Decolonizing Methodologies, Situated Resilience, and Country: Insights from Tayal Country, Taiwan

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Based on the title, the article is expected to deal with two issues; an indigenous group in Taiwan, and climate change adaptation which it does not working well in one. First of all, I am not convinced that the title is well represented whole article. It is apparently a study of localised tribal community in Taiwan; however, it does contain a very weak link to climate change issues as the author claimed. Such separate subjects are handled not well enough to find any relation together despite authors’ huge efforts and fields works on the community.

In terms of structure, there is unclear statement of subject, purpose, and methodology in introduction section; while, a lot of paragraphs within introduction, should be shifted to literature review. The literature review section is heavily relying on a couple of papers limiting wider perspectives.

I rather see literature review part in merged manner. At the moment, the structure of literature review is some sort of omnibus or runs parallel. I also question the adequacy of employing decolonizing methods. It is seemingly seen as unrelated.

In methodology section, there is no logic to arrive here adapting decolonizing methodologies. Moreover, it lacks explaining why Australian models are equivalent. The author’s personal experience cannot be the reason to employ aboriginal concept(?) to the study. It seems this is a case study involving a serious amount of field work, which it needs to be utilised in the methodology section.

The finding section, ‘recognising relational webs in Tayal Country’, reveals complex relationships between geographies and languages in the area; however, these did not appear in the previous sections such as introduction and literature review as research frameworks. This weakens cohesiveness and logics of the study. Even, the Figure 1,2 do not have much role here.

For this reason, it limits the relevance of the conclusion sections.

Author Response

Thanks reviewer 1 for the review, please see attachment for my responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper addresses the indigenous community in “Tayal Country”, Taiwan. The paper is very interesting to read. We understand that the paper contains three distinct main parts with a discontinuity between them. The flow and the purpose of the paper are consequently not very smooth.

The introduction, section 1 and the ‘acknowledgement of county’, section 2 are very well written and follow the best research standard (these are the best finalized parts of the paper). The section 3 is centred on an incident (cypress) and its connexion with the backward part and the paper title on disaster and climate change must be clarified. The section 4 appears equally as disconnected from the backward part and the paper purpose about disaster and climate change. The sections 3 and 4 are interesting but contain unclear ruptures.

To conclude, the paper presents valuable research results but the presentation of them must use a unity which appears disconnected with the paper title and abstract.

Here under follows several remarks.

No line numbering was made in the document.

The second sentence of the introduction is unclear.

The first person is used. It is well accepted in humanities and social sciences.

Ontology is equally used in the interoperability of systems (risk analysis, computer science).

Last sentence of section 1 is miss placed.

We do not understand “under imperialism” (second paragraph section 3.1).

The sentence beginning by “The word ‘winaga...’ is unclear section 3.1

The sentence beginning by ‘Decolonizing methodologies…’ is instructive (paragraph 2 section 3)

The paper contains two breaks at paragraphs 3.2 and 4.1. More generally, section 3 is not in the continuity of section 2 and section 4 is not in the continuity of the section 3.

Sections 3 and 4 use often the first person “I” “my”.

The mountain “Papak wapa” plays a central role in the paper (page 8 and end page 11).

‘Migration’ plays a significant role in the paper (“ancestors migration” page 14).

The disaster topic is not directly treated in the paper, the main examples made are the trees cut and land property.

The “property” differs from “disasters” needing clarification (section 4).

The Han Chinese plays a role in the paper, mentioned once beginning page 11.

Taiwan population number is missing.

The mentions “this research” “work” “the reader” are often used (section 4).

May be using quotation mark ‘spilt’ for split beginning page 12.

Image figure 3 cannot be read.

Captions of figures 4 and 5 go together.

Typo: Figure5 (p14), 6Papak (caption figure 6)

The disaster topic comes in the last subsection 4.2 (ending paragraph)

Sentence n°4 part 3 of the conclusion is very good.

Part 3 of the conclusion uses both ‘Country’ and ‘Countries’.

Reference 42 to be edited.

Author Response

Thanks reviewer 2 for the review, please see the attachment for my responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper attempted to document the Tayal's Country customs, resource governance practices, and perspective. Unfortunately, the author failed to describe the methodology in the collection of data or information. The author mainly relied on his personal experiences during his community immersion as basis of his discussion. However, social research, like this one, has scientific methodology to follow as safety valve against biases, which  affects the reliability of the results. Granting that the author developed this new methodology of research, there must be sufficient description as the number many participants or respondents in this research, methods in obtaining the information presented in this paper, data treatment and analysis, and related approach employed by other researchers. This paper is also very long (24 pages) because of the lengthy discussion of many information or theories, which made it difficult to digest.

Author Response

Thanks reviewer 3 for the review, please see the attachment for my responses.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Reviews' comments were reflected in the revision and amendments were made adequately.

In some areas of English, using passive voice would be recommended.

Author Response

Thanks the reviewer for the comments. I checked the manuscript once more for any English issues. But as it is a qualitative research, a passive voice would not fit into the general format of the paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

The revised paper structure and content are more convenient for a clear understanding by the reader. The comments of the first version are well taken into account.

Complements are welcome, like Mandarin characters line 361, coordinates line 362.

A new quality of the paper is its capacity for asking questions by the reader.

If an improvement remains, it may be in the title using twice an important word: Country. We may suggested, but it is not mandatory, to use words like, ontology, experience, Indigenous, Papak wapa. We let the author to adopt the best-suited title and meaning behind the word ‘Country’. May be it is a good idea to use ‘Country’ twice, because it is central.

The paper becomes a very interesting paper to read and to foster questioning.

Some typos remain as

,, line 51

maintains , line 123

([…]), line 131

Check Figure 4 / Figure 5 in sentence lines 389-390

Columns width in appendix