When we realize that identity is really a matter of politics, and that it is no less authentic or "real" as a result--real in the sense of being meaningful and motivating to people--then we must examine identities and their implications very differently. We must untangle the social grounding of identities from the meanings claimed for those identities in the political sphere. We must also reveal where the claimed meanings run roughshod over the very personal, experienced-based meanings of individual members of identity groups. (2)
National identity and ethnic identity are commonly portrayed as fixed, with clear borders. Identity is seen as the product of a person｀s culture and/or ancestry, and there is no room for individual choice about belonging or departing. In order to "mobilize people behind their political agendas," governments and ethnic leaders "actively hide the fluidity and changeability of identity and group membership."...; they discuss identity in terms of purported common descent and/or purported common culture (including language), even though ultimately it is common sociopolitical experience which binds group identity. The concealment of fluidity is accomplished by constructing "narratives of unfolding"..., origin myths..., or a reified "History"... that portrays the group as having a long and unified history distinguished from other groups. These narratives draw heavily on selected historic sociopolitical events to galvanize support around claimed ancestry and/or culture. (5)
Third, the ideology of sinicization implies that assimilating non-Han had no cultural impact on the Han, and therefore that the non-Han became exactly ilke those who were already Han. This implication fuels the notion of Confucian culturalism, because it suggests that there is a single model of Han culture whose core aspects (at least) are unchanging and eternal, which in turn justifies including an extraordinary number of people in a single ethnic category--over a billion worldwise, including Han in the PRC and overseas Chinese (huaqiao) and, depending on who is counting, Han in Taiwan .... This apparent cultural unity is emphasized in spite of "regional" diversity within the Han that is as great or greater than that between different nations in Europe. (31)
Moreover, this "regional" diversity is often labeled with the names of the non-Han peoples associated with those geographic locations prior to Han annexation--for instance, Yue in Guangdong, Min in Fujian, and Wu in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. Here is a problem for the ideology of sinicization: if assimilating non-Han had no cultural impact on the Han then why is there so much cultural, linguistic, and social (including political and economic) differentiation among Han regions? (32)
Beyond the increasing financial obligations to a state regime, there must have been substantial changes in the nature of social relations between Han and Aborigines. Under the Dutch regime, Aborigines were allies of the ruling power, much needed to control the growing Han population. Under the Zheng regime, although the Aborigines were taken seriously as a military force ..., it was as a potential threat not as crucial allies. The Zheng Forces were sufficient, in numbers and skill, to control the local population, Han and Aborigines, as their suppression of Aborigine uprisings in 1661 and 1663 demonstrated.... (42)
I suggest that the persistent contention by Han in gazetteers that Aborigines were bad farmers ... referrede to Aborigines｀ resistance to the cash-cropping and surplus production of intensive commercialized agriculture. This resistance was seen by Qing officials as "a morfal failure ...." ... However, I question the ability of Aborigiens to profic from a surplus since they were subject to the oppressive Qing taxation system in Taiwan. Aborigine choices not to participate in commercial agriculture may reflect realistic caculations that surplus production would benefot people other than themselves and thus reflect resistance to Han ideology. (46)
Throughout the middle Qing period ..., some southwestern plains Aborigines and their descendants migrated closer to and then into the foothills, away from areas of incursion by Han immigrants and Han cultures (mostly Hoklo, but with pockets of Hakka). (51)
After the 1858 Treaty of Tianjin, one of a series of treaties forced on the Qing government by Westerners in the Opium Wars, Aborigine-Han relations began changing once again. The treaty opened ports to Western trade, protected the open preaching of Christianity, and permitted travel by Westerners with valid passports anywhere inside China. In the 1860s and 1870s, plains Aborigines in Taiwan converted to Christianity whole villages at a time. Shepherd (1988) suggests that these mass conversions resulted from Aborigiens｀ desire to ally themselves with foreign powers, which they perceived as stronger than the Han who cheated and abused them. Such alliance, however, may have made Qing officials suspicious of Aborigine militia. Plains Aborigine militia appear conspicuously absent from the forces used to fight the 1884-85 French invasion of Taiwan (a spillover of Sino-French tensions in Indochina). (52)
Because designation of the appropriate household in which to register was left to Taiwanese, the historic household registers from the Japanese period reflect a Taiwanese notion of family .... ... "Race" was no longer recorded after 1915 or so, and the category was eventually removed from the form. Plains Aborigines were no longer officially distinguished from Han (though mountain Aborigines were). (54)
|