TAIWAN IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Taiwan in Comparative Perspective is the first scholarly journal based outside Taiwan to contextualize processes of modernization and globalization through interdisciplinary studies of significant issues that use Taiwan as a point of comparison. The primary aim of the Journal is to promote grounded, critical, and contextualized analysis in English of economic, political, societal, and environmental change from a cultural perspective, while locating modern Taiwan in its Asian and global contexts. The history and position of Taiwan make it a particularly interesting location from which to examine the dynamics and interactions of our globalizing world. In addition, the Journal seeks to use the study of Taiwan as a fulcrum for discussing theoretical and methodological questions pertinent not only to the study of Taiwan but to the study of cultures and societies more generally. Thereby the rationale of Taiwan in Comparative Perspective is to act as a forum and catalyst for the development of new theoretical and methodological perspectives generated via critical scrutiny of the particular experience of Taiwan in an increasingly unstable and fragmented world. Editor-in-chief Stephan Feuchtwang (London School of Economics, UK) Editor Fang-Long Shih (London School of Economics, UK) Managing Editor R.E. Bartholomew (LSE Taiwan Research Programme) Editorial Board Chris Berry (Film and Television Studies, Goldsmiths College, UK) Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao (Sociology and Civil Society, Academia Sinica, Taiwan) Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang (Comparative Literature, University of Texas, USA) Kent Deng (Economic History, London School of Economics, UK) Bernhard Fuehrer (Sinology and Philosophy, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK) Mark Harrison (Asian Languages and Studies, University of Tasmania, Australia) Bob Jessop (Political Sociology, Lancaster University, UK) Paul R. Katz (Local History and Religion, Academia Sinica, Taiwan) Henning Klöter (Linguistics and Society, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) Richard Madsen (Sociology and Religion, University of California San Diego, USA) Tak-Wing Ngo (Political Economy, University of Leiden, the Netherlands) Murray A. Rubinstein (Modern History, City University of New York, USA) Felix Schoeber (Art and Museum Studies, University of Westminster, UK) Scott Simon (Anthropology and Development, Ottawa University, Canada) Charles Stafford (Anthropology and Economic Psychology, London School of Economics, UK) Edward Vickers (Comparative Education, Institute of Education, UK) Cover Design Thomas Shih (London School of Economics, UK) The Journal Taiwan in Comparative Perspective is published yearly, and submissions are rigorously peer-reviewed. Except where indicated otherwise, all materials are © Taiwan Research Programme, London School of Economics. All rights reserved. This publication was supported in part by a grant from the Tsao Yung-Ho Cultural and Educational Foundation Taiwan in Comparative Perspective Volume 4: 2012 Special Issue Taiwan and Ireland in Comparative Perspective Special Issue Editors: Fang-Long Shih and John McNeil Scott Introduction 1 John McNeil Scott Taiwan’s Subjectivity and National Narrations: Towards a Comparative Perspective with Ireland 6 Fang-Long Shih The Liminality of Taiwan: A Case-Study in Geopolitics 34 Stéphane Corcuff Lin Hsien-Tang’s Taiwanese Home Rule Movement as Inspired by the Irish Model 65 Fu-San Huang, Sam Huang, and Conor Mulvagh Cinema, Identity, and Resistance: Comparative Perspectives on A City of Sadness and The Wind that Shakes the Barley 89 Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley Voices from Two Theatrical Others: Labour Issues in the Theatres of Ireland and Taiwan 108 Wei H. Kao The Political Incorporation of Taiwanese Americans and Irish Americans Compared 128 Pei-Te Lien and Jeanette Yih Harvie Developmental Immigration in the Republic of Ireland and Taiwan 154 Bryan Fanning A Comparative Study of Language Movements in Taiwan and Ireland 176 Khin-Huann Li, with Liam Mac Mathúna COMMENTARY Taiwan and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland: Parallels and Divergences 189 Kerry Brown Changes in China’s Domestic Policies and Implications for Taiwan 201 Mu Qiao BOOK REVIEW S Dublin James Joyce Journal 215 Conor Stuart and Shu-Ling Horng Bryan Fanning, Immigration and Social Cohesion in the Republic of Ireland 217 Isabelle N.