目前，阿美族的地方社群在國家力量和資本主義市場經濟的影響之下，作為社群運作主力與凝聚核心的年齡組織的多數成員長年在外工作求學。年齡組織的動員多集中在豐年祭等特定時節，而在多數時間消失於原鄉的社群生活中。本文探討在地居民如何面對這些變遷對於社群運作和凝聚所造成的威脅，透過天主教在東海岸烏石鼻堂口的發展過程與獨特性，以及烏石鼻阿美族人在個別家屋庭院廣場頻繁舉行的豬肉宴慶活動(＂miinkay＂)的描述，觀察在地居民如何充滿活力地吸納外在資源來延續和轉變他們的傳統文化與社會組織，同時發展跨地社群的新文化形式來加強親友之間緊密的互惠關係，以因應大環境變遷所導致的挑戰。如同Sahlins對於「文化並未正在消失」(CULTURE IS NOTDISAPPEARING)的看法，以及對跨地社群的新文化形式進行研究的呼籲，本文透過當代烏石鼻阿美人一些社群生活面向的描述，來說明與其哀嘆全球化的進程會導致傳統社會文化的解體，不如深入瞭解地方社群如何運用已有的組織活力、關係網絡、文化價值與生命智慧，創新地結合傳統與現代、本土與外來的要素，來積極地適應變化萬千的當代生活。換言之，不再依循過去研究對於文化作為遺產(heritage)的偏重，開始關注文化作為計畫(project)的意涵。如Abdou Toure所建議，將文化視為是一種生命的哲學，是應對世界挑戰的無窮盡寶庫。

In this paper, I will explore community life of the Amis in the contemporary era based on my field investigations undertaken in an Amis village of the eastern coast area of Taiwan. Through the study of Amis community life in particular historical and cultural milieus which involve certain dialectic processes between the indigenous culture and foreign economic and political forces, I call into question the previous notion that culture is a heritage and that the indigenous culture is going to disappear under powerful influences from the outside world. In a globalizing era of the rapid movement of people, objects and ideas, it is necessary to consider the notion that culture is a philosophy of life, and is an inexhaustible reservoir of responses to the world's challenges (Sahlins 1999, xxi). The notion of culture as a project will help us to make sense of the vitality of the local community in the face of changing politico-economic circumstances. I shall show that the ways in which the local people confront, negotiate with, selectively incorporate, and even actively adapt to different foreign forces are in accord with their familiar socio-cultural notions and logic, such as their village-wide kinship system. Their active changes and creativity should be regarded as the continuity of their living tradition rather than its utter loss or abandonment. Therefore, I will use my reinterpretation of the traditional Amis sociality (cf. Yeh 2009, 2012) as a baseline to deal with the change and continuity among the Amis over the past century. My aim here is to look at the encompassing kinship system of the Amis as it encountered the Japanese policies of acculturation and pacification, the developing incorporation of the state-capitalism of the Taiwan government, and the process of conversion to Catholicism. How the village-wide kinship system of the Amis moderated the ways in which those outside forces impacted on their life will be considered in this paper. Approaching the multiple impacts of history and contact is to explore the dynamism, resilience and tenacity of the Amis socio-cultural system. The historical agency and vitality of the local people is revealed through the dynamic interactions between exogenous historical contingencies and endogenous structures. In the following, I will examine the development and contemporary activities of the Catholic Church in Cidatayay village, which emphasize the worship of Mother Mary and women's church groups. In accordance with a broad trend in recent Pacific studies (Jolly 2003), observations of the indigenous creative appropriation and transformation of Christianity, and the phenomenon of women's church groups will attempt to reveal the vitality of the local socio-cultural system in its encounters with different external forces. I will also describe the introduced miinkay rituals to illustrate how the local people have maintained their enlarged family to respond to the changes caused by the state system and global capitalism (cf. Yeh 2013). Finally, I will discuss the implication of space and the development of the translocal community in order to look at the current configuration of the Amis encompassing kinship system.