Construction, Classification, and Identity: Study of Ethnic Identity of Kanakanavu in “Southern Tsou”
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Lin, Yao-tung
Abstract
Several well-known social scientists who are interested in ethnic theories have suggested that ethnic classification systems as the primary devices were employed by the colonial state in order to distinguish all peoples and make them countable and able to be incorporated into the state organization. Some social scientists even maintained that, the use of ethnic classifications as ethnic discourses would construct and create a particular vision of reality. All people are assigned to a single category, and hence are conceptualized as sharing a collective identity.he case of Kanakanavu serves as a very good example. Although Japanese scholars’ opinions about the classification of “Tsou people” were different, former Japanese colonial government and current Taiwanese anthropological classification still consider the two groups of Kanakanavu and Hla’alua as “Southern Tsou”, and Alishan Tsou as “Northern Tsou”. This constructed “reality” has made some Kanakanavu identify themselves as “Tsou people”. owever, this does not mean that they have given up Kanakanavu identity, because they still manipulate some rituals and ethnic discourses, which naturalize some significant cultural symbols, to identify themselves as Kanakanavu. More importantly, naming systems and the regular exchanges between families are the key cultural mechanisms of persisting distinctive identity of Kanakanavu who have been practicing interethnic marriages for a long time. hrough the analysis of the dynamic process and discourses of the official and academic classifications, I demonstrate how Kanakanavu (with Hla’alua) was classified as “Southern Tsou” by colonial rulers and some social researchers, and accentuate the importance of considering the subjectivities of Kanakanavu.ased on my long-term fieldwork and its bottom-up perspective on social life, this research has the advantage of generating first hand local knowledge of ethnicity at the level of everyday interaction. In this dissertation, I provide not only a deeper understanding of the complexity and subtlety of the construction of Tsou tsu/ Tsau tsu in Taiwan, but also an innovative case study and a more holistic and effective model for ethnic identity and indigenous culture studies.
Subjects
ethnic classification
ethnic identity
ethnicity
Tsou
naturalization
imagined communities
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