Expertise

Legal and Political Anthropology, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Social and Cultural Theory, Asia-Pacific, Taiwan

Biography

Chris Upton is an anthropologist and lawyer whose research investigates Indigenous resurgence, human rights, and legal reforms in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on Taiwan. His first book, Justice at the Boundaries: Mediating Reconciliation and Legal Recognition in Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts (University of California Press, under contract), explores the transformative potential and structural limitations of Taiwan’s system of ad hoc Chambers of Indigenous Courts. Based on long-term research in courtrooms, law offices, and Indigenous communities in eastern Taiwan, the book examines how judges, Indigenous litigants, and cultural brokers negotiate contested terrains of law, identity, and sovereignty in specialized Indigenous court units shaped by ongoing processes of colonialism and aspirations of multiculturalism. From invocations of Indigenous laws to appeals to international human rights norms, the book considers how courtroom encounters become sites of cultural negotiation, resistance, and possibility, and how institutions designed to bridge Indigenous and non-Indigenous worlds can both challenge and reproduce entrenched hierarchies and power dynamics.

His current research focuses on contemporary Bunun hunting practices in central Taiwan and how everyday acts of hunting form an emergent, unstable edge of Indigenous sovereignty-making. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Fulbright Foundation, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Taiwan Fellowship, Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, Native American & Indigenous Studies Fellowship, Ostrom Fellowship, and Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in Chinese Studies. Prior to joining Temple, he was a Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, and a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Sociology & Anthropology at University of Richmond. As a lawyer, he practiced for many years at an international law firm in the areas of antitrust, international law, and human rights, including representing Guantanamo Bay detainees in U.S. federal courts.

Education

• Ph.D., 2020, Anthropology, Indiana University-Bloomington
• J.D. (magna cum laude), Notre Dame Law School
• M.A., Philosophy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• B.A., Philosophy and Archaeology, Baylor University

Fellowships, Awards & Grants

• 2025 Temple Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP) Grant
• 2025 ROC Ministry of Culture Exhibit Grant
• 2025 Taiwan Fellowship (ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• 2024 Law & Humanities Workshop for Junior Scholars
• 2023-2024 Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange (CCKF) Research Grant
• 2022 ROC Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
• 2021 International Journal of Taiwan Studies Research Article Competition Prize
• 2019 Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Dissertation Writing-Up Fellowship
• 2017-2018 National Science Foundation (NSF) – Cultural Anthropology and Law & Social Sciences Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant
• 2017-2018 Fulbright U.S. Student Award
• 2018 Native American & Indigenous Studies Fellowship (IU)
• 2017 Ostrom Fellowship (IU)
• 2017 Taiwan Fellowship (ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
• 2016 Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Program in Chinese Studies Grant
• 2016 American Anthropological Association Guerrero-Friedlander Human Rights Graduate Student Paper Prize
• 2008-2011 E. Randolph Williams Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Legal Service

Selected Publications

• 2025 “Hunting Rights.” Encyclopedia of Taiwan Studies, Hsiao, M. (ed.). Koninklijke Brill NV.
• 2023 “Legal Indigeneities: Identity, Authenticity, and Power in Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts.” International Journal of Taiwan Studies 6(2023): 5-32.
• 2022 “Courts of Being and Non-Being: Taiwan’s Indigenous Courts and Judicial Hybrid Practice.” Journal of Legal Anthropology 6(2): 25-51.
• 2022 “From Thin to Thick Justice and Beyond: Access to Justice and Legal Pluralism in Indigenous Taiwan." Law & Social Inquiry 47(3): 996-1025.
• 2022 “Courts and Indigenous Reconciliation: Positivism, the A Priori, and Justice in Taiwan.” From Stigma to Hope: Indigenous Reconciliation in Contemporary Taiwan, Simon, S., J. Hsieh, and P. Kang (eds.), 96-118. London and New York: Routledge.
• 2022 “Of Rich Points and Reflexive Teaching: Minding My Own Social Business as an Anthropology Instructor.” Teaching as if Learning Matters: Pedagogies of Becoming by Next-Generation Faculty, Robinson, J. M., V. D. O’Loughlin, K. Kearns, and L. Plummer (eds.), 206-218. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
• 2021 “The Hallowed Halls of Justice: The Poetics and Politics of a Taiwan Indigenous Court.” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Working Paper Series, No. 206, 1-33.
• 2017 “The Dominican Republic–Central American Free Trade Agreement’s Symbolic Nod to Environmental Protection: Legal Perspectives on the Citizen Submission Process.” Society & Natural Resources 30(10): 1277-1287. With Catherine Tucker and Seleste Sanchez.

Courses Taught 

• ANTH 8310: Fractious Legacies in the Anthropology of Law
• ANTH 3301/5396: History of Anthropological Theory
• ANTH 2374: The Anthropology of Modern China
• ANTH 2368: Peoples of the Pacific
• ANTH 2322: Outlaws, Law and Culture
• ANTH 0856: Evolution of Culture