Looking through Taiwan: American Anthropologists' Collusion with Ethnic Domination (Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology)

175 Pages·2005·0.95 MB·English

by  Keelung Hong

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4 LOOKING THROUGH TAIWAN
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35 CriticalStudiesinthe
36 HistoryofAnthropology
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series editors
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39 RegnaDarnell
40 StephenO.Murray
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Sourceacknowledgmentsforpreviously
12 publishedmaterialappearonpage111.
[-4], (4)
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©2005bytheBoardofRegents
14 oftheUniversityofNebraska
15 Allrightsreserved
Manufacturedinthe Lines: 43
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UnitedStatesofAmerica
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LibraryofCongress ———
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Cataloging-in-PublicationData Normal
20 Hong,Keelung,1943–
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21 LookingthroughTaiwan:Americanan-
thropologists’collusionwithethnic
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domination/KeelungHongand
23 StephenO.Murray. [-4], (4)
24 p. cm.—(Criticalstudiesinthehistory
25 ofanthropology)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesand
26
index.
27 isbn-13:978-0-8032-2435-3(cloth:alk.
28 paper)
isbn-10:0-8032-2435-4(cloth:alk.pa-
29
per)
30 1.Ethnology—Taiwan—History.
31 2.Ethnology—Taiwan—Fieldwork.
3.Ethnologists—UnitedStates—Attitudes.
32
4.Ethnologists—Taiwan—Attitudes.
33
5.Taiwan—Foreignpublicopinion.
34 6. Taiwan—Foreign relations—United
35 States.
7.UnitedStates—Foreignrelations—Taiwan.
36
I. Murray, Stephen O. II. Title. III.
37 Series.
38 gn635.t28h66 2005
306—dc22 2005006497
39
40 PrintedbyThomson-Shore,Inc.
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4 C O N T E N T S
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12 ListofTables vi
[-5], (5)
13 SeriesEditors’Introduction vii
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i.IntroductoryMaterial
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1.ExperiencesofBeinga“Native”ObservingAnthropology 3 Lines: 116
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2.ABriefOverviewofAmericanAnthropologists’ ———
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Investigationof“Others”before1955 13 * 38.73201pt
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3.ABriefOverviewoftheHistoryofGoverningTaiwan 19 ———
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20 ii.AmericanSocialScientists’ComplicitywithDomination
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21 4.ACaseStudyofPseudo-Objectivity:TheHooverInstitution
22 Analysisof1947ResistanceandRepression 27
23 5.SomeAmericanWitnessestothekmt’s1947Reign [-5], (5)
24 ofTerroronTaiwan 39
25 6.Studiesofkmt-ImposedLandReform 42
26 7.AmericanAnthropologistsLookingthroughTaiwantoSee
27 “Traditional”China,1950–1990 48
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iii.AnthropologicalWritingofthe1990sBasedonResearchonTaiwan
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8.ATaiwaneseWomanWhoBecameaSpiritMedium:Nativeand
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AlienModelsofHowTaiwaneseIdentifySpiritPossession 77
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9.TheNon-ObliterationofTaiwaneseWomen’sNames 98
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10.TheAftermath:FleeingDemocratization 104
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34 Acknowledgments 111
35 Notes 115
36 References 129
37 Index 157
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4 T A B L E S
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11 [Last Page]
12 1.Country(ies)ListedinTitlesofBooksandArticlesReportingResearchon
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13 TaiwanbyAmerican-TrainedAnthropologistsbyInstitutionofTheirDoctoral
14 Training 66
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2.TaiwaneseVisibilitybyTopicinPublicationsbyAmerican-Trained Lines: 188
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Anthropologists 67 ———
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7 Series Editors’ Introduction
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[First Page]
12 The triumphs of the People’s Liberation (“Red”) Army in the Chinese
[-7], (1)
13 Civil War lopped off the buds of social science research on China, both
14 thefieldworkoflocalresearchersandthatofforeignones.Thedefeated
15 Kuomintang (kmt) and American field Sinologists both retreated across
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16 the Taiwan straits. Barred from China, the two groups had a shared in-
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17 terest in (re)presenting Taiwan as “traditional China.” The Republic of
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18 China (roc) government—ferried to Taiwan by the American military
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19 after the Allied defeat of Japan in World War II—provided ready access
