TAP Travel Grant Holders 2024

Minna Hon

Navigating Barriers in Taiwanese Museums

People with disabilities have often been framed as a burden to society and tend to have more difficulties to participate in society than people without disabilities. To this day they f ight for equal rights. Reported cases of disabilities make up around 5% of Taiwan’s population. The amount of people with disabilities is increasing incrementally, which is partly due to an aging society. How Taiwan navigates accessibility issues can be analyzed by a look at how legislation and specifically cultural institutions have adapted to the needs of people with disabilities. The social responsibility of museums as cultural institutions to be inclusive has been widely discussed. To cement that fact the International Council of Museums (ICOM) has revised the definition of museum in 2022. Improvements in museum’s accessibility services to people with disabilities indicate its importance. The main focus of this research will be an analysis of accessibility of national museums in Taiwan. Accessibility is divided into architectural, informational and emotional accessibility. Architectural accessibility is analyzed by information provided by the Ministry of Culture and supplemented by field work in Taiwan. Informational accessibility concentrates on digital accessibility. With the establishment of the Ministry of Digital Affairs in 2021, Taiwan seems to have acknowledged the importance of digital transformation. Web access is an important tool for obtaining information in the digital age, but it can be difficult for people with disabilities to navigate, especially those with visual impairments. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) serve as an international standard for the accessibility of web content. The WCAG is a standard implemented throughout all government websites, as well as national museum websites in Taiwan. Emotional accessibility is depicted by case studies in various national museums because how museums choose to create an emotional connection to its visitors with disabilities is not standardized.

Wan-Jou Lin

Probing Taiwan-ness: Indigenous Ecofemimist Glocal Insight on Climate Justice

This research project hopes to bring forth the role of Taiwanese Indigenous women who guide Indigenous communities’ responses to climate change and adaptation strategies in Taiwan. Taiwanese Indigenous peoples often align with global Indigenous networks and engage in transnational activism to address environmental and adaptation strategies. Yet very little is known about the viewpoints of Taiwanese Indigenous women on their knowledge systems concerning multiple challenges their communities are faced with in the Capitalocene.

The dissertation is to study and demonstrate the female voices on traditional ecological knowledge and their resistance and resilience on climate crisis that ecofeminist or ecological feminist approaches can bring forward. In order to form a more holistic epistemology, Taiwan Indigenous knowledge with an ecofeminist approach is taking into account toward a more sustainable epistemology.

This project is to bridge the outcome of the fieldwork on Taiwan Indigenous communities Ciulaku(長樂) with the broader narratives on ecological transformation and gender dimensions of climate change in Germany. Ciulaku is comparatively vulnerable, a case of female resilient on Indigenous community to fight for the land rights. This project is to introduce the Taiwan indigenous women’s epistemology for ecofeminist thinking, responding to the significant challenges of the economic injustice and ecological destruction. Furthermore, in the dialogue with the broader international society, both the voices of Taiwan indigenous communities and German contexts share the common ground to criticize the world (dis)order imposed by neoliberal economic globalization.

Felix Brender 

Justice, at Last? Exclusionary Features of Transitional Justice as an Identity-Building Project under Tsai Ing-Wen

Since Taiwan’s democratisation, the nation has made significant strides in political development, emerging as a stable and thriving democracy. However, it has not been immune to episodes of civil unrest, such as the 2014 Sunflower Movement, which involved instances of violence. These events have sparked ongoing debates within both popular and academic circles, with many arguing that Taiwan has yet to fully achieve positive peace—characterised by the absence of structural and cultural violence. This underscores the need for continued efforts to establish lasting peace.

This researcher has previously explored Taiwan’s experience with Transitional Justice (TJ), including the controversial TJ measures pursued under President Tsai Ing-Wen. One such contribution is an entry on TJ in the Encyclopaedia of Taiwan Studies (Brender, 2023), offering an analytical overview of the historical and contemporary dimensions of TJ in Taiwan.

In a 2022 article, this researcher argued that TJ mechanisms under President Tsai are part of a broader initiative to create a cohesive and affirmative Taiwanese identity. These efforts are embedded within a larger project to reimagine Taiwan’s identity in ways that do not rely on constructing China as its primary Other. By promoting shared narratives of the past, the aim is to move beyond the prevailing “China lens,” which has traditionally framed Taiwanese identity in terms of Chineseness. Contemporary discussions of Taiwanese identity, particularly when juxtaposed with Chinese identity, have often been constrained by narratives that depict Taiwan as merely a variation or extension of Chinese culture (cf. Hioe, 2016). This researcher has argued that Taiwan’s TJ efforts strive to counteract such tendencies by avoiding the negative definition of Taiwan as “everything China is not.” Instead, they seek to develop historiographical narratives rooted in Taiwan’s diverse social fabric, thereby enabling the formation of a stable, positive national identity. These narratives not only aim to unify domestic perspectives but also strengthen Taiwan’s international position as part of a democratic coalition.

While the capacity of TJ to foster collective identities is well-documented in the literature, the focus has often been on specific events or victimised groups rather than the national body as a whole (cf. Naghshineh, 2017; Teitel, 2003; Minow, 2002). In Taiwan, by contrast, TJ efforts encompass the entirety of the nation’s sociopolitical and identity-cultural landscape.

To date, this researcher’s fieldwork on the impact of TJ in Taiwan examined developments up to late 2021, while the Encyclopaedia of Taiwan Studies entry on TJ (2023) used a cut-off date of September 2022. At that time, a comprehensive evaluation of the Taiwan Transitional Justice Committee (TJC) remained premature, as the committee had concluded its mandate and formally dissolved in May 2022. In hindsight, however, a more nuanced appraisal of subsequent developments is warranted. How successful has the TJ-driven identity-building project been, particularly given the critiques from opposition forces—most notably from the KMT—and the public controversies surrounding it (cf. Hioe)?

Moreover, the dual nature of identity-building initiatives warrants closer examination. Beyond fostering inclusion, such efforts inevitably rely on mechanisms of exclusion. As is well-established in social science, the construction of a collective “us” is often dependent on the designation of a “them” or an Other. In this context, one must ask whether China is the sole Other in Taiwan’s national identity project, or if other forms of exclusion are at play. These questions compel an exploration of how Taiwan’s TJ mechanisms establish boundaries not only with China but also within Taiwan’s own complex sociopolitical landscape, potentially excluding subnational groups or alternative political ideologies.