The 2025 SOAS Taiwan Studies Summer School placed questions of gender, cinema, and democratic change in Taiwan at the centre of its programme. Over six days, participants engaged in lectures, roundtables, film screenings, and student panels that examined Taiwan’s evolving political life, feminist activism, and cultural expression.
The programme opened with a strong focus on environmental politics and questions of just transition. Dr Hua-Mei Chiu delivered Towards a Democratic and Just Energy Transition: A New Wave of Environmental Activism in Taiwan, tracing how anti-nuclear campaigns after Fukushima evolved into renewable energy movements, citizens’ cooperatives, and climate justice activism. She highlighted both the promise of community-based energy initiatives and the tensions created by large-scale renewable projects in the context of Taiwan’s 2050 net-zero ambitions and energy security concerns. This was followed by Dr Chiu Yubin, whose lecture The Role of Trade Unions in Just Transition: A Case Study on the Development of Electric Motorbikes in Taiwan examined how labour organisations influence the transition to green transport through retraining, collective bargaining, and new forms of mobilisation, despite enduring institutional legacies of authoritarianism.
Film and gender then formed two of the strongest threads across the week. Screenings included Girls’ School (女子學校), The Woman of Wrath (殺夫), and short films such as XiXi (曦曦), My Homework (我的家庭作業), and Hard Good Life (雜菜記). These events built toward the roundtable Women in Taiwan Cinema, chaired by Dr Bi-Yu Chang, which explored how feminist perspectives have reshaped both scholarship and practice. Adding an activist’s view, Fan Ching delivered From the Margins to the Margins: 30 Years of Women Make Waves and the Regional Feminist Imagination in Taiwan, highlighting the grassroots power of feminist film culture.
Political change and democratic transformation were another major focus. In Contested Taiwan Sovereignty, Social Movements, and Party Formation, Dr Lev Nachman analysed how Taiwan’s contested international status reshapes domestic politics, often pushing activists into new party formations beyond traditional left–right divides. Professor Ling-fang Cheng’s Have You Heard the People Sing? A Comparison of Two Recall Movements, 2021 and 2025 compared Taiwan’s two recent recall waves—from the 2021 campaign against Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu to the broader recalls of KMT and DPP legislators in 2025—highlighting their strategies, imagery, and lasting political impact. Dr Nachman’s keynote lecture, More Parties, More Problems: Making Taiwan Studies Succeed in Political Science, reflected on how Taiwan’s vibrant yet fragmented party system raises questions for both political practice and scholarship, while offering strategies for integrating Taiwan into wider disciplinary debates.
Transnational and cultural perspectives added further depth. In Voting at a Distance: Indonesian Migrant Workers Overseas Voting in Taiwan, Dr Ratih Kabinawa examined how Taiwan both enabled and constrained Indonesian workers’ participation in the 2024 general election, raising questions about the democratic responsibilities of receiving states. Her complementary lecture, Navigating Politics Across Borders: Southeast Asian Migrant Workers’ Activism in Taiwan, explored how migrant workers organise to resist exploitative recruitment systems and engage in collective action alongside Taiwanese activists. These sessions highlighted how Taiwan’s democratic environment simultaneously limits and empowers migrant political participation.
By weaving together questions of gender, activism, democracy, labour, and culture, the 2025 Summer School opened up fresh ways of thinking about Taiwan’s place in the world. The lively exchanges between scholars, students, filmmakers, and activists ensured that the conversations did not stop at the lecture hall, but carried into film screenings, workshops, and informal discussions, leaving participants with new insights and connections to take forward.
Written By Jeremy Zheng
