Between recognition and instrumentalization: heritage language education for Southeast Asian marriage migrant women in Taiwan

Since 2019, Taiwan has incorporated seven Southeast Asian heritage languages into its national curriculum, marking a shift from the stigmatising category of ‘foreign brides’ toward recognising Southeast Asian marriage migrant women as ‘new residents’ and cultural citizens. Yet whether this recognition expands women's substantive opportunities or primarily serves economic and diplomatic agendas remains unclear. Drawing on 22 semi-structured interviews with scholars, advisory-team convenors, education administrators, and teaching assistants, this study examines how new resident language education has reshaped women's cultural recognition, professional roles, and agency. Using the capability approach, the findings show that the shift to ‘new residents’ broadens recognition while preserving a ‘perpetual outsider’ classification; curricular institutionalisation expands opportunities but remains constrained by regulatory ambiguity and unstable provision; professional recognition strengthens teaching assistants’ self-respect without securing sustainable conditions for agency; and the ‘bicultural talent’ narrative risks instrumentalizing immigrant languages at the expense of cultural rights. Recognition and instrumentalization, this study argues, can therefore coexist within the same policy arrangement.