Tzu-hui Celina Hung

My project examines the heretofore-overlooked subterranean connection between Taiwan’s indigenous Austronesian peoples and new immigrants—particularly their cultural politics in the 2000s in the face of the contradictory official discourse that posits Taiwan as a newly multicultural society despite its continued settler colonial domination. I focus on two recent milestones in Taiwan's multicultural market: the controversial indigenous musical On the Road (2010) and the Taiwan Literature Awards for Migrants (2014-present). Combining text-based discourse analysis with interviews and archival work, this project scrutinizes the evolving settler colonial imagination among the Han/Hoklo majority and sheds light on the intimate ties among Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.