CfP: European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) 23rd Annual Conference

The European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) is delighted to announce the call for papers for the 23rd Annual Conference held at the University of Portsmouth on 1-3 April 2026.
https://eats-taiwan.eu/about-us/
https://eats-taiwan.eu/conference/eats-conference-2026/

The conference theme is Echoes of Authority: Forty Years on from the Eve of the Lifting of Martial Law. Seeing the year of 1986 as a ‚Janus moment‘ that links the past with the future,  this multidisciplinary conference aims to examine both the illumination and the shadows that martial law has cast on contemporary Taiwan. We invite researchers to join us in reassessing the period surrounding the end of martial law. Please see a detailed description of our call in the attachment. The deadline of submission is 30 Sept 2025.

EATS also invites postgraduate, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to participate in the Young Scholar Award, the final presentation of which will take place at the conference. Please consult the call for papers for detail.

After a double-blind review process, EATS will announce the successful submissions around 30 November 2025, but we will strive to announce the results earlier. Accepted postgraduate presenters (PhD and MA students) who are affiliated with European institutions will receive a travel grant, the actual amount of which will be announced before the conference takes place.

Potential topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Emerging and contested historiographies and political geography of Taiwan: epistemology, decoloniality, and the politics of education
• The frontier of the Cold War: ‘offshore’ islands in the Taiwan Strait and borderlands between Thailand and Myanmar
• Rural and remote economies on land and at sea: operators in agriculture, fisheries, and forestry, and their relationship with the environment
• Taiwan’s foreign relations: alliances, international memberships and foreign aids that were maintained and lost, and the making and unmaking of Taiwan’s images
• Taiwan and China: legitimacy, identity, ideology, war plans, military operations, and the politics of the “Overseas Chinese”
• Civil-military relations: total war, civil defense, national mobilisation, and the roles of gender and women in the military
• Processes of democratisation, liberalisation, and localisation: political, social, economic, legal, and cultural transformations through actors, institutions, industries, strategies, and narratives
• Legal reform: public trust, policing practices, and the regulation of firearms
• Voices from the margins: workers, farmers, women, veterans, Indigenous Peoples, migrants, refugees, disable people, mental health patients, and their movements
• Everyday legacies of martial law: urban planning, public infrastructure, housing, family planning, food and cuisine, language, journalism, radio, religion, literature, art, theatre, music, film, pop culture, and fashion

We look forward to reading your submission!