Identity and Citizenship in Taiwan during the 1950s: An overview of the field

19/12/2007 - 09:00

18 December 2007
15.00 - 17.30 hrs

NICAM work-meetings 2007-2008

By: Ann Heylen
Discussant: Tak-wing Ngo (Leiden University)

Venue: NIOD, Herengracht 380, Amsterdam

Abstract: The aim of this presentation is to interrogate the relationship between identity and citizenship in Taiwan, with particular reference to the first decade following the regime change from Japanese colonial to Chinese nationalist rule. The legacy of Japanese rule in Taiwan assured that reintegration was marked by ambiguity, then conflict. The political reality made that since 1949 the KMT or nationalist government had relocated to Taiwan. While considering itself the legitimate government of China, and with American assistance, the nationalist government embarked on a neo-colonial policy toward the very people they claimed as their citizenry. What makes Taiwan an interesting case study is that the regime change coincided with another migrant minority group taking power over the large majority of native inhabitants, and imposing their culture, language and customs.

During the 1950's, ROC citizenship entailed belonging to a new polity with several new privileges when compared to Japanese colonial rule. These decades are also associated with events which caused a deep and lasting trauma in Taiwanese society and contributed to its division along sub-ethnic lines. Within the official ROC conceptualization of the citizenship-nationality relationship, the Taiwanese majority population belonged to the same territory as the Nationalist rulers. It was, however, at the same time perceived by the Nationalists as an outside element because of its actual or attributed association with Japanese conquest and colonization. In view of and concurrent with the gradual disclosure of these painful memories of the 2.28 Incident and the White Terror persecutions during the 1950s and 1960s, there is also a need to recognize the role played by the forgetfulness of Japanese colonialism in the Taiwanese collective memory.
In an attempt to investigate the extent to which cultural choices remained relatively open at first, this presentation will discuss action-directed and conceptual strategies of the main Chinese constituents of the Taiwanese population (Hoklo and Hakka) in their adaptation to the cultural traditionalism imposed by the Nationalist regime, and how these strategies resonated with the legacy of Japanese colonial rule, which had been silenced by law. Special attention will be paid to a representation of the 1950s in present-day historiographical and (auto)biographical materials.

Ann Heylen: holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies from Catholic University Leuven (K.U.Leuven) in Belgium. She is currently research fellow at the Research Unit on Taiwanese Culture and Literature (TCL), Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, and an associate researcher at Taipei Ricci Institute. She specializes in Taiwanese history and has published works on the Japanese colonial period and seventeenth century Dutch Formosa. Ann Heylen's doctoral dissertation is forthcoming under the publication title Japanese Models, Chinese Culture and the Dilemma of Taiwanese Language Reform (Studia Formosiana, Harrasowitz Publishers). Her recent research interest areas concern the study of personal documents in Chinese historiography, with special reference to the life stories of Taiwanese colonial elites. She is active in numerous national and international associations, i.e. The European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS) and she has given lectures and presentations at universities throughout Europe and Asia. She is also member of the editorial panel of the e-journal International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies (IJAPS).

Co-organized by NIOD and Asian Studies in Amsterdam (ASiA), for more information please contact: s.visscher@uva.nl