No more dancing for gods: constructing Taiwanese/Chinese identity through the Ilisin

Abstract In this paper, I examine media narratives of the Ilisin, a touristised indigenous festival in Taiwan. A number of previous studies have examined tourist events and ethnic/racial relations as well as detailed explorations of ethnic relations and dynamic identities in a Taiwanese context. However, through the examination of media narratives of the Ilisin through a Foucauldian lens, I hope to provide a different theoretical conceptualisation of the formation of identities, especially in a Taiwanese setting. In this paper, I analyse 417 articles related to the Ilisin from three newspapers and three magazines between 1996 and 2005 through a Foucauldian discourse analysis. This method enables explorations of discursive practices producing different identity formations. In the end, I illustrate how different identities of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ emerge against the same discursive backdrop. This conclusion argues against a determinist and essentialist view of identity. Hence, it could provide reconsideration towards identity politics, and re‐conceptualisation of the formations and practices of identities. Keywords: Ilisin (Harvest Festival)Taiwanidentitytourist eventtourismtraditionFoucauldian discourse analysis Acknowledgements It has been a long process from the start of the search for the meanings of ‘Taiwanese’ to the completion of this paper. It would have been impossible for me to finish this journey if there had not been all the support and feedback from many people I owe too much to. Especially, Dr Sparks, Dr Vertinsky and Dr Wilson of the UBC, who have guided me through the process of shaping a meaningful project, and Dr Markula, who had much confidence in my original project and spent many hours discussing and helping me through the writing. Finally, my sincere gratitude to Ms DeAbreu, Z. Avner, and B. Hong who have attentively edited my English writing and made this paper better. Notes 1. China here does not merely refer to the PRC, but also includes the various dynasties and the imagined homeland that some people in Taiwan still hold dearly in their hearts. 2. ‘Indigenous people’ is a generalised term used to identify groups of people who have resided in the island before Chinese immigration. Nowadays, 10 tribes are officially recognised by the government. They do not necessarily have any obvious relations, such as kinships, between the existent tribes. Also, most of them have their own traditions and languages. 3. ‘Harvest Festival’ is a Chinese term referring to a generalised idea of the variety of indigenous events in Taiwan. ‘Harvest Festival’, in Chinese, means the event at which people celebrate a year of hard work, show gratitude to the nature and gods and plead for blessings for the upcoming year. It was not until the 1980s did local consciousness of diverse ethnicities (whatever is different from the legitimate ‘Chinese’) start to emerge through waves of political movements. This caused the increase of interest in the Harvest Festival and awareness of its (mis‐recognised) meanings and diverse events it encompasses. The Ilisin, the main focus of this paper, is one of many rituals under the umbrella of Harvest Festival. 4. Christianity is the major religion among Taiwanese indigenous people. This is mainly due to the history of western missionary work in the peripheral areas in the 1800s and early 1900s. 5. In the translation process, I had to, in numerous times, make decisions on the ‘appropriate’ words and phrases. These decisions are mostly based on my readings and interpretations of the media texts. However, one might argue that this has put the accuracy of my inquiry into suspension. To respond to this question, I borrow Bhabha’s (Citation1990) idea on the relationships between ‘original’ and translated. Regarding the prevailing nostalgia for lost cultures in post‐colonial eras, he suggests that translations, the reinstallation of past cultures, should not be understood as merely a version that reproduces the meanings of original, but a way of imitating and mischievously misplacing the ‘original’. It is because of this possibility of and ambiguity on the ‘simulated, copied, transferred, transformed and made … [t]he “original” is always open to translation so that it can never be said to have a totalised prior moment of being meaning‐ an essence’ (p. 210). In other words, to accept and acknowledge the inevitable gap between ‘original’ and translations is, at the same time, to realise the original is never settled and is always transformed. If we read this conceptualisation of (cultural) translation as the process of translation of my data, then