Written by Aleksandrs Gross.
This article is based on interviews with Professor Dafydd Fell.
Image credit: provided by the interviewee.
This second article on Professor Dafydd Fell explores the defining experiences of his career in a more institutional context. In particular, the establishment of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, and the development of the Taiwan Studies Centre and the Taiwan Master’s programme at SOAS. This two-part article ends with some advice for those starting out and some takeaway messages.
Together with Chang Bi-yu, Dafydd was instrumental in establishing the field of Taiwan studies in Europe. When he was doing his postdoc at SOAS in 2004, funding came in for the explicit purpose of – for the first time – establishing a European Taiwan Studies network. His supervisor at the time gave him a lot of freedom in deciding how to establish such a network.
He noted how, up to that point, Taiwan Studies in Europe had a more elitist air, being populated mainly by established professors, much of it happening behind closed doors. In response, Dafydd took after the American model, making the network as inclusive as possible.
The first European Studies conference was set to happen in London in March 2004. When Dafydd first put out an open call for papers, he was very unsure of what the response would be. The surprisingly large number of responses revealed a much more widespread interest in Taiwan studies in Europe than he had expected. The first conference laid the foundations for the European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS).
After ten years of being organised by SOAS, EATS developed its own institutional structure. The conference happens in a different European country each year. Funding has also diversified, going beyond the Jiangjinguo Foundation (one of the initial funders), to include member funding.
Regarding challenges to setting up EATS, Dafydd notes how involving senior scholars was difficult, especially when it came to submitting abstracts to a competitive court for papers. Despite initial difficulties, the passion that was present in many younger scholars gave EATS a strong momentum:
As soon as we did that first conference, by the end of that, we had people who wanted to be the local organisers. (..) So basically at the end of those three days or two days, we had three years ahead planned. (..) And then we just talked about how to make this a bit more institutionalised, so that it’s not going to be susceptible to collapsing in the way that some conferences can, because it takes a lot of work to put together an international conference every year.
Beyond EATS, Dafydd mentions a number of other ways in which the Taiwan Studies movement has been growing in Europe. There are around fourteen different European Taiwan studies programmes in Europe today, testifying to the passion of Taiwan-focused researchers. Funding remains the largest obstacle – many such programmes operate on limited funding streams, some of which may support the programmes only for a year.
Besides university programmes, the publication field has also developed significantly. There is the Routledge Taiwan Book Series (established in 2009), the International Journal of Taiwan Studies (established in 2018), the book series Taiwan and World Affairs published out of Nottingham (established in 2022), and other series as well, based out of Preston, Nottingham and Cambridge. There are also other, less formal Taiwan-related publications, such as Taiwan Insight at Nottingham University.
One of the things that makes European Taiwan Studies unique is how unified it is. EATS has become the centre or bridge to all the different disciplines within Taiwan Studies in Europe, connecting scholars from very disparate specialisations. SOAS is a little microcosm of that kind of integration, as Dafydd notes:
One of the things I really enjoy about doing Taiwan Studies at SOAS, (is) that even though my teaching is in politics, I’m running events from, let’s say, – last week we were doing poetry, this evening we’re doing one on indigenous language in cinema, last Friday we had an online talk on parliamentary disruption. (..) I kind of feel like I’m a student, I’m going to class every week and learning new things, even though it does involve a lot of effort to organise such an active programme.
The Taiwan Studies Centre at SOAS
Dafydd first joined SOAS not because he knew about the Taiwan Studies programme, but because there was a scholar at SOAS who covered Taiwanese politics. The Taiwan Studies programme at SOAS was only emerging back then and gave him the same sort of impression of Taiwan Studies as elsewhere in Europe – slightly elitist and behind closed doors.
Initially, Dafydd did some auditing and teaching for the Taiwan Studies programme. However, it was only after he received a permanent post in the politics department that he was given the post of deputy director of the programme. He set up a Taiwanese Studies summer school, expanded the programme to include more modules and added undergraduate classes to the programme as well (which are the most well attended). He invited more Taiwan experts to give talks throughout the course and aligned the programme more closely with the active event schedule of the Taiwan Study Centre at SOAS and the EATS conference.
