fulbright Taiwan online journal

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: Public Policy

Colby Hyde: Gone Shrimpin’

In the second year of his 2016-2018 Fulbright grant, Colby Hyde wrote a Master’s thesis for a degree in agricultural economics. More specifically, his thesis explored co-management of a common-pool resource. In order to better understand co-management, Colby, his professor Yu-hui Chen (陳郁蕙), and two other graduate students from National Taiwan University went to Donggang, Taiwan to meet an organization of self-governing Sakura shrimp fishermen. He was able to meet with the current chairman of the co-management organization, Chun-chao Chen (陳春潮), to discuss its history and challenges. After meeting with Chairman Chen, Colby witnessed firsthand the daily auction of Sakura shrimp. Both buyers and sellers of Sakura shrimp participate in the co-management organization, ensuring all involved parties do their part to maintain a sustainable resource.

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Michelle Phillips: Repairing (and Exploiting) the Underclass Image

Michelle Phillips spent her Fulbright year in Taiwan to research on the maid trade system and compares it with the one in Hong Kong. Because of her multilingual background, she can act as a bridge between employers and domestic workers. After trust was built with the domestic workers, she successfully interviewed over 150 people in total. Later, she will bring the experiences and observations from her research to propose changes in Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines regarding better protections for migrant workers and their employers. Michelle Phillips is a 4th-year Ph.D. Candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley. Her current research is focused on the intersection of business, politics and human rights, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. She is focusing on questions ranging from the role of the state in international trade and migration, the effectiveness of certain policies as well as their unintended consequences, and the impact of business interests on the implementation and consistency of government intervention. In an increasingly interconnected global economy, she believes it is crucial to understand what motivates the people behind these institutions, as well as the de facto impact of strategies they implement.  

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Valerie Holton: Collaborative Curiosity: Designing Community-Engaged Research

Dr. Valerie Holton taught a course on community-engaged research (CEnR) at National Taiwan University during her Fulbright year. Together, she and her students learned how to collaborate and generated new knowledge on building a healthier community. Outside of the classroom, Valerie was able to interact with local people in Taiwan through various community activities. There she experienced dynamic cultural exchanges and saw the potential of future collaboration. Dr. Holton is the executive editor of CUMU’s Metropolitan Universities journal (MUJ), a quarterly, peer-reviewed outlet for scholarship on cutting-edge issues in higher education. Valerie was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Social Work at National Taiwan University in 2018. She is currently an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and Institute of Community Health Care at National Yang-Ming University in Taiwan.

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Peilei Fan: Urbanization and Environmental Change: Comparative Analysis of Taipei and Shanghai

Being an expert in urban development condition of East Asia, Peilei Fan spent the first half of her Fulbright Cross-strait Studies grant in Taipei, Taiwan. She developed an urban development index and framework, and will continue her research in Shanghai, China. In the video, she also shared her observations and experiences on the education system and natural outings in Taiwan. Dr. Peilei Fan is an associate professor of Urban & Regional Planning in the School of Planning, Design, and Construction at Michigan State University. She holds a joint research appointment at the Center for Global Change and Earth Observations. Dr. Fan’s research focuses on the urban environment, innovation and economic development. She is a Fulbright US Scholar of Cross-Strait Studies Program for 2017-2018 in Taipei and Shanghai.

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Kristina Chyn: Indirect Effects of Roads and Road Densities on Native Island Reptiles and Amphibians

Kristina Chyn reflected on her Fulbright research year on the ecological impacts of roads on Taiwan’s biodiversity –ecological modeling, data collection in Taiwan’s montane jungles, and preliminary results. Kristina Chyn is an Ecology & Evolutionary Biology PhD student at Texas A&M University and is hosted by the Taiwan Endemic Species Research Institute. Her intentions in Taiwan are to research ecological impacts of roads, but also connect with local ecologists and contribute to the protection of Taiwan’s ecological heritage.  

