Dr LIANG Pei Lin
Assistant Professor

Colonization and its aftermaths have profoundly shaped the life experience of more than three quarters of the world population. Since the end of World War II, efforts in undoing the detriment of colonization have been witnessed world-wide in the re-construction of economic infrastructure, the building of newly emerged nation states, demands for human rights, as well as movements in reviving indigenous and local cultures. However, the push for de-colonization, or for a truly (post)-colonial living condition, is further made complex by the advent of globalization. Sustained by capitalist forces, globalization is a social process characterized by hyper-mobility, techno-info advancement and mass transnational border crossing. Through rapid circulation of capital, commodity, information and people on a global-scale, the world has increasingly become borderless and interdependent. Yet, the exchange flows of such circulation do not take place on even grounds or guarantee an equal distribution of resources and access to agency. On the contrary, people and cultures already struggling to undo the aftermaths of colonization are often doubly deprived, disadvantaged and silenced. The modes of their border crossing are therefore understood as minor, rather than major, transnationalism. Key concepts in this research, such as (post)-colonialism, globalization and minor transnationalism, are perceived not only as theoretical frameworks but also as possible strategies and spaces for creating agency.

The over-arching question I investigate concerns the intersection, interaction and superimposition of (post)-colonialism and globalization. These are two major social forces that continue to shape the contours of our cultural imaginary. At the interstice of these two processes, I question how the effort in de-colonization is affected, addressed and made complex by globalization? How are the concerns, experience and identity of damaged cultures and people expressed through theatre and performance? How may agency and autonomy in turn be inscribed through such theatrical and performative expressions? To answer these questions, my investigation begins with the Asia-Pacific region.

The term ‘Asia-Pacific’ first emerged in the 1980s with the rise of political influence and economic growth in the western part of the Pacific. Despite the region’s importance, its exact border is often defined by frequently shifting cultural and capital flows, rather than demarcated physical boundaries. For the purpose of my investigation, the term ‘Asia-Pacific’ is therefore broadly conceived as an in-between space, geopolitically and aesthetically, which privileges cultural peripheries and movements outside the discourse of dominant culture and nationalism.

Within this conceptual framework, I examine and compare the contemporary theatrical expressions of Taiwan and Hawaii, two key locales where Chinese, Japanese and Pacific cultural flows converge. My goals are 1) to distinguish different types of cultural hybridity and identity formation patterns resulting from the conflation of colonization, globalization and migration; 2) to trace the process by which agency is inscribed into the performance of minority and under-privileged cultures; and 3) to establish a new theoretical framework for identity studies. For the Taiwan-based part of the research, I examine the development of applied theatre, glove puppetry, and contemporary theatre companies dedicated to constructing local identities in the post-war era. These are primary examples of hybrid culture in the contemporary performance scene of Taiwan. For the Hawaii-based part, I focus on productions by such companies as the Honolulu-based Kumu Kahua Theatre, Honolulu Theatre for Youth, Ka Hālau Hanakeaka and Hula. Special consideration is given to historical process, depth of hybridization, direction of cultural flow, performance aesthetics, and the interplay between narratives of the local and the global.