Orchid Island -- Lan-yu Cultural Atlas

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Orchid Island (Lan-yu) Project Overview

Project Summary
Orchid Island (Lan-yu in Mandarin) is a small inhabited Island of the Southeast coast of Taiwan. Our 2004 research included documenting the construction of a traditional 10 man boat. The project documents the island as part of a model utilizing geographic information systems (GIS) for a continued interactive product hosted by the Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI). This constitutes a dynamic geo-temporal map of the island as tool for local and scholarly input.

Documentation includes

Mapping dialects
A survey of the archives, museums, and other cultural aspects related to societies of the Bashi Channel
Video and photographic documentation of archaeology, house construction, fishing, agriculture, art projects, and social life
Audio-visual recording of local narratives

The research provides documentation for creating a dynamic cultural map of our findings. There is an assumption that our work will foster wider collaboration and infrastructure.

Investigators
David Blundell, Michael Buckland and Jeanette Zerneke

The Austronesia Team is participating in a collaboration with the ECAI central team, the Information School at UC Berkeley, and the Shung Ye Museum to develop maps and cultural resources on the Orchid Island (Lan-yu) area of Taiwan. See: http://ecai.org/shung-ye/

See: Orchid Island Project References

See also the related cultural atlas for the Batanes District of the Philippines: Batanes Cultural Atlas