Taiwan

Arif Dirlik (1940-2017) was Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and author and editor of several books, including Postmodernism and China, also published by Duke University Press.

The contributors to this special issue examine the role successive colonialisms played in forging a distinct Taiwanese identity and the theoretical implications the Taiwanese experience of colonialism raises regarding the making of modern national identities. In addition to its indigenous culture, a long succession of colonial rulers--variously the Netherlands, Spain, the kingdom of Tungning, the Ming and Qing dynasties, Japan, and Kuomintang China--have forged a distinctive Taiwanese national identity. The Taiwan case suggests that it is misleading to approach colonialism as an obstacle to national identity without also accounting for the ways in which colonialism has historically factored into the constitution of national identities. The contributors address the ways in which the colonizer's culture transformed the colonized, setting them in new historical directions, even if those directions were not what the colonizers expected.