Feeling Taiwan Emotions in Everyday Politics, Social Movements, and Research Practices

1            Introduction: Why Emotion Matters in Rethinking Taiwan Studies

              Po-Han Lee, Alvaro Martinez-Lacabe, and Yu-chin Tseng

              Part 1    Affective Geopolitics and Incomplete Transitional Justice

2            ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’?

Apathy, Military Songs, and Transitional Justice in Taiwan

Chia-Yu Liang

3            Arts and Transitional Justice in Taiwan: An Affective Approach

Shaina P. Wang

4            Embracing Emotions in the Research Process:

Early Reflections in the Context of Studying Taiwan

Hsiao-Man Cavalli and Lily Y.H. Lin

5            Memes and Milk Tea Alliances: Reframing Geopolitical Discourses of Taiwan and its Neighbors Through Ludic Activism

Genevieve Leung and Ming-Hsuan Wu

Part 2    Emotional Colonisation and Coloniality in Multiple Forms

6            Expressing Emotions in a Colonial Text:Huang Fengzi’s Taiwan no shōjo (A Young Girl of Taiwan)

Anne Sokolsky

7            From Hong Kong to Taiwan:

A Reflexive Journey Through Emotion, Identity, and Community

Judy Yi-nga Lee

8            Destroyed Houses, Incomplete Lives: Suffering, Madness, and the Unfinished Project of Transitional Justice for the Tao of Lanyu

Yu-Yueh Tsai

9            Affective Dimensions of Han Settler Colonialism: Autoethnographic Reflections from a Transnational Taiwan Studies Scholar

Yang-Hsun Hou

              Part 3    Intimacies, Sexualities, and Feeling Attached/Unattached

10          Making Multifaceted ‘Affective Relatedness’: Emotions in Gay Men’s Reproductive Orientations and the Researcher’s Navigations of Insider-Outsider Positionality

Jung Chen

11          From Swipe to Follow: Algorithmic Romance Work in Taiwan’s Digital Dating Culture

Wei-Ping Chen

12          Attached: The Refashioning of Affective Marginal Citizens in a Biomedical Era

Po-Chia Tseng

13          Visible Yet Absent: The Emotional Politics of Migrant Representation in Taiwanese Media

Chia-Yuan Huang

              Part 4    Everyday Politics of Morality, Mundaneness, and Feelings

14          Emotions at Stake in the Lying Flat Phenomenon: Looking at Alternative Life Choices Among Taiwanese Youth

Amélie Keyser-Verreault

15          Am I a Qualified Researcher? Discomfort and Reflexive Practice in Feminist Disability Studies from a Non-Disabled Male Perspective

Chong-Min Su

16          Emotion as Important Public Health Data: COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Low Socioeconomic Status Communities in Taiwan

Chen-I Kuan

17          Trans-Species Affect and Ecological Emotion: Reconfiguring the Taiwan Island with Shan-jiao-yu 

Chun-Mei Chuang

Biography

Po-Han Lee is an Associate Professor in the Global Health Program and the Institute of Health Policy and Management at National Taiwan University. He is trained in International Law in Taiwan and holds a PhD in Sociology from the United Kingdom. His research and activism engage critically with issues of gender, sexuality, disability, and health justice, and his recent scholarship explores feminist, queer, and decolonial approaches to global health law and the politics of knowledge in human rights, aiming to connect theory with social transformation.

Alvaro Martinez-Lacabe is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Society and Environment at Queen Mary University of London. His research explores the intersections of critical public health, queer studies, and activist networks, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV. He has published in journals including Culture, Health & Sexuality, and Critical Public Health.

Yu-chin Tseng is an Associate Fellow at the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan, University of Tübingen. She previously served as a Junior Professor in the Department of Chinese Studies at Tübingen from 2018 to 2025. Her research critically examines migration, intimacy, and state power in politically sensitive regions, particularly China and Taiwan. Tseng has published in leading journals such as the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies and the Journal of Contemporary China. Her interdisciplinary scholarship bridges sociology, migration studies, and Asian politics, offering incisive analyses of emotion, aspiration, and mobility within the context of global migration.

"