Research Profile

I am currently working upon a study on Taiwan’s milkfish aquaculture industry; it is a tropical food-fish popular in countries like Taiwan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. I particularly focus on how farming practices, aquaculture science and technology, food-fish, and consumption sector redefine and reshape one another amid the process of associating or conflicting with one another. My point of departure starts with the concern of how things such as foods travel based upon insights of actor-network theory such as translation, association, humans and non-humans, mobility, circulating reference, and et al. In particular, this study is to explore: how the food-fish are changed or unchanged as travelling for human consumption, what they end up with, and what effects are brought to the collective in relation to the fish. 

Conferences Papers

Kragen, Ko-Kang, Chien. (2015). The Fish-Food Transition of Milkfish across the Taiwan-Strait. Presented at The Asia-Pacific Science, Technology & Society Network – Biennial Conference 2015. Kaohsiung City, Taiwan.

Ko-Kang Chien. (2015). The Political Ontology of Taiwan’s Farmed Milkfish in Shangha. Presented at ‘North American Taiwan Studies Association. North American Taiwan Studies Association 2015 Annual Conference’ in Boston, USA.

Chen, Yu-hisung & Chien, Ko-Kang. (2014). The Sunflower Movement and the Young Generation in Taiwan. Paper presented at The British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) Annual Conference2014. Newcastle University, UK.

Awards

2014, The Tainan Research Postgraduate Scholarship for the Study of the Tainan Region, International Center for Humanities and Social Sciences Research, Tainan City, Taiwan.

2012, The Scholarship of Government Sponsorship for Overseas Study, Ministry of Education, Taiwan, ROC.