Reclaiming cultural identities under settler rule: case studies of the Hakkas and the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples

Abstract

Chinese settler rule was established in Taiwan in 1945. The Chinese settler rulers' national identity policies strongly suppressed the cultural identities of two local ethnic minority groups: the Hakkas and the Taiwanese Indigenous Peoples. By reviewing the relevant literature, this paper investigates how these two ethnic groups reclaimed their self-identification under settler rule. When the increasing population of these two minority groups moved to Taipei City, the capital of Taiwan, they established many urban-based societies. With Taiwan's democratisation in the 1980s, these societies were able to launch grassroots movements to shake the settler rulers' legitimacy. This eventually drove political decision-makers to establish policies benefiting these two groups' self-identification. This paper elaborates this identity-reclaiming process and therefore contributes to the wider academic debate concerned with settler colonial studies.