Reorientating Taiwan: Ocean, Selfhood, and the Pacific

Niki J.P. Alsford is Professor of Anthropology and Human Geography, and Director for the Institutes for the Study of the Asia Pacific (ISAP), and the Institute for Area and Migration Studies (AMIS) at the University of Central Lancashire. He is a Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS and an Associate Member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford. Alsford's research focuses primarily on Taiwan, Korea, and the Pacific Islands. He is the book series editor for the Taiwan series at Brill, the Korean series at Routledge, and a new series on Asia Pacific Cultures, Communities, and Landscapes at Palgrave Macmillan. He is the author of Taiwan Lives: A Socio-Political History, published by the University of Washington Press in 2024.Ti-han Chang is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Asia Pacific Studies at the University of Central Lancashire. Her research focuses on contemporary eco-literature and postcolonial studies in Taiwan and the wider region of Asia Pacific. She has published a number of articles, reviews and translations in the relevant fields. She is also the co-editor of A Transdisciplinary Study of Global Mobilities: Identities on the Move (Springer, 2025).

• AcknowledgementsList of ContributorsIntroduction: Reorientating Taiwan as a Pacific IslandNiki J.P. AlsfordPART 1: New Waves of Ocean Thinking1 O Riyar ko Singsi Niyam/The Ocean is Our TeacherOceanic Dialogues in Amis Contemporary ArtDJ W. Hatfield2 The Politics of ClothBarkcloth in the Context of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage ListsNiki J. P. AlsfordPART 2: Oceanic Writing and Translation in Literature3 Topography, Archipelagic Imaginary and Eco-criticismThree Modalities of Oceanic Writing from Contemporary TaiwanPei-yin Lin4 Translate the SeaOceanicity and Decoloniality in Syaman Rapongan’s WorksGwennaël Gaffric5 From the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean SeaFuyanren and Its Translations into Catalan and ItalianAntonio Paoliello-Palermo and Mireia Vargas-UrpíPART 3: Ocean and Marine Representations in Art and Media6 Oceans and Isles in Contemporary Taiwanese ComicsEnvironment, Art, and IdentityNorbert Danysz7 The Oceanic Turn in Taiwan’s Environmental DiscourseIssues of Marine Ecosystem in Two Taiwanese Activist Eco-documentariesKuei-fen Chiu and Hsing-juh LinPART 4: Oceanic Entanglements: Encounter of the Human and Nonhuman Worlds8 Oceanic Nodes of EntanglementTaiwan in a Meshwork of Human-Avian LivesScott E. Simon9 Entanglements between the Land and the SeaThe Case of Tao People and their More-than-Liquid IdentityJulien Laporte10 “Those Fishes have Ph.D.”The Interactions between Reef Fishes and Underwater Spearfishing Men among Amis People in TaiwanFuturu C. L. TsaiReflection: Pacific Cetaceans and the Oceanic Turn in TaiwanHung-chi Liao (translated by Ti-han Chang)Conclusion: Framing an Oceanic Narrative for Taiwan Studies in UK Higher Education and BeyondTi-han ChangIndex