Gaming Taiwan: Indigenous Epistemologies in Play

2025 ANU TAIWAN UPDATE
Gaming Taiwan: Indigenous Epistemologies in Play

This research explores how Indigenous knowledge systems in Taiwan are being revitalized through video games. Far from mere entertainment, these games draw on tribal traditions, ancestral stories, and deep connections to the land to create meaningful digital experiences. By blending oral storytelling with interactive gameplay, Taiwanese Indigenous game developers are preserving cultural memory while challenging colonial legacies. Titles like Princess Baleng, Tayal, VuVu, and Gadvia show how games can empower communities and pass down wisdom to younger generations in innovative and engaging ways. Gamers not only play a game but also immerse themselves in digital environments shaped by Indigenous perspectives and values. This study encourages all engaged audiences, including educators and students, to consider video games as powerful tools for cultural resurgence and learning. Focusing on Indigenous Taiwan, it highlights how digital games integrate historical consciousness and interactivity to reimagine the past and future of the island.

Speaker
Chia-rong Wu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Global, Cultural and Language Studies at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. He is the author of two monographs: Supernatural Sinophone Taiwan and Beyond (Cambria Press, 2016) and Remapping the Contested Sinosphere: The Cross-cultural Landscape and Ethnoscape of Taiwan (Cambria Press, 2020). Additionally, he co-edited Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: A Critical Reader (Springer, 2023) and The Southern Discourse in Sinophone Literature: Moving Borders (Routledge, forthcoming in September 2025).

Afternoon tea will be provided at 3:15pm.

View the 2025 Taiwan Update Program

The Taiwan Update is an initiative under the ANU Taiwan Studies Program 2025-28, which is a partnership between the College of Asia and the Pacific at The Australian National University and the Ministry of Education, Republic of China (Taiwan). We especially thank the Political Science and International Relations programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington for co-hosting the 2025 Taiwan Update in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

Photo Credit: Tayal game, screenshot from Root的遊戲直播間 on YouTube. Permission obtained.