Full Description
Anthropologists have long sought to extricate their work from the policies and agendas of those who dominate—and often oppress—their native subjects. Looking through Taiwan is an uncompromising look at a troubling chapter in American anthropology that reveals what happens when anthropologists fail to make fundamental ethnic and political distinctions in their work. Keelung Hong and Stephen O. Murray examine how Taiwanese realities have been represented—and misrepresented—in American social science literature, especially anthropology, in the post-World War II period. They trace anthropologists' complicity in the domination of a Taiwanese majority by a Chinese minority and in its obfuscation of social realities. At the base of these distortions, the authors argue, were the mutual interests of the Republic of China's military government and American social scientists in mischaracterizing Taiwan as representative of traditional Chinese culture. American anthropologists, eager to study China but denied access by its communist government, turned instead to fieldwork on the Republic of China's society, which they incorrectly and disingenuously interpreted to reflect traditional Chinese society on the mainland. Anthropologists overlooked the cultural and historical differences between the island and the mainland and effectively legitimized the People's Republic of China's claim on Taiwan. Looking through Taiwan is a powerful critique of American anthropology and a valuable reminder of the political and ethical implications of social science research and writing.
Contents
I. Introductory Material 1. Experiences of Being a "Native" Observing Anthropology - Mechanics of the Book; 2. A Brief Overview of American Anthropologists' Investigation of "Others" Before 1955; 3. A Brief Overview of the Governing of Taiwan II. American Social Scientists' Complicity with Domination 4. A Case Study of Pseudo-Objectivity: The Hoover Institution Analysis of 1947 Resistance and Repression; 5. Some American Witnesses of the KMT's 1947 Reign of Terror on Taiwan; 6. Studies of KMT-Imposed Land Reform; 7. American Anthropologists Looking Through Taiwan to See "Traditional" China, 1950-1990 III. 1990s Anthropological Writing Based on Research in Taiwan 8. A Taiwanese Woman Who Became a Spirit Medium: Native and Alien Models of How Taiwanese Identify Spirit Possession; 9. The Non-Obliteration of Taiwanese Women's Names; 10. The Aftermath: Fleeing Democratization
