“The South” has often taken on meanings far beyond geography in historical and political contexts. For Taiwan, “the South” once signified the periphery of empire and the frontier of colonial expansion, where the people who inhabited the land were objects to be classified, defined, and written about. In recent years, “the South” has offered Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples a perspective from which to explore their indigeneity and connections with the Austronesian world. This perspective, along with Indigenous histories, cultures, and contemporary experiences, has become increasingly visible in Taiwanese literature, music, cinema, and television.

As Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples carve out a growing space as storytellers through generations of efforts to reclaim their histories and assert their own voices, how does Taiwanese popular culture draw on “the South” to reflect the diversity and complexity of the island’s intertwined peoples, cultures, and histories?

For the first public talk of <u>#TaiwanAcrossCities</u> in Nowhere Aotearoa, Dr Chia-rong Wu, Associate Professor in the Department of Global, Cultural and Language Studies at the University of Canterbury, whose research focuses on Sinophone and Taiwanese literature, will draw on Taiwan’s history, literature, and contemporary culture to explore how “the South” has evolved from an imperial imaginary into a pathway through which Taiwan reposition itself and forge new connections with the Austronesian world.

Event will be in Mandarin.