英文摘要 |
In 'Some Principles of Ecocriticism,' William Howarth writes that nature and culture 'constantly mingle, like water and soil in a flowing stream' (69). Lawrence Buell, while considering the future of environmental criticism, expresses a clear belief that 'the environment' refers to both 'natural' and 'human-built' dimensions of the world. The two critics suggest, in effect, that the built environment, as well as the natural aspects of the land, be discussed. The environment is thus permeated with diverse power relations among people, and with interactions between man and his surroundings. This expanded notion considers the environment as 'landscape' – a compound term in which 'land' refers to the surface of the earth while 'scape' means 'to shape' from the outside. The term, then, implicitly refers to man's collective effects on the environment; the land is made and modified to serve as the infrastructure for human existence. Another idea related to land ethics is 'place,' which, according to Tim Creswell, allows not only for being understood through the lens of social and cultural conflicts, but also for discussions of value, belonging and attachment (20). This paper is intended to discuss the ideas of place and landscape in Seediq Bale, and to investigate diverse relations between men and the environment. Seediq Bale, a film released in 2011, is about the conflicts between the aboriginal people in Taiwan and Japanese colonizers. The film is set in the mountain areas in Taiwan. The mountain area becomes a land shaped, abused and changed for Japanese imperial benefits. It is, however, a 'place' for the aboriginals, a land not constructed by a seamless, coherent identity, but one containing a variety of conflicts and attachments. The mountain area in the film becomes a social construct expressing a sense of (un)rootedness, the oppression of people, and the exploitation of nature. Japanese colonial hegemony therefore causes environmental racism, which is a form of racial oppression connected to and supported by natural exploitation. |