ethic institutions and critical political-economic resources. To exemplify such a confrontation with the outside forces, this paper ends with an illustration of a housing project that has just started transforming the ethnic composition of the community and which will, in all likelihood, significantly change the existing social order of this Ami community.