Yu Liang

YU LIANG, then a graduate student at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, received a grant in September 2022 to aid research on “Being Indigenous or Being Native? Politics of History and National Reconciliation in Settler Colonial Taiwan,” supervised by Dr. Viranjini Munasinghe. This dissertation examines the intersection of indigeneity and justice in Taiwan during the country’s post-World War II transformation, focusing on two key periods: the emergence of Taiwanese nationalism and democratization in the 1980s, and post-2000 national transitional justice initiatives. The study analyzes how Taiwan indigenous peoples have negotiated their complex relationship with Taiwanese nationalism and debates around indigeneity and Taiwanese nativeness within historical justice movements. The research critically investigates indigenous peoples’ dual position as both indigenous and Taiwanese within a political context driven by Han Taiwanese’s self-nativization — where Han Taiwanese seek to establish legitimate connection to the island while facing Chinese military threats and their Chinese ancestral heritage. In this context, indigenous peoples represent Taiwan’s legitimate historical past, multicultural present, and creolized future. This study examines Taiwanese nativeness as both an identity framework built around post-colonial victimhood and as an identity reconfiguration responding to China’s territorial claims.