it is an acknowledgement that the original texts, those black inks on the papers, are never to have a totalised meaning. It is through the ‘translations’, first from the papers to my head, then from my understandings into English into this paper, are they imitated and (mis)placed by certain meanings. On the other hand, this is also a realisation that the meanings of original are never possible, and is always already interpreted and translated. Moreover, it discloses certain concepts illustrated in this project: the question of linguistic or/and cultural translation, the power of authors/translators, and the instability and constructions of meanings. Consequently, although it might have been a challenge, if not a limitation, to have had to translate numerous Chinese texts into English, it demonstrates the main idea of this paper, that of ‘translating’ a tradition/ritual into other social/political/cultural subject positions. 6. A statement ‘denote[s] a group of verbal performances … also … a series of sentences or propositions … and group of sequences of signs’ (Foucault, Citation1972, p. 107). Accordingly, a statement is the foundation of discourse, and discourse is ‘the groups of statements that belong to a single system of formation’ (p. 107). Together, all statements formulate and modify the discourse they belong to. In the context of this paper, statements are those ‘meaningful’ sentences, paragraphs and articles I collect from the media. 7. ‘Natural/original flavour (Uian‐uei) is a pun on ‘indigenous’ flavour (Uian‐uei) in Chinese, literally and phonetically. 8. See Note 11. 9. Both Hualien and Taitong are famous for their country lives and natural landscapes. For example, one of the renown landscapes in Hualien is the Taroko canyon, which is now a part of the national park. 10. Other than those Ilisins hosted by local tribes and villages, the County Harvest Festival is a governmentally hosted event that is organised usually for tourism purposes. It contains various performances by people from different villages and has sales of local specials and souvenirs. 11. In this article, the journalist uses the term ‘Harvest Festivals’ to refer to all the traditional indigenous rituals happening during the summer, regardless of which tribe the rituals originate from. Although the article does not focus on the Ilisin, which is solely an Amis ritual, the Ilisin is mentioned in the article. 12. I use the phrase ‘Chinese’ with extreme caution here. It is used to refer to the so‐called mandarin Chinese that officialised as the legitimate culture and language in Taiwan when the KMT government took over the island. I consider it would be rather dangerous and ignorant to simply identify ‘Chinese culture’ as a unifying entity and as the one dominating in Taiwan. There are, nonetheless, a variety of groups of immigrants from different parts of mainland China who brought in different local cultures and languages/dialects. These languages/dialects are significantly different from mandarin Chinese (which was actually a northern dialect, itself, before being officialised). For more detail, please refer to such articles as Ray Chow’s (Citation1998) ‘On Chineseness as a theoretical problem’. 13. As mentioned in the Introduction, the Ching Dynasty was found by a northern ethnic minority, Man. Hence, during the early years of its rule, it was perceived as an illegitimate ruler of the ‘Chinese’ people. 14. Also known as The Three Principles of the People, it is a political doctrine developed by Sun Yet‐Sen, the main founder of the ROC. The Doctrine incorporates various contemporary western and traditional Chinese political thoughts. The three principles are the principle of: Min‐Chuan (people’s rights, democracy), Min‐Sheng (people’s welfare) and Min‐zu (Nationalism). 15. For example, agricultural land cannot be traded freely. The owner of an agricultural land must have a status as ‘farmer’, which one might acquire by inheritance or by an official process. 16. A result and an evidence of such advocacy for industrial economy is the fact that Taiwan had one of the fastest growing economies in the 1980s and 1990s. This ‘economic take‐off’ was because of a high degree of governmental support and stimulation for industrial and economic developments. 17. Precisely, this is a contrast to the cultural revolution happening in the mainland China during 1970s and 1980s, which proposed to yank out Confucianism and certain ‘oppressive’ traditional ideologies. 18. This theme, interestingly, combined two ideas constantly emerging in the history of Chinese Taiwanese: the preserver and legitimate successor of Chinese culture, and the base to return to the mainland.

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