EATS Young Scholar Awards – Megumi Hagiwara

I am Megumi Hagiwara from Japan. I completed my PhD in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore in 2024, specializing in modern Taiwanese and Japanese history. My research often employs oral history and biographical approaches to explore individual life stories that have been overlooked in dominant public discourses. By foregrounding personal voices, I aim to challenge and enrich existing historical narratives.

My research trajectory began during my M.A. studies, when I started collecting the life stories of elderly Taiwanese people who belonged to the Japanese-educated generation. These individuals, who grew up under Japanese colonial rule and later lived under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) through the turbulent postwar years, carried memories that transcended the simple categories of colonizer and colonized, victim and collaborator. Their testimonies inspired me to think about the complexity of memory, identity, and survival across shifting political regimes.

During my PhD program, I narrowed my focus to Taiwanese Indigenous peoples, especially the Atayal community in Wulai. From 2019 to 2023, I conducted extensive oral history fieldwork in the area, interviewing elderly Atayal people whose youth coincided with the immediate postwar period. My dissertation investigates the social participation of Taiwanese Indigenous youth during the critical years of the early Cold War. Specifically, I examined how Atayal youths in the 1950s navigated their roles as social and ethnic minorities under the pressures of Sinicization, while also preserving their pride and identity as Atayal.

The dissertation reconstructs the life stories of seven main individuals. Through these narratives, I traced how young Atayal men and women became involved in events such as the White Terror, education reforms, cultural collaboration, and military service. Their lives show that Indigenous peoples were not merely passive subjects of external forces, but active participants who made choices—sometimes constrained, sometimes strategic—within a rapidly changing political and social environment.

Documenting these voices posed both opportunities and challenges. Indigenous Taiwanese history has often been narrated through themes of colonization, violence, casualties, and victimization. While these aspects are undeniably important, the Atayal testimonies revealed another dimension: perspectives of decision-making, resilience, and the pursuit of dignity amidst adversity. My dissertation therefore called for a “reconsideration” of Indigenous history in Taiwan. Rather than seeing Indigenous peoples solely as victims, I argue that we must also recognize their historical agency, their survival strategies, and their contributions to nation-building. This included their complex interactions with the KMT regime and their involvement in postwar social transformation. In this sense, my PhD study not only sheds light on Atayal history but also encourages a broader rethinking of Taiwan’s modern history—its wars, its colonial legacies, and its place in the Cold War.

Building on this foundation, my 2025 Taiwan Studies Young Scholar Award (YSA) research has developed one of the themes from my dissertation: the war experiences and ideology of Indigenous soldiers who participated in external wars between the end of World War II and the resumed Chinese Civil War after 1945. Compared to Indigenous soldiers who served in the Japanese military during WWII—who have received considerable scholarly and public attention—the experiences of those who joined the KMT military in the late 1940s and 1950s remain largely understudied. Yet these soldiers also played crucial roles in Taiwan’s Cold War conflicts, and their memories offer rare insights into this turbulent era.

One of my central case studies is the life of Yang Huohui, an Atayal veteran from Wulai. Born during the Japanese colonial period and educated in Japanese, Yang was still a young man when he was mobilized into the KMT forces in 1956. His testimony reveals the layered motivations that shaped Atayal military participation: the sense of honor and warrior tradition within Atayal culture, the influence of Japanese-era military ideals, the economic necessity of military service, and the KMT’s policies of integration and discipline. Yang’s reflections also show how he understood himself as an active contributor to Taiwan’s defense during the tense years leading up to the Taiwan Strait Crisis.

In addition, by analyzing 23 testimonies of Indigenous KMT veterans collected from existing oral history archives and secondary sources, I found that military service became both a site of hardship and a space for asserting pride and identity. Many Indigenous soldiers described their experiences not only in terms of suffering, but also as opportunities to demonstrate courage and claim a place in the national story. Their voices challenge the assumption that Indigenous service in the KMT military was simply coerced or marginal. Instead, the testimonies highlight Indigenous youths as historical actors who exercised agency within the constraints of their time.

Methodologically, this research highlights the value of oral history in Indigenous studies. The generation of veterans who experienced the 1940s and 1950s is now elderly, and their memories are at risk of being lost. Recording these testimonies allows us to capture perspectives on Taiwan’s history that are rarely documented in official sources. Placing these voices in broader historical contexts reveals how global conflicts and national policies were experienced by socially marginalized communities.

Together, my PhD and YSA projects addressed two gaps: the disconnect between top-down historical narratives and Indigenous agency, and the gap between structural histories of the Cold War and the lived experiences of ordinary people. Both projects challenge portrayals of Indigenous Taiwanese as passive victims, emphasizing instead their strategies and aspirations. Ultimately, they contribute to a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of Taiwan’s modern past.