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Tanners of Taiwan: Life Strategies and National Culture
Contributor(s): Simon, Scott (Author)

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ISBN: 0367096781     ISBN-13: 9780367096786
Publisher: Routledge
OUR PRICE: $178.13  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: June 2019
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Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia - General
- Social Science | Anthropology - General
- Political Science | World - Asian
Dewey: 305.8
Series: Westview Case Studies in Anthropology
Physical Information: 195 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Asian
Features: Glossary
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Tanners of Taiwan is an ethnography of identity construction set in the leather-tanning communities of Southern Taiwan. Through life history analysis and ethnographic observation, Simon examines what it means to be Chinese - or alternatively Taiwanese - in contemporary Taiwan. Under forty years of martial law from 1947 to 1987, the Chinese Nationalist Party tried to create a Chinese identity in Taiwan through ideological campaigns that reached deep into families, schools and workplaces. They justified their rule through a development narrative that Chinese culture and good policy contributed to the prosperity of the Taiwan miracle. These ideological claims and cultural identities, however, have never been fully accepted in Southern Taiwan. This ethnography is the first to document from the ground level how those claims have been contested, and how a new Taiwanese identity has been constructed since democratization. Tanners of Taiwan provides more than a description of workplaces in Taiwan. Looking at the different perspectives of tanners, women managers, and workers, it demonstrates how cultural and other identities are constructed through dynamics of power and political economy. A small, affordable case studies book to be assigned with a core textbook in introductory anthropology courses. Shows how the US reader is connected to the seemingly distant lives of Taiwanese tanners. Simon follows hides from the US to tanneries in Taiwan, then elsewhere to be made into shoes and other leather goods, and then back to the consumer in the US - demonstrating concretely the notion of global interconnectedness. Anchored in personal observation and ethnographic detail, the book makes very tangible such otherwise abstract notions as national identity and global integration.
 
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