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Christine Norton: Cross-Cultural Learning & Outdoor Adventure Therapy

Dr. Norton provides an overview of her Fulbright Teaching project, “Cultural bridging through shared adventure,” as well as other Fulbright-related projects, and the resulting personal and professional outcomes. Christine Norton, LCSW, has a PhD in Social Work from Loyola University Chicago, a MA in Social Service Administration from the University of Chicago and a MS in Experiential Education from Minnesota State University. She is an Associate Professor at Texas State University, and a Fulbright Scholar at National Taiwan Normal University.  

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Hannah Fazio: Taiwan’s Marriage Equality Movement: Lessons Learned and Shared

Hannah Fazio, who studied International Relations at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, wanted to study social movements. She came to Taiwan to learn about Taiwan’s push to legalize same-sex marriage and ended up in the right place at the right time! This video features her reflections on her research and personal experiences as she watched a social movement unfold and develop before her eyes.  

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Emily Grubb:  A Weekend in Cinsbu

This video depicts a two-day class trip to the Atayal village of Cinsbu taken by the National Chengchi University’s IMAS class on the Modernization and Socialization of Indigenous Cultures.  During this immersive trip, the class was able to learn about the different spacial planning concepts of indigenous peoples, elementary education in rural aboriginal communities, organic and subsistent farming practices, traditional weaving and land planning techniques, community efforts to protect the local area, as well as many other fascinating topics.  The first day of the trip entailed travel to the village, a meeting and tour with a village representative, picking cabbages at the local organic farm, hands-on activities learning about weaving and basket-making, dinner at the homestay, and learning about local conservation efforts and land-planning while sitting around a campfire.  The second day of the trip began with a six-hour hike through the forest to see 3000 year old trees that have been protected by the community for centuries, followed by hot pot and a parting song from one of the village elders.  All in all, it turned out to be an inspiring, unforgettable, and incredibly educational experience.

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Research and Reflections from Hualien County

    When I visited Taiwan in the summer of 2002, there were no direct flights between the island and mainland China, Freedom Square was still called Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Square, and the now diminutive Mitsukoshi tower was still the tallest building in Taipei. In my suitcase was a Sony Discman with electronic skip protection, along with about ten pounds of CDs with timeless hits like “Gonna make you sweat” by C+C music factory.      Though I only taught English in Taiwan for a few weeks, the experience as a college sophomore left an unexpectedly powerful impression on me. The food was great of course (I must have spent hundreds of dollars eating multiple bowls of shaved ice each day), but being in Taiwan also provided me with an invaluable ethnocultural reference point to understand interethnic relationships and minority identities outside the American context. However, one summer was far too brief, and I knew that I would need to return for a longer stay. Applying to Fulbright      Eleven years later, a viable plan to return to Taiwan was conceived while visiting Taipei as a public health Fulbright student researcher in China. All Fulbright student fellows in China

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China’s Elusive Nationhood: Ethnic, Cultural, and Civic Dimensions

     Despite the ahistorical claims of those who misread “nationhood” into the millennia of history in present day Greater China, a “Chinese Nation” is a fairly recent concept. As a political ideal, its roots are found in the writings of late Qing dynasty anti-Manchu and anti-imperialist intellectuals and revolutionaries. As a “reality,” it is no older than the 20th century, and a persuasive argument has been made that national consciousness reached much of China only in the 1950’s.1 Nonetheless, the influence of “Chinese nationhood” on both China and the world should not be underestimated.  The success of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in combining nationalism with anti-imperialism and anti-elitism is cited as an explanation for its civil war victory in 1949. 2 In the post-Maoism and post-global communism PRC, nationalism is cited by both Chinese leaders and outside observers as a primary pillar of regime security.      Indeed, as a cognitive political reality, Chinese nationhood seems to explain a lot.  But how does it explain itself? What are its contents? What are the values and norms embodied in the Chinese national image? Is it merely an ultra-realist and humiliation-minded ego of national scale? These questions are fascinating in part because

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Research & Reflections

fulbright taiwan online journal