-T. Cheng Caoilfhionn Nic Pháidín and Seán Ó Cearnaigh, A New View of the Irish Language 221 Stuart Thompson Su Holmes and Diane Negra, In the Limelight and Under the Microscope: Forms and Functions of Female Celebrity 226 R.E. Bartholomew Gerardine Meaney, Gender, Ireland, and Cultural Change: Race, Sex, and Nation 228 Fang-Long Shih and R.E. Bartholomew Taiwan in Comparative Perspective, Vol. 4, December 2012, pp. 1–5 ISSN 1752-7732 © Taiwan Research Programme, London School of Economics Introduction He who knows only one country only knows none. (Sartori 1994:16) The articles in this special issue collection were presented at the ‘Small Islands, Big Issues’ conference that was held at University College Dublin in September 2011. The conference is the first multi-disciplinary academic symposium devoted to comparative studies relating to Taiwan and Ireland, and to their respective area studies. The project resulted from a developing interest in recent years in finding ways to make theoretically useful comparisons between Taiwan and Ireland, and the discourses that have come to characterize the study of each place. It may be thought that the comparison is suggested by situation: both Taiwan and Ireland are small islands adjacent to powerful neighbours with whom they have had complex histories. In both locations we can see histories, politics, and cultures marked by contested subjectivities and identities, as well as struggles over democracy and human rights. A focus on the human situation in both places invites the application of discursive categories such as colonialism and post- colonialism; globalization and localization; and nationalism and hybridity. It also allows explorations of the goals, problems, and limits of sovereignty and independence in the context of sub-ethnic and religious divisions, as well as of the complex relations with a nearby metropolitan ‘Other’ and of diaspora experiences in the era of post-national globalization. At the same time both contexts challenge the straightforward appropriation of such categories and demand their sophisticated reworking. However, Ireland and Taiwan are neither internally homogeneous, nor are they similar to each other. Indeed, they are strikingly distinctive in their political, institutional, and intellectual histories. The romance of comparison sits in tension with the difficulty of finding a secure and satisfactory place from which to make it. The attempt is further complicated and enriched by important differences in the approaches and development of Irish Studies and of Taiwan Studies, both of which find themselves arriving at a point of self-examination where positivist assumptions dissolve and are replaced by questions concerning the epistemological and discursive bases of the academic enterprises that have come to be named ‘Irish Studies’ and ‘Taiwan Studies’. For both Irish Studies and Taiwan Studies there are specific and limited questions that are asked, argued over, and answered, on the basis of particular discursive categories. Reflecting its diaspora origins in North American academic circles, Irish Studies privileges history, politics, language and literature, both ‘classical’ and modern. In contrast, Taiwan Studies operates to interrogate and create the possibility of Taiwan itself in a manner that reflects its later development and the contested history of Taiwan. Irish Studies encompasses the political, as Taiwan Studies does to some degree. However, Taiwan Studies exists as a self- 2 JOHN MCNEIL SCOTT consciously political programme as well as an academic one. This existential questioning has become mainstream in Irish scholarship only in comparatively recent times as the possibility of Ireland itself has become a question. History and literature find themselves having to share unaccustomed space with other perspectives in the stories that the Irish tell about themselves. Taiwan Studies, on the contrary, was organized from the outset at the intersection of a range of modern social sciences such as political science, cultural studies and anthropology. Therefore, though Taiwan Studies may claim to be ‘multidisciplinary,’ its epistemological structure is based on those of its primary disciplines (Harrison 2006:18). The current volume comprises articles that aspire to make explicit comparisons using frameworks and modes of discourse characteristic of Irish Studies, of Taiwan Studies, and of ‘positivist’ social science. In itself this makes the present collection of interest as an ethnographic experiment where Ireland is inscribed in terms of Taiwan Studies, and Taiwan in a manner more typical of scholarship concerning Ireland. Scholars whose focus of interest is Taiwan or Ireland (or even more purely theoretical in orientation) are thus enabled not just to ‘see ourselves as others see us’, but also to expose their own discourse to scrutiny as comparisons are explored and Ireland is discussed as if it were Taiwan, and vice versa . It may be argued that the associations thereby constructed are sometimes fragile. But what is revealed in the attempt, perhaps, is itself instructive. Fang-Long Shih takes up the challenge of comparing the development