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20 toresearchsiteswherecooperationwithAmericanfieldworkerswasclose
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21 to being compulsory, just as in fieldwork settings for British and French
22 anthropologistsincolonialAfrica.BoththeChineseoligarchy(the kmt)
23 andtheAmericanSinologistsonTaiwanminimizedtheinfluenceofJap- [-7], (1)
24 anese education and modernization on Taiwanese during a half-century
25 ofJapaneseruleandoftheearlierinfluencesofEuropeancolonialbases
26 on the island, while ignoring the non-Han (Austronesian) substratum of
27 Taiwanesehistoryandculture.
28 AnthropologistsworkingonTaiwanalsoignoredthereignofterrorand
29 thefourdecadesofanethnicoligarchyrulingbymartiallaw.Theanthro-
30 pologists wrote about topics such as family structures, healing practices,
31 and religious beliefs, mostly framed as describing pieces of the timeless
32 entity“traditionalChineseculture.”AsKeelungHongandStephenMurray
33 put it, anthropologists were invited by a regime claiming to be the legiti-
34 mate ruler of China “as if Taiwan was an embalmed Ming-Dynasty theme
35 parkforalienstovisitandmaketheircareerswritingaboutas‘Chinese.’”
36 HongandMurrayargueindetailthatanthropologistswerecomplicitwith
37 the domination of the Taiwanese majority by a refugee Chinese minority
38 anddefactocolludedinocclusionsofethnicdomination.
39 Neither the oligarchy nor the anthropologists wanted the persecuted
40 majoritytoproclaimidentityas“Taiwanese”ortoconsiderthattherewas
1 anything other than Chinese culture on the island field site (for the an-
2 thropologists) and that officially it was the base from which to conquer
3 China(forthekmtoligarchy).Theformationsofconsciousnessof(being
4 partofa)“kind”thatBenedictAndersonwroteaboutinImaginedCommu-
5 nities(1992)dependedheavilyonmediainthelocalvernacularlanguage.
6 On Taiwan at the time American anthropologists were engaged in field
7 research, any use of the mother tongue of the majority was punished in
8 schools,themajority’slanguagewasalmostentirelyblockedfromtheair-
9 waves in Taiwan, and it was also mostly absent from the pages of Amer-
10 ican anthropological publications reporting fieldwork done on Taiwan.
11 KeelungHongrecallsbeingpunishedforspeakingHoloasaschoolchild
12 andthirstingforbroadcastsinthemajoritylanguageaswellasbeingfrus-
[-8], (2)
13 trated by anthropologists who helped to keep the very possibility of con-
14 ceivingofselfandfellowsasTaiwaneseillicit.
15 TheoftenbitingcriticismfromHongandMurraydoesnotkeepthem
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16 fromshowingthattherewassomediversitywithintheAmericananthropol-
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17 ogists’claimtotheprestigeofworkingonChineseratherthanTaiwanese
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18 phenomena.Productsofsomegraduateschools(especiallyBerkeleyand
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19 Columbia) were more likely to represent their work as being about Chi-
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20 nese culture and society than others. Those studying women’s labor and
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21 entrepreneurship of men or of women mostly did not seek to claim they
22 werestudyingChineseculture,whilethosewritingaboutreligionmostlyig-
23 noredtheextenttowhichpopular/folkreligionwascovertprotestagainst [-8], (2)
24 Chineseruleandwroteaboutessentialized,timeless“Chinesereligion.”
25 Althoughastrengthofthisvolumeisits“insider”/”native”perspective,
26 the authors go out of their way to illustrate that insider assumptions are
27 sometimeswrong.Lookingatwhatgoesonisimportantforinsideranalysis
28 as well as for that of nonnative analysts. The book combines insider and
29 outsider perspectives and provides an extensive discussion in chapter 8
30 of respectful and disrespectful anthropological perspectives on religious
31 beliefs.
32 The authors’ initial criticisms of American anthropologists’ complicity
33 with an ethnic minority’s domination were published while the kmt was
34 stillinpower(duringthefour-decade“stateofemergency”).AsAmerican
35 fieldworkers have become welcome in China, most have ceased to work
36 onTaiwan,seemingnottobeinterestedinrapiddemocratizationandthe
37 florescenceofTaiwanesecivilsociety.ThehistoryofAmericananthropo-
38 logicalfieldworkonTaiwanalmostentirelyceasedwhenitbecamepossible
39 toundertakefieldworkinChina.Thepost-MaoPeople’sRepublicofChina
40 remainsaLeninistoligarchicregime,liketheonethatfosteredAmerican
viii SeriesEditors’Introduction
1 anthropologists’researchonTaiwanfromthemid-1950sthroughthemid-
2 1980s, and remains able to impose foreign researchers in a way that a
3 democratically elected government on Taiwan cannot and does not wish
4 to do. The modus operandi of anthropologists and oligarchs that Hong
5 and Murray criticize has not been forsaken, they argue, only moved to
6 the bigger stage of China that some believed they were looking at while
7 workingonTaiwan.
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9 StephenO.MurrayandRegnaDarnell
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SeriesEditors’Introduction ix