fulbright Taiwan online journal

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: Indigenous

Latoya Kamdang: Spatial Explorations of Indigenous Architecture and Urban Settlements in Taiwan

Professor Latoya Kamdang’s Fulbright project researched two indigenous architecture sites and two urban informal settlement sites in Taiwan, including one World Monument Fund selected site – Kucapungane. Prof. Kamdang also co-taught with her host Professor Shu-Mei Huang at National Taiwan University and provided insights on preservation and conservation. During her grant, Prof. Kamdang also traveled to South Korea and Hong Kong to expand her international connections in the East Asia Pacific region.

Latoya Nelson Kamdang is a U.S. Fulbright Senior Scholar in Taiwan. Her host institution is the Graduate Institute of Building and Planning at the National Taiwan University. She is a Registered Architect, Certified Interior Designer, and LEED Accredited Professional. Her experience spans architecture, planning, exhibit design, industrial design, and interior design. Latoya has developed her career in practice while maintaining a connection to academic research and teaching at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY.

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Chih-Chin Chou: Social Support for Indigenous People with Disability and Chronic Illness in Taiwan

Dr. Chih-Chin Chou came back to Taiwan with a specialty on Rehabilitation & Mental Health Counseling after she departed 25 years ago. She aimed to research the population that she is most passionate about – indigenous people. She found the majority of research in the field is either on indigenous people or people with disability but lack of ones that covered both. By face-to-face interactions and knowledge sharing, she gained people’s trust and built connects locally.

Dr. Chou is the Program Director for the Rehabilitation & Mental Health Counseling Program at the University of South Florida. Her research interests include psychiatric rehabilitation, research methodology, social support, vocational outcomes for people with disabilities, rehabilitation education, international rehabilitation, and positive psychology. She has published over 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals and eight book chapters. Dr. Chou has received numerous grants including three current training grants totaling almost $2.5 million.

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Jennifer Huang: Weaving Identity: Atayal Textile Practices in Taiwan

Art and culture is one way to preserve, promote and respect indigenous cultures and their histories. Jennifer Huang studied indigenous Atayal weaving in Taiwan and created artworks for two exhibitions inspired by this experience. Her work aims to reflect the cultural narratives that textiles can unravel. Jennifer Chen-su Huang is an artist, writer, and object-maker based in Chicago, IL. This past year, she has been researching indigenous Atayal weaving in Taiwan. She holds a M.F.A. in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.A. in Art Practice with a minor in Art History from University of California, Berkeley.

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Wild, Tame, and In-Between: Traditional Agricultural Knowledge of Taiwan Indigenous People

Introduction and Background      Many of us would agree that Senator J. William Fulbright’s vision of “a world with a little more knowledge and a little less conflict” will feature healthy ecosystems, appreciation of cultural diversity, and of course, delicious food. However, the world has been moving in the wrong direction over the past century. Today, 75% of the world’s plant food is made up of only 12 species. As of 2010, three (rice, maize, and wheat) provided nearly 60 percent of the calories and proteins that humans derive from plants (F.A.O 2010, 1999) and this trend continues (Khoury et al. 2014). This dramatic impact on the world’s agro-biodiversity is accompanied by accelerating environmental degradation, the loss of diverse cultural understandings and appreciation of food, and an increasingly bland globalized menu – one that isn’t even very healthy.      Luckily, diverse culture and food have an ancient and fascinating history in Taiwan. Hunting and fishing practices stretch back to Paleolithic times, and the earliest farming of rice and millet date to Neolithic pioneers who likely migrated to Taiwan from across the Taiwan Strait around 6,000 years ago (Chang and Goodenough 1996, Li 2013, Tsang 2005). Growing from these

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Mary Hamilton: Boat Building and the Role of the Boat in Tao Culture

Mary Hamilton’s research focuses on traditional boat building and its role in Tao culture, from the first meeting to decide to build a boat to its completion and ritual initiation. Mary Hamilton is a graduate of Fordham University. As a Fulbright Fellow at National Taitung University’s Department of Public and Cultural Affairs, she is researching boat building among the Tao indigenous people of Orchid Island from an anthropological perspective.

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Simon Levin: Finding the new possibilities of local clay

    As an artist, one of Simon Levin‘s passions is a search for cultural identity. He believes indigenous clay is a metaphor for the malleable foundation upon which we respond to the world. Simon’s Fulbright journey has lead him to dig, process, test and explore the properties of domestic clay in the U.S. and Taiwan, re-introducing materials and local potential to the Taiwanese academic studio environment. 賽烈文(Simon Levin)陶藝個展:異相凝合     陶藝家賽烈文擅長運用傳統柴燒工藝與陶土釉藥實驗創作色彩斑斕的陶藝品。賽老師希望透過創作打破外來與本地陶土的貴賤高低之別,重新發現台灣陶土的可能性。他將分享他對本地陶土、文化以及台灣創作環境的觀察。     賽烈文先生是2012-2013傅爾布萊特資深學者,目前為台南藝術大學訪問學者。

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Christine Yeh: Cultural Empowerment for Atayal Students

    Dr. Christine Yeh entered a 99 percent Indigenous community in Yilan, Taiwan to develop cultural Empowerment program. She focused on the community-school base in her curriculum development and assessment and she identified a niche emphasizing ethnic identity and educational opportunity. Dr. Yeh worked closely with Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA), Mikael Owunna, and a local English teacher, Jennifer Huang, to establish this curriculum about cultural empowerment. The exciting results and student work will be displayed in a 2014 exhibition in the National Taiwan Museum. 台灣泰雅學童的文化賦權     葉晶博士深入宜蘭縣南澳鄉協助泰雅族部落開發文化賦權課程。她的研究主要圍繞著以社區和學校為基礎的課程建構與評鑑,尤其著重在族群認同及教育機會等。她與宜蘭英語協同教師Mikael Owunna及本地英語教師黃嘉雯共同開發了一系列的文化賦權課程,並預計於2014年於國立臺灣博物館展出相關成果。

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Research & Reflections

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