Dissertation defence (East Asian Studies): VTM Ari-Joonas Pitkänen
VTM Ari-Joonas Pitkänen defends the dissertation in East Asian Studies titled “Up to the Mountains, Down to the Sea: A Treatise on the Ecology of Being Taiwanese” at the University of Turku on 17 September 2026 at 12.00 (University of Turku, Educarium, EDU 1, Assistentinkatu 5, Turku).
Opponent: Professor Julie Yu-Wen Chen (University of Helsinki)
Custos: Professor Lauri Paltemaa (University of Turku)
Summary of the Doctoral Dissertation:
This dissertation examines human interaction with the nonhuman environment on the island of Taiwan, highlighting the role of the mountains and the sea in the experience of being Taiwanese. The topic relates to the ongoing process of “Taiwanisation”, which refers to a general shift from a China-centric to a Taiwan-centric perspective among the island’s population.
Taiwanisation has emerged with Taiwan’s democratisation from the 1980s onwards following the island’s long and complicated political separation from the Chinese mainland. In social analysis, it has typically been understood as the emergence of a distinctly Taiwanese subjectivity, consciousness, or identity.
This dissertation proposes a different perspective on Taiwanisation. Based on a posthumanist theoretical framework that rejects the modern dualisms of mind-body, subject-object, and society-nature, this study argues that Taiwanisation can also be viewed as a process of ecological adaptation to the island environment.
Such adaptation counters the environmental alienation that has characterised Taiwan since its seventeenth-century colonisation by Han settlers from the Chinese mainland. Due to the anthropocentric tenets of the Han worldview and the political legacy of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwanese society developed a mainland-oriented mentality that has constrained perceptions and experiences of the island to this day.
This study investigates the ensuing dynamics of alienation and adaptation by taking outdoor activities in the mountains and the sea as examples of “ecological Taiwanisation”. Through a thematic analysis based on historical sources and ethnographic fieldwork with Han Taiwanese hikers and surfers, it is found that outdoor activities challenge the mainland mentality by producing discoveries about the island environment, its indigenous peoples, and its Japanese colonial heritage.
On the other hand, this study also uncovers the cryptic manner in which the mainland mentality persists in Taiwanese society. Social, cultural, and political impediments to bodily activity in the natural environment continue to arise from alienating elements associated with Confucian values, Han folk beliefs, and the military-political legacy of the Chinese Civil War. Such impediments are reinforced by the analytical fixation on mind over body and society over nature in the modern Western worldview.
The findings suggest that bodily activity in the natural environment can build awareness and reduce perspectival biases by highlighting the role of marginalised peoples and places. At the same time, the persistence of alienating influences suggests that this practical process would benefit from the wider adoption of a corresponding theoretical orientation. This study thus indicates the usefulness of posthumanist and ecocentric approaches in addressing the oversights of anthropocentric modernity.
