The main mission of the North American Taiwan Studies Association is to organize an annual conference in North America in order to facilitate scholarly exchange and publication among researchers and students from different disciplines and area studies who are interested in intellectual dialogues pertaining to Taiwan.
NATSA is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization registered by the state government of California. It is established and operated by overseas Taiwanese and North American Ph.D. students and recent graduates interested in studying Taiwan. The NATSA annual conferences are the largest academic events on Taiwan Studies in North America. They not only provide scholars and students of Taiwan Studies with a regular forum to meet and exchange intellectual ideas, but also allow researchers on East-Asia and beyond to receive dynamic feedback and broaden their academic horizons. The importance of this venue has only increased due to the increasing marginalization of Taiwan Studies in American academia. Most East Asian departments only offer programs on Chinese, Japanese or Korean Studies, leaving discussions concerning Taiwan included within other forums. We believe that Taiwan is not just an area to be studied, but also a way to expand the current understandings of human societies and enable a more complex reflection on changing global conditions. In particular, as a in-between region that receives and channels cultural and economic influences from China, Japan, the United States, and other East and Southeast Asian countries, studies on Taiwan may broaden the perspectives of researchers in these countries by offering new ways to look at how they perceive and interact with one another.
