Housing transformations and financialisation: The everyday urbanism of housing for war immigrants "Military Dependents' Villages"

This fellowship can help my transition from a PhD candidate to an early career researcher and supports my application for the competitive Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. In the longer term, it contributes to establishing myself as an expert on housing financialisation and immigrant housing. Four interconnected objectives underpin my academic ambitions:

(1) Strengthening Academic Impact:

Two journal articles based on my doctoral empirical data will be submitted as an extension and consolidation of my PhD academic contribution. My PhD research focuses on the financialisation and transformation of the unique immigrant housing in Taiwan, the Military Dependents' Villages (MDVs). These villages have been demolished, relocated, reconstructed, and privatised since the 1970s (Kuo, 2005).

The first article will centre around the changing and mutating political informality during the MDV housing transformation processes. The second article will analyse the long-term housing (im)mobility of immigrant communities. I will attend two academic conferences to share my preliminary work.

The support of this fellowship would bolster my academic profile by producing an emergent publication record. The ample resources allow me to develop influential research and academic networks, which is crucial in securing the prestigious Leverhulme ECF. (2) Striving for the Leverhulme ECF:

This fellowship can help me develop my own research agenda and refine the application for Leverhulme ECF. I aspire to historicise and reconceptualise financialisation in East Asian developmental states in the three-year timeframe of the Leverhulme ECF, providing interdisciplinary integration across regional cultures, economic geography, political economy, regional conflicts, and urbanisation.

Three years of Leverhulme ECF provides a means to develop my academic impact, and can establish my identity as a housing financialisation expert and strengthen my academic profile. (3) Enhancing My Qualitative GIS Skills:

This fellowship will allow me to enhance my Qualitative GIS skills. The application of Qualitative GIS was developed in my PhD thesis and is mobilised in the Leverhulme application. Unlike traditional geospatial analysis, Qualitative GIS integrates different forms of data (qualitative and quantitative) with spatial information (Cope & Elwood, 2009), presenting more coherent and comprehensive spatial biographies.

It facilitates the huge potential of knowledge exchange, linking MDV spaces with the stories told by residents, and documents and presents the histories collaboratively through visualisation. This year of knowledge and technical learning will equip me with the transferable skills to explore the connection between socio-economic phenomena (e.g., financialisation) and space in innovative ways.

(4) Enhancing My Impact Beyond Academia:

I will engage with a wider audience through cooperation with relevant communities (MDV communities and a troupe), transforming and disseminating my academic findings related to financialisation and the MDVs. I will host a workshop and invite MDV communities and relevant stakeholders to participate. The preliminary outcomes of Qualitative GIS built on fieldwork data will be presented, sharing derived information and this innovative approach to retell and preserve memories and knowledge of the MDV experience.

In March 2024, I cooperated with a troupe in Seattle, which was interested in depicting the post-war daily life of MDVs. I will continue to support their exhibitions and performances by sharing my resources and networks, which contribute to strengthening the cultural cohesion of the North American Chinese community. I am committed to long-term collaboration with the MDV communities which will expand my impact beyond academia, and build partnerships of great potential in supplementing future related research.