Taiwan Studies conference at ANU

I’ve just spent the past week in Canberra attending a Taiwan Studies conference at Australian National University (ANU). The conference titled “Taiwan: The View from the South” was hosted by the Australian Centre on China in the World. The conference brought together scholars from Australia, Taiwan and other countries

It was the first time that I had been involved in a Taiwan related academic activity in Australia. It was great to renew some of my connections with Taiwan, especially meeting with my supervisor Dr David Blundell. It was also a good opportunity to learn more about the work being done in the field of Taiwan Studies in Australia.

One of the highlights of the conference was screenings of films by Tsai Ming-liang followed by Q&A with Tsai, moderated and translated by Linda Jaivin. Tsai’s film “Stray Dogs” screened to a full house. The second night of screenings featured two short films, “No Form” and “The Skywalk is Gone”.

Keynote speeches by Australia’s two leading Taiwan scholars challenged the audience to think about new ways of understanding Taiwan. Emeritus Professor Bruce Jacobs examined Taiwan’s history in terms of colonialism. Dr Mark Harrison took an epistemological approach looking at the role of storytelling in creating narratives of Taiwan’s development.

At the conference there was discussion about establishing an Australia and New Zealand Taiwan Studies Association. This would complement similar organisations in Europe and North America. The conference showed that there is a strong Taiwan Studies community in Australia and a more formal organisation would only help to further promote it.

Taiwanese community in Melbourne shows support for Sunflower Movement

About 500 members of the Taiwanese community rallied outside the State Library in Melbourne yesterday. The rally was part of a worldwide action with other events taking place in major cities of Australia, Europe, Asia and North America to show solidarity with Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement.

At the same time as the event in Melbourne a crowd estimated at 350,000 was turning out in Taipei. This represented a massive show of public support for the student-led Sunflower Movement which has occupied the Legislative Yuan in Taipei since 18 March. The movement’s key aim is to ensure that the Cross-Strait Service and Trade Agreement (CSSTA) and other agreements with China are subject to proper scrutiny by the legislature.

The Story of Smangus at Students of Sustainability

This morning I gave a presentation about Smangus at the Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference. This year the conference is being held in Bendigo, which is not far from where I live in Australia. I attended because it was a good chance to reconnect with the academic world and activists in Australia. It was also the first time I have done a presentation about my research in Taiwan for an Australian audience.

SoS is an annual conference organised by the Australian Student Environment Network (ASEN) which connects campus environment collectives from around Australia. I first attended SoS in 2004. Incidentally the 2004 conference was also the first time I met John Seed. I later had the chance to travel around Taiwan with John and visit some indigenous communities including Smangus.

My presentation, titled “The Story of Smangus: Indigenous Rights in Taiwan,” started with some background information about Taiwan and its indigenous peoples. I then followed this with some discussion of the Smangus community and the legal case about the right to use wood from a wind-fallen tree. As the key theme of the conference is sustainability I wanted people to know more about how the people of Smangus have used their traditional knowledge as the basis for a sustainable community. The word sustainability is often misused, but I think the people of Smangus and other indigenous peoples around the world have practiced sustainable ways of living for hundreds or even thousands of years. There are many lessons that can be learnt from them.

Indigenous issues are a major theme at SoS. The plenary on the first day of the conference was on sovereignty. Grassroots Aboriginal activists spoke about the topic. Their perspectives presented a radical challenge to the mainstream discourse on this issue in Australia. This afternoon I had the chance to further explore some of these issues in a workshop about working with indigenous communities. The workshop talked about the need for “decolonising our minds” in order to work effectively with indigenous peoples for justice.

Smangus presentation – Students of Sustainability [pdf file]