Charisma in Motion: Indigenous Faith and the Reimagining of Landscape and Belonging from Taiwan to Belize

Abstract (English)

This paper focuses on the intersection of religious charisma, transnational migration, and landscape reterritorialization through the lens of a unique case: the 1990s migration of Paiwan Indigenous Christians from Taiwan to Belize, Central America. Prompted by prophetic visions and Pentecostal teachings, this group of believers envisioned Belize as a “promised land” where spiritual and cultural renewal could occur. Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork and oral history interviews with three generations of Paiwan migrants, I examine how charisma—not only as religious authority but as a social and spatial force—mobilized migration and reshaped relationships to land, community, and identity.
In Belize, the transplanted faith underwent dynamic localization: Indigenous ritual elements were recontextualized, new worship spaces were established, and religious leadership adapted to shifting generational and cultural contexts. While early migrants emphasized prophetic fulfillment and millennial hope, the second and third generations negotiate complex hybrid identities in response to local schooling, intercultural marriage, and Belizean nationhood. These processes illuminate how Indigenous Christianity functions as a site of continuity and contestation, enabling the reconstruction of collective memory while navigating postcolonial and diasporic realities.
This paper challenges conventional frameworks that treat mission history as a one-way transmission by centering Indigenous agency and lived religious practice. Instead, it highlights the role of Indigenous actors in generating charismatic geographies and sustaining transnational religious landscapes. Ultimately, I argue that the case of the Paiwan in Belize reveals how migration and faith intertwine to produce new modes of belonging, and how land, as both symbol and practice, remains central in articulating Indigenous futures.