- Topic: Why Taiwan Mattered? Reading the Oral Histories of the US Cold War Anthropology of China in Taiwan
- Keynote Speaker: Derek Sheridan (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)
- Panelists: Liu, Fei-Wen (Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica)
- Date: December 30, 2019
- Time: 10:00-12:00
- Venue: Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica 3rd Floor Room 2319
- Abstract
Between the 1950s and the 1980s, the easy answer to “why Taiwan mattered” for foreign anthropologists was their inability to conduct fieldwork in (mainland) China after the 1949 revolution. For several decades, anthropologists like Arthur and Margery Wolf, Bernard and Rita Gallin, Myron Cohen, Stephan Feuchtwang, Hill Gates, Emily Ahern, Stevan Harrell, David Schak and others produced pioneering work in China Studies based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted within a relatively small archipelago of Taiwanese villages. Cold War American anthropology Taiwan played a central role in the development of the American anthropology of China. Following the opening of China, democratization in Taiwan, and the emergence of Taiwan Studies, however, this period of scholarship has become something of an awkward footnote. In China Studies, Taiwan’s status as the first fieldwork site of many anthropologists has become a small prologue. In Taiwan Studies, Taiwan’s historical status as a fieldsite for studying “traditional China” is controversial because it represents precisely the China-centric paradigm Taiwan Studies sought to challenge. However, although some polemical accounts have accused foreign anthropologists of merely “looking through Taiwan” to see China (e.g. Hung and Murray 1994), doing ethnographic work meant that anthropologists were often closer to ordinary people in Taiwan than other Sinologists. Even though the villages they researched became timeless “Chinese villages” in their publications, the accounts they produced are nonetheless historical records of Taiwan’s social development. In order to better understand this period of scholarship and its relationship to the development of Taiwan Studies, the North American Taiwan Studies Association (NATSA), in collaboration with the Institute of Taiwan History (ITH), has since 2014 been conducting an oral history project interviewing this generation of scholars. In this talk, based on a comparative analysis of the oral histories appearing in a forthcoming book, I examine several key themes. 1) How was Taiwan constructed as a fieldsite? Specifically, what kinds of institutional forces and conceptual frameworks facilitated a changing Taiwan’s suitability as a site for studying “traditional China”? How did foreign anthropologists themselves see Taiwan in relation to their research interests in China? 2) How did anthropologists conduct fieldwork? Specifically, what kinds of social relationships and embeddedness in Taiwan existed beyond their fieldsites? What kinds of relationships did anthropologists have with language teachers, research assistants, Taiwanese academics, and other Americans? 3) What role has Taiwan played in their subsequent academic careers? Specifically, following the opening of China, why did anthropologists choose to either leave or stay in Taiwan? Following the emergence of Taiwan studies, how do anthropologists of the earlier generation themselves understand their own research in relation to Taiwan Studies and China Studies today?
- Reference Link: https://bit.ly/2Lf7w8P
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Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica
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