Ep.30 Identity, Trauma and Development in Taiwan

All Power To The Developing!

In 2022 the conflicted and shifting relationships between Taiwan, China, and the United States have gained worldwide attention. Within that global frame, this intimate political conversation between East Side Institute co-founder and director Lois Holzman and Taiwanese social worker, activist, and political organizer Peiyu Kuo takes on a special significance. As a young psychiatric social worker, Peiyu was shocked to see how mental patients were treated in her native Taiwan and decided she had “to do something different.” She has spent the next 25 years organizing, among others, people with so-called mental illness, immigrant women, and sex workers. Building on her deep organizing history, Peiyu and Holzman discuss identity politics, trauma, power, and development.

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Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world.

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The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners who are reigniting our human abilities to imagine, create and perform beyond ourselves—to develop. Each episode will introduce you to another performance activist or play revolutionary from around the world. To learn more about the East Side Institute you can go to https://eastsideinstitute.org/ Made possible in part by Growing Social Therapeutics: The Baylah Wolfe Fund.