Hej! I am Wasiq Silan (I-An Gao 高怡安). I am a postdoctoral researcher of the SamiCare project, funded by the Norwegian Research Center. I completed my Ph.D. from the Doctoral Programme in Political, Societal and Regional Change at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki (BA National Taiwan University; MA University of Helsinki). My research concerns social policy and Indigenous peoples, with Tayal people in Taiwan as a focus.

During my BA, I visited Peking University as a student representative from political science department at the National Taiwan University. During my MA, I worked as an intern at the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law at the Arctic Center in Rovaniemi and as a collaborative researcher at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei. For four years, I have been actively participating United Nations Permanent Forum on the Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) as NGO delegate from Taiwan Indigenous Peoples. I was awarded SUPRA scholarship from Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS) June-July 2017. I worked as a salaried position doctoral researcher under the Swedish School of Social Science (2018-2020).

I am currently affliated to the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) and my dissertation is funded by the prestigious Finnish Cultural Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in Europe.

I attended World Indigenous Nations Higher Education Consortium 2019 and 5th Indigenous Voices in Social Work conference in Hualien, from which I realized it is time to commit to my identity as an Indigenous scholar. The transition from using my westernized name 'Grace' to my Indigenous and Han Chinese names deepened my research interests concerning indigeneity, knowledge, naming, language and power.  

Min forskning behandlar ursprungsbefolkning samt hur ursprungsfolkskap tas itu med vid utformning av riktlinjer i långtidsvården. Forskningens mål är att bidra till en djupare förståelse i hur sociala och kulturella rättigheter kan värnas då det gäller ursprungsbefolkning. Den huvudsakliga fallstudien är ursprungsbefolkningen Tayal i Taiwan, tillsammans med kritisk reflektion härlett från samer i Finland.

År 2017 undervisade jag en online-kurs "Sustainability and Social Work" på MacEwan University i Kanada. På våren 2018 kommer jag att undervisa två intensivkurser på Palacký University i Tjeckien, som behandlar Taiwans ursprungsbefolkning i Austronesien.

Jag är en företagare inom undervisning och kultur och har sedan 2016 undervisat Mandarinkinesiska för vuxna och barn i ett lokalt finskt startup företag i Helsingfors. Jag har en bred erfarenhet i att fungera som freelancer översättare (Mandarinkinesiska-engelska) samt i att producera evenemang.

Master's Degree Programme in Ethnic Relations, Cultural Diversity and Integration (ERI), Master of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki

2011 → 2014