Huai-Hsuan Chen

Huai-Hsuan Chen is a Ph.D. student in cultural anthropology. Her research foci include pluralism of touristic experiences and embodiment of spatial identity in terms of community development, involvement of nation, and globalization. While visiting northwest Yunnan in the summer 2007, she was stunned by the emerging style of “original ecology” performances as a way to repackage the area for a globalized tourism industry. This observation has been the inspiration for developing her dissertation project, which aims to understand the contested place of reconstruction in the era of globalization by looking into “original ecology” performances in the intersection of capitalized touristic imaginations, Chinese state power, and ethnic minority groups’ everyday practices. This summer, she will use her SKJ award in northwest Yunnan to collect images and rhetoric of the “original ecology” performances and meet with social science scholars and government officials to set the scene for her future dissertation field research.

Read more about Huai-Hsuan’s research experience here.