Southeast Asian Migrant Literature and its Position in Taiwanese Literary Field

The aim of this thesis is to present migrant literature in the context of contemporary Taiwanese literature on a discursive level. The thesis will look at migrant literature through the lenses of three theoretical approaches that are traditionally applied to Taiwanese literature: postcolonial studies, Sinophone studies and world literature studies. To illustrate how each approach can be applied to migrant literature, a short analysis of several short stories by migrant authors will be presented. The aim of this analysis is to demonstrate whether the chosen approach can effectively incorporate migrant literature and serve as a basis for understanding and conceptualizing these works. By creating three binary oppositions with migrant literature, the thesis also highlights the limitations of existing definitions of Taiwanese literature as defined by the social majority. The thesis concludes with definition of migrant literature through the lenses of each theoretical framework