Full Citation

Title: Taiwan and Ireland in Comparitive Perspective

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2012

ISBN:

ISSN:

DOI:

NSFID:

PMCID:

PMID:

Abstract: 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 postcolonialism; 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.

User Submitted?: No

Authors: McNeil Scott, John; Shih, Fang-Long

Periodical (Full): Taiwan in Comparitive Perspective

Issue: 1

Volume: 4

Pages: 1-238

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Other

Countries: