Historiography and the Study of Taiwan

This week’s readings from Corcuff, Tsu and Barclay really focused on the history of Taiwan, as well as the history of anthropological studies in Taiwan. As somebody who has never really studied Asia before, I was rather interested in learning at least the basic history of the country. And of course as an anthropology major, the history of anthropology in Taiwan was also an interesting and eye-opening topic to read about.

I had always known that Taiwan had a very heavy Chinese influence in its culture due to its history, but I was completely unaware that Japan had ruled over Taiwan too. I find this interesting because Chinese culture has made its way into Taiwan but, judging from the articles at least, it doesn’t seem that Japanese culture had made a very big impact on Taiwanese culture. I find this to be quite curious since Japan ruled over Taiwan for many years in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. However, Corcuff does mention how Taiwan exports a lot of cultural products to China, which is something else I find to be very intriguing. He also talks a lot about the liminality of Taiwan. This liminality is based on Taiwan’s relationship with China and how China wants to expand its rule to the small island. These articleas made me more aware of the history of Taiwan and how Chinese influence still holds strong culturally while Japan’s cultural influence doesn’t seem to have much of an impact.

Barclay’s article really focuses on the beginnings of anthropology in Taiwan by discussing and comparing the methodologies and findings of Japanese anthropologists Ino Kanori and Torii Ryuzo. I found it interesting how differently these two men studied Taiwanese culture. Ino used the socio-evolutionary paradigm to describe his findings, whereas Torii appears to be practicing a more physical anthropology. I really liked how Barclay compared the two anthropologists in their research. It gives a better perspective of what theories and methodologies were being used by Japanese anthropologists at the time. The article also shed some light on the Taiwanese culture of the late 19^th century. Learning the history of a culture is important to understand the way the culture is currently being practiced.

To be honest, I had not even been aware that Japan had practicing anthropologists in the late 19^th century, so finding out that two of them collaborated (though never really mentioned this collaboration) together to research and study the Taiwanese peoples was really eye-opening to me. It really shows what we are learning today as anthropology students. Our model is heavily based on European and North American anthropologists and their theories. We never hear about anthropologists from outside of these two continents. I want to learn more about the anthropologists of the world. Hopefully this course will allow for that by showing us that anthropologists don’t have to be white men from Europe or North America. They can be Japanese men who want to study the Taiwanese culture.

References
Barclay, Paul. 2001. "An Historian Among the Anthropologists: The I Kanori Revival and the Legacy of Japanese Colonial Ethnography in Taiwan." Japanese Studies 21 (2): 117-136.

Corcuff, Stéphane. 2012. "The Liminality of Taiwan: a Case-Study in Geopolitics." Taiwan in Comparative Perspective 4: 34-64. Online resource: http://www.lse.ac.uk/asiaresearchcentre/countries/taiwan/taiwanprogramme/journal/journalcontents/tcp4corcuff.pdf last accessed December 9th, 2014.

Tsu, Timothy Y. 1999. "Japanese Colonialism and the Investigation of Taiwanese 'Old Customs'." In Jan can Bremen and Akitoshi Shimizu (ed). Anthropology and Colonialism in Asia and Oceania, pp. 197-218. London: RoutledgeCurzon.