University of Helsinki
The concept of “museum activism” highlights developments in Taiwan’s museum sector. Against the context of Taiwan’s promotion of cultural inclusivity and the New Southbound Policy, the National Museum of Taiwan History in Tainan and the National Taiwan Museum in Taipei have taken the lead in cultural engagement with migrant communities from ASEAN. Thus, a curator at National Taiwan Museum has collaborated with Indonesian migrants on exhibitions and related activities presenting Indonesian culture. This paper inquires into the characteristics of such initiatives in Taiwan and potential implications for scholarship on “the activist museum”, museum justice, and multiculturalism in Taiwan and Asia.
Morakot Meyer is Associate Professor in Contemporary History at the Ph.D. Program in Multicultural Studies at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia, Mahidol University in Thailand. Her research areas are contemporary history, museums, transnational migration, memory history and politics, nationalism and international relations of ASEAN and its members with other key players in Asia from the perspectives of cultural politics and conceptual history. She was a Taiwan Fellowship recipient in 2017.