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Dissolution and Reconstruction of National Identity: The Experience of Subjectivity in Taiwan
Author(s) -
Wong Timothy KaYing,
Sun Milan TungWen
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/j.1354-5078.1998.00247.x
Subject(s) - nationalism , subjectivity , status quo , national identity , independence (probability theory) , unification , identity (music) , dilemma , sociology , autonomy , gender studies , political economy , political science , aesthetics , epistemology , law , politics , programming language , philosophy , statistics , mathematics , computer science
. Due to unique historical and structural conditions Taiwan society has long been troubled by a national identity problem. While this dilemma has captured significant academic interests in recent years, most treatments of the subject pay insufficient attention to the subjective factors which shape the national identity discourse on the island. This study attempts to reconstruct, from the subjects' perspectives, the discourses on national identity as they are devised by Taiwan residents. Based on Q methodology, we identify five discourses: Chinese nationalism, status‐quoism, confused identity, Taiwan‐prioritism and Taiwanese nationalism. These discourses are intertwined along the independence/unification continuum and share the common ground of respect for democratic institutions and liberal values and an awareness of Taiwan's de facto autonomy/independence. Our findings stand in sharp contrast to the ‘unification/independence’ dichotomy or the ‘unification/status quo/independence’ trifurcation commonly applied by the existing literature. Thus, the findings may serve as the basis for constructing a more comprehensive analytical framework facilitating further research on national identity issues in Taiwan.