Purpose of the Taiwan Studies Programme at SOAS
What the Taiwan Studies programme at SOAS strives to do most is to attract students with a wide variety of interests by presenting Taiwan from many different angles, such as the social movements angle, the gender studies angle, and the cinema angle, to mention just a few.
Given the current tensions between China and Taiwan, in the popular imagination, Taiwan Studies often gets reduced to cross-straits issues. One of the goals of SOAS is to challenge such conceptions, emphasising how, regardless of how the cross-straits situation develops, the field of Taiwan Studies will remain diverse and fascinating and can keep attracting students for a wide variety of reasons that transcend the narrow political domain.
In theory, cross-strait tensions should increase interest in Taiwan. But I think there’s always a danger that you just study Taiwan through that lens. Part of our job is to show that Taiwan is interesting from so many different angles or aspects – it’s quite encouraging when a student will tell you, OK, I first became interested in Taiwan after I heard about same-sex marriage legalisation or it was the story of the Sunflower Movement that inspired me to study Taiwan or sometimes it’s something in Taiwanese cinema that kind of catches the interest. So, I think we’ve got to show that there’s more to Taiwan than cross-strait relations.
When asked about what skills are most helpful in establishing one’s career in Taiwan Studies, Dafydd emphasises local knowledge – gaining regional experience which can only be had by living in Taiwan. Crucial to gaining such experience, and as a second skill, Dafydd mentions Mandarin proficiency; Dafydd’s efforts back in his early career days to change his accent from Chinese to Taiwanese and his shift from simplified to traditional characters speak to the importance of Taiwanese Mandarin specifically. Depending on one’s specialisation, picking up a local Taiwanese language, like Taiwanese Southern Min, may also be helpful.
Thirdly, but of no less importance, is having a specialised disciplinary background – be it anthropology, political science, media studies or whatever else. This gives one a concrete set of tools and an original approach. It also helps situate Taiwan Studies within one’s broader discipline and enables one to speak to researchers of the same discipline who do not focus on Taiwan. Simultaneously, Dafydd mentions that one’s discipline should not limit one’s approach to Taiwan Studies. It is important to stay connected to scholars of other disciplines working in the field, which can be done by attending the EATS yearly conference.
Dafydd also speaks to the importance of having some understanding of the PRC – especially in understanding the roots of cross-strait conflict and in studying topics that relate to both sides of the strait, such as business, comparative authoritarian studies, etc. Of course, the degree to which China’s knowledge is useful depends on one’s specialisation.
Dafydd’s career development gives a sense of how crucial regional experience and time is to finding one’s career path. Adapting quickly to unexpected changes, and doing one’s best to connect to the place one finds oneself in, as Dafydd did in response to external, top-down political changes in China. Staying in Taiwan, as he did, for almost a decade gave him not only an insider’s perspective but also a connection to the island that no amount of study could replace.
A second theme is the role of timing and institution. When Dafydd first started developing the field of Taiwan Studies in Europe, there was a lot of latent potential in the field, but no structure as of yet to realise it. Being part of SOAS and being connected to other academics working on Taiwan gave Dafydd the platform from which to bring other Taiwan researchers together via EATS and develop the MA Taiwan Studies programme – the first one of its kind in the West.
A third theme is the importance of finding the gap – the discrepancy between what current research says about Taiwan, and how things are on the ground. Dafydd’s case demonstrated how it was the blend of regional experience and extensive reading of research on Taiwan which made it possible to find that gap. Identifying gaps like these can be a crucial turning point in one’s career – inspiring master’s or PhD theses, books and future courses. As Dafydd’s case also makes clear, novel approaches are often required to conduct research in gap areas.
Aleksandrs Gross is a freelance journalist focusing on the grassroots development of Taiwanese identity. He is particularly interested in the development of Taiwanese civic society, especially social movements, and how younger generations of Taiwanese respond to the unique political, identity-related and economic challenges of Taiwan. Find more of his writing on New Bloom and his Substack Identity Island.
This article was published as part of a special issue on ‘Taiwan Studies Interviews: What can we learn?’.