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The Question of Identity in Recent Scholarship on the History of Taiwan*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2009

Evan N. Dawley
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Abstract

This essay provides a survey of emblematic works of recent scholarship on Taiwanese identity written in English and Chinese by scholars from around the world. The objective is to determine what a post-2000 “second wave” of scholarship says about the definition and origins of island-wide Taiwanese identities. This second wave is distinguished by a greater attention to pre-1945 and martial law era Taiwanese history, more attention to a range of identities, both national and non-national, and by the use of sources that had not been readily available to scholars writing in the 1980s and 1990s. I argue that recent works have advanced the field considerably, but that they are too heavily influenced by contemporary debates over Taiwanese independence and too reliant on literary sources to fully answer the question of “who are the Taiwanese?” I conclude by suggesting directions for future scholarship on the subject.

Type
Review Essay
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 198 , June 2009 , pp. 442 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2009

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References

1 It was not possible to survey additional bodies of scholarship for this essay. Works in Japanese are particularly missed because Japanese scholars such as Wakabayashi Masahiro have been at the forefront of the study of Taiwan's history, especially for the formative era of 1895–1945. I have included the work of some Japanese scholars who have recently published in English.

2 In general I use standard pinyin Romanization except for places in Taiwan and the names of authors who have published in English, in which cases I use the transliteration chosen for those publications.

3 Cited in Hsiau, A-Chin, Contemporary Taiwanese Cultural Nationalism (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 11Google Scholar.

4 See Zhang Maogui, “‘Gongtongti’ de zhuixun yu zuqun wenti: xulun” (“The search for ‘community’ and the ethnic problem: introduction”), and Naide, Wu, “Shengji yishi, zhengzhi zhichi he guojia rentong: Taiwan zuqun zhengzhi lilun de chutan” (“Provincial consciousness, political support and national identity: a preliminary exploration of a theory of Taiwan's ethnic politics”), both in Maogui, Zhang et al. (eds.), Zuqun guanxi yu guojia rentong (Ethnic Relations and National Identity) (Taipei: Yeqiang, 1993)Google Scholar.

5 Joseph Wicentowski helpfully suggested using “imperial” rather than “colonial” to name this period.

6 Andrade, Tonio, How Taiwan Became Chinese (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006)Google Scholar Gutenberg-e, http://www.gutenberg-e.org/andarde/.

7 Teng, Emma, Taiwan's Imagined Geography: Chinese Colonial Travel Writing and Pictures, 1683–1895 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Brown, Melissa, Is Taiwan Chinese? The Impact of Culture, Power, and Migration on Changing Identities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Hua-yuan, Hsueh, Pao-tsun, Tai and Mei-li, Chow, Is Taiwan Chinese? A History of Taiwanese Nationality (Tamsui, Taiwan: Taiwan Advocates, 2005)Google Scholar. The publisher of this book is a pro-Lee Tenghui political organization, thus it unsurprisingly supports Lee's pro-independence stance.

10 A-Chin Hsiau, Contemporary Taiwanese.

11 Ching, Leo T.S., Becoming “Japanese”: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

12 Melissa Brown argues that some aborigines became Han during the early 20th century, completing the short-route transformation when state policies abolished footbinding and removed one of the key differences between Han and aborigines.

13 Shiaw-chien, Fong, Zhimindi Taiwan de rentong mosuo: cong shanshu dao xiaoshuo de xushi fenxi, 1895–1945 (Colonial Taiwan's Identity Reflection: A Narrative Analysis from Morality Books to Novels) (Taipei: Juliu, 2001)Google Scholar.

14 Fong quotes the doctor and Taiwanese nationalist, Jiang Weishui. See ibid. p. 177.

15 Fujii Shōzō, “The formation of Taiwanese identity and the cultural policy of various outside regimes,” and Takeshi, Komagome, “Colonial modernity for an elite Taiwanese, Lim Bo-seng: the labyrinth of cosmopolitanism,” both in Ping-hui, Liao and Wang, David Der-wei (eds.), Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule, 1895–1945: History, Culture, Memory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

16 Lo, Ming-cheng M., Doctors Within Borders: Profession, Ethnicity, and Modernity in Colonial Taiwan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)Google Scholar. See also Wu Rwei-ren, “The Formosan ideology: oriental colonialism and the rise of Taiwanese nationalism, 1895–1945” (PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2003).

17 Bozhou, Lan, Minzu chunxue de paidong: Riju shiqi Taiwan xuesheng yundong (1913–1945) (The Pulsing of Pure Ethnic Blood: The Taiwan Student Movement During the Period of Japanese Occupation, 1913–1945) (Taipei: Haixia xueshu, 2006)Google Scholar. Lan is a self-identified author of popular rather than academic history, but the fact that this edition is a republication of his 1993 work suggests that his views were significant enough to be part of both waves.

18 Katz, Paul, When Valleys Turned Blood Red: The Ta-pa-ni Incident in Colonial Taiwan (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005)Google Scholar.

19 Wu Micha, “The nature of Minzoku Taiwan and the context in which it was published,” in Liao and Wang, Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule.

20 Ming-cheng Lo, Doctors Within; Takeshi, “Colonial identity for an elite Taiwanese”; Peng Hsiao-yen, “Colonialism and the predicament of identity: Liu Na'ou and Yang Kui as men of the world,” in Liao and Wang, Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule.

21 First wave scholars looked at ethnicity, as seen in the volume by Zhang Maogui and others cited in n. 4. However, one contributor, Wu Naide, wrote that ethnic identity remained understudied. See Wu in Zhang Maogui et al., Ethnic Relations, pp. 48–49.

22 Phillips, Steven E., Between Assimilation and Independence: The Taiwanese Encounter Nationalist China, 1945–1950 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

23 Fu-ch'ang, Wang, Dangdai Taiwan shehui de zuqun xiangxiang (Ethnic Imagination in Contemporary Taiwan) (Taipei: Zunxue, 2003)Google Scholar.

24 Harrison, Mark, Legitimacy, Meaning, and Knowledge in the Making of Taiwanese Identity (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Brown, Is Taiwan Chinese?, especially ch. 6.

26 Harrison, Legitimacy, Meaning, and Knowledge.

27 A-Chin Hsiau, Contemporary Taiwanese.

28 Wang Fu-ch'ang, Ethnic Imagination.

29 Barth, Fredrik, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1969)Google Scholar.

30 Steven Phillips does this with some success, but more works should follow his lead.