Fragile resilience: Post-disaster Indigenous tourism in Taiwan

Focusing on the Rukai Labuwan community in Taiwan, in this article we examine how an Indigenous community struggled to rebuild livelihoods and maintain ancestral ties after Typhoon Morakot devastated southern Taiwan in 2009. We trace how locally driven post-disaster micro-tourism emerged around the Rainbow Cliffs of Hayou Stream, creating new income and attracting youth back to the village, while deepening inequalities and tensions over authority, resource control, and recognition. As agriculture declines and dependence on external supplies increases, Labuwan residents who decide to stay on ancestral land confront new forms of livelihood precarity and climate vulnerability. We argue that resilience in this context cannot be understood simply as economic recovery or successful tourism development, but must be situated within colonial histories of state intervention, territorial dispossession, and Indigenous struggles over governance. Post-disaster tourism can support recovery while still producing uneven benefits, seasonal dependence, weakened subsistence capacity, and new tensions over collective authority.