Taiwan is a liminal site of modernity in Asia. It is a modern exemplar as a liberal democracy with a developed economy, but is mostly unrecognized as a nation-state in the international system. In its liminality, however, it traces contours of modern power and their epistemological expression. This paper presents an account of Taiwan as an object of knowledge and representation in instances of scholarship and policy, Taiwanese politics, urban development and art, arguing that the narratives through which Taiwan is understood embed a lived experience as Taiwanese under forms of epistemological domination. The paper then explores Taiwanese responses of co-option and resistance in alternative sites of knowledge, and it concludes that the critical unexamined force in Taiwan’s experience of modernity is violence.
History
Publication title
Thesis Eleven: Rethinking Social and Political Theory
Volume
146
Pagination
3-23
ISSN
0725-5136
Department/School
School of Social Sciences
Publisher
Sage Publications Ltd.
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Rights statement
Copyright 2018 The Author
Repository Status
Restricted
Socio-economic Objectives
Government and politics not elsewhere classified; Expanding knowledge in human society