North American Taiwan Studies Association

June 22 - 24, 2023

University of California, Irvine

Call for Proposals

Recent years have seen challenges, both new and old, for the global community. Such new challenges include the expansion of authoritarian influence and aggression, a global pandemic that has reignited debates on different forms of governance, polarization in democratic societies, and technological developments further enabling digital authoritarianism and inequality. Old modes of domination and marginalization, such as those pertaining to race, ethnicity, gender, religion, colonialism, and beyond also continue to persist and interweave with new global conditions. These dynamics play out not only in entrenched ways of seeing and framing but also in the dominant narratives, subject matters, and methodologies in academic research. Standing at this historical juncture of instability and change, we seek reflexive and critical engagements that can open up opportunities to reimagine ways of coping with, navigating, and collaboratively shaping the new realities of today’s world.

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The North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA) has, since its inauguration, dedicated itself to being a platform that can exhibit the diverse perspectives and values of Taiwan and Taiwan Studies. We believe that the inclusivity and diversity of Taiwanese society provide a space for developing alternative views, theories, and narratives that deconstruct and destabilize dominant and hegemonic perspectives. It is in the midst of transitions and transformations that different modes of resistance, resilience, and repositioning emerge. We see these new opportunities as a fluid process of recognizing power dynamics, implementing multifaceted methods of ensuring inclusivity and sustainability, and negotiating meaning-making paradigms that span the wider relations of scholars/practitioners/activists and the communities we work with/for. We welcome proposals that shed light on different modes of resistance, resilience, and repositioning using Taiwan as a case, a method, a theory, a practice, a substantive area, or in any other capacity. 

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We invite proposal submissions that actively engage with the following sets of questions:

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1. Resistance: 

• Substantively, what challenges have Taiwan and Taiwan Studies struggled over, such as national security, internal power struggles, systematic inequality, or (Western) academic hegemony?

• Methodologically and theoretically, what ways of seeing and framing, canonical paradigms, or conventional epistemology require reflection and re-examination? 

• What challenges would researchers from Taiwan, studying Taiwan, or engaging with Taiwan face?

• What modes of resistance have Taiwan, or Taiwan Studies adopted or should adopt? 

• What resistance cases in other contexts can Taiwan learn from? How do Taiwan’s resistance experiences contribute to others facing similar challenges?  

2. Resilience:

• How do different individuals and groups of people make sense of and develop different modes of “resilience”?

• What existing efforts contribute to building the resilience of Taiwan and Taiwan Studies? 

• What possible solutions contribute to building a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient Taiwan pertinent to the identified challenges? 

• What individual, cultural, or institutional factors support the growth of resilient Taiwan and Taiwan Studies?

• What are the limitations or obstacles to the resilience of Taiwan and Taiwan Studies?

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3. Repositioning:​​

• What are Taiwan’s conventional positions in relation to the challenges, modes of resistance, and capacities of resilience? 

• What new possibilities for re-conceptualizing, reorienting, and repositioning Taiwan and Taiwan Studies? 

• How to provide space for marginalized ways of seeing and framing in and of Taiwan and Taiwan Studies?

• What does Taiwan's connection with Oceania from a geopolitical, anthropological, linguistic, or cultural lens mean for Taiwan's symbolic positions and potential repositioning? 

• How to build new partnerships for Taiwan and discover new directions in Taiwan Studies?

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