Organizer and Chair: Vivienne Shue, Cornell University
The Politics of Taiwan Aboriginal Origins
Michael Stainton, York University
The lability of ethnic myths of origin (Anthony Smith) and their application as social charters (Malinowski) is well known. Of more recent interest is research on the way in which indigenous peoples recycle myths ("theories") of origins developed by colonial scholars for hegemonic purposes. One of the most striking examples is Allan Hanson's (1989) study of "the Making of the Maori."
The 360,000 Taiwan Aboriginal Peoples are undeniably Austronesian-but two schools contend the geographical source of their migrations. The "southern origin" theory is supported by Japanese scholars and Taiwan nationalists, while Chinese scholars support the "northern origin" theory. Each of these contains powerful political implications. The paper will review this debate, and use contemporary materials from Taiwan illustrating how aboriginal activists are now making use of these myths of origin for their own purposes, also with powerful political implications.
A second debate explored is whether the present mountain-dwelling aboriginal peoples were driven from the plains by Chinese settlers, or were always in the mountains. Aboriginal activists have come down on both sides, again depending on their political context. The paper will show how the interplay of Taiwan nation-building and Aboriginal revival becomes a fecund mythomoteur.
Insight and Innovation: The Birth of a Critical Anthropology in Republican China
(1912-49)?
Constantine Hriskos, Colby College
Until fairly recently, most foreign scholars writing about the development of social sciences in Republican China (1912-49) have argued that, even though China was one of the most intensive areas of sociological activity in the world during this time, that Chinese scholars who were responsible for this research did not really contribute much in the way of original theory but merely applied techniques and methodologies that they had learned in the west to the study of their own society. This paper, based on extensive archival research in China and the United States, and on interviews and ongoing correspondence with Chinese social scientists, documents the work and career of Li Anzhai as one of many possible exceptions to this conclusion.
It is argued that theoretical innovations proposed by a number of Chinese social scientists in the past could not be properly recovered and situated until a postmodern revolution had contested a western hegemony that defined all social science in relation to itself. Today, in the work of Li Anzhai, among others, we can find a number of revolutionary ideas that anticipate some of the most important theoretical debates in the field. Li made contributions to questions on Nations and Nationalism; he wrote critiques reminiscent of contemporary reproaches of 'Orientalism'; he proposed an "applied anthropology" as a necessary extension to the anthropological research that was conducted in minority areas; and he was one of the first anthropologists to critique the ideas of the Culture and Personality school of Ruth Benedict and demonstrate how one's cultural biases can both hinder and aid one in one's ethnographic investigations. What was fundamentally significant, through all of this, though, was that Li and many of his colleagues were addressing the vicissitudes of the Republic that would be China through their lives and work; and that theoretical insights are often had by 'men in crisis studying men in crisis.'
Cultural Adaptation and Assimilation: The Origin of the "Indigenous
Style" in Contemporary Chinese Architecture
Jin Feng, Indiana University
An architectural style called the "indigenous style" is a major development in contemporary Chinese architecture. It features overhung curving roofs and decorative details following the ancient forms of palaces, and it combines the traditional forms with modern building technology. This style was first invented by Western architects in the design of missionary institutions in China in the early twentieth century, and then adopted by Chinese architects as a style of nationalism. Since then, buildings of this style all over China have been seen as an important form of national identity. This paper examines the origin of this "indigenous style" in architecture in order to comprehend the complicated nature of cultural interaction between China and the West in the twentieth century. This study reveals that the adoption of the traditional Chinese style by the Westerners was intended as an important strategy of adaptation for survival in a hostile foreign environment and for more profound influence on Chinese culture; and the Chinese adoption of this style was not a passive imitation but an active assimilation of it by infusing it with a strong nationalism which was invoked by the cultural and political circumstances at that time. Meanwhile, the cultural and political concerns coincided with a rather romantic aestheticism of both Western and Chinese architects trained in the Beaux Arts tradition. The findings of this paper in architectural history confirm a more general theory of adaptation-and-assimilation in the cultural interaction between China and the West, which has been theorized by scholars in other areas of cultural studies.
From Religious to Commodity Fetish: Dongba Art in the Time of Deng
Maria Mussler, Whitman College
The indigenous religion of the Naxi nationality of southwest China (usually called "dongba religion," after its shaman-priest ritual specialists) has a long tradition of religious art, including painting, carving, pictographic calligraphy, sculpture and dance. Under pressure from the Communist government in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the religion all but died out. In the liberal 1980s and 90s, however, some of the religion's artistic traditions have been reborn in the hands of secular artists under the name "xiandai dongba yishu" (contemporary dongba art). Most of these artists are Naxi and received their training in fine arts academies in Kunming or Beijing. The range of their work reflects the differing influences of traditional Chinese, traditional and modern Western, and contemporary "Yunnan School" artistic traditions. Based on extensive interviews with dongbas, artists and gallery owners in Lijiang, our paper examines the relations between traditional and contemporary forms of dongba art from a variety of perspectives, including that of a Lijiang marketplace strongly conditioned by domestic and international tourism.