Hsiao-Chi Chu's research explores how traditional Palestinian textile and food practices, particularly tatreez (embroidery), indigo dyeing, and communal food traditions, function as embodied decolonial archives of memory, resistance, and care in contexts of displacement. By collaborating with Palestinian refugee and diaspora communities, her study investigates how these everyday cultural practices are preserved, reinterpreted, and transformed into tools for psychosocial healing, community resilience, and economic empowerment.
Her project adopts interdisciplinary, practice-based research methods, including participatory embroidery and food workshops, oral history interviews, and sensory ethnography to document, analyse, and revitalise these intangible heritage practices. A central aim is to co-develop a Cultural Practice Development Intervention Model (CPDIM) with refugee communities, diaspora groups, and cultural practitioners. This model will systematically organise how embroidery and food-based practices support trauma recovery, cultural preservation, and social reintegration. It will be transferable for NGOs, cultural institutions, and grassroots community initiatives working in refugee capacity building, women's empowerment, and cultural sustainability.