A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa College of Social Sciences graduate student with expertise on the Indigenous peoples of Taiwan and the Northern Philippines has been recognized for his research in East Asian anthropology. Yi-Yu Lai, a PhD candidate in anthropology, has won the 2023 Outstanding Graduate Paper Prize from the Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA).
“Combining rich historical research with transnational ethnographic fieldwork, the paper offers rare insight into interactions between Indigenous movements and their impacts that go beyond national boundaries,” wrote the SEAA judging committee. “This paper demonstrates new directions in East Asian anthropology that engage with multilingual, multicultural and transnational possibilities.”
Lai said he was grateful to receive the prize, because—while there is much literature on Indigenous solitary activism that focuses on tensions and negotiations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples—his case study examines the factors contributing to the growth of activism between Taiwan and the Northern Philippines, ultimately providing insights into the transnational ties among Indigenous movements.
“I’m very happy about this recognition, because international solidarity really matters for both scholars and activists,” said Lai. “In this case, solidarity is used to develop new modes of inquiry, to expand the understanding of Indigenous politics, and to proliferate beyond the limits of states.”
Born and raised in Taiwan, Lai has been studying Indigenous activism and the cross-border relationships between Indigenous Taiwanese and the Indigenous peoples in the Cordillera of the Philippines since 2014. His works center on Indigenous politics, political violence and conflict resolutions.
Lai is particularly interested in how political violence and activism affect Indigenous peoples’ ways of life and their interactions with larger society.
He earned his BA and MA in anthropology at the National Taiwan University, and is a research affiliate at the Cordillera Studies Center at the University of the Philippines in Baguio (UPB).
The title of Lai’s paper is “Why Does International Solidarity Matter? Parallelizing Circuits of Indigenous Political Movements between Taiwan and the Cordillera of the Northern Philippines since the 1980s.” UPB’s College of Social Sciences will publish the paper as a chapter in the upcoming book, Reader on Indigenous Studies in the Philippines.
