Martial Law Era Research Articles

Towards a Techno-Hauntological Aesthetic: Immiscible Time and the Spiritual Imagination in Bodyless (Shishenji, 2019) by Huang Hsin-Chien

Abstract This article discusses and explores acclaimed new media artist Huang Hsin-Chien’s virtual reality (VR) experience Bodyless (Shishenji, 2019). In this film, through the process of the body illusion or the body replacement program, a component specific to VR, viewers embody the soul of a political prisoner deceased during Taiwan’s martial law era. Bodyless juxtaposes Taiwan’s traditional spiritual traditions with references to the Ghost Festival (中元節) and includes a dystopic vision of the future that appears towards the end of the film. This article establishes, through a close reading of several key sequences of the film, the emergence of a techno-hauntological aesthetic. It creates a dialogue between Huang’s dream-like imagery and various interpretation of Bliss Cua Lim’s concepts of immiscible time and heterogeneous space. How does Bodyless visually enact, perform, and develop a techno-hauntological aesthetic? How does the artist explore philosophical concepts related to memory, time, and space by using VR?

Shifting narratives: A critical discourse analysis of racial bias in the tale of Wu Feng’s indigenous representation

Heroic tales can support a nation’s mainstream ideology, but for minority groups, such as indigenous peoples, they can also be a detrimental oppositional force. This study explores the evolving discourse surrounding the tale of Wu Feng, arguably the most widespread and prominent narrative responsible for traumatizing indigenous peoples in Taiwan. Employing a critical discourse analysis of three texts from significant historical eras (Taiwan under Japanese rule, the martial-law era under the Nationalist Kuomintang’s rule, and the beginning of Taiwan’s indigenous rights movements), the study reveals the shifting portrayal of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples over time. Additionally, by incorporating data obtained by interviewing key stakeholders, it discusses the enduring ramifications of the tale for Taiwan’s indigenous communities. In conclusion, this paper urges that increased attention be directed toward recognizing the voices and experiences of minorities as represented in historical tales, to ensure greater inclusivity and balance.

Homey foods: Domesticating memories of the martial-law era in Taiwan’s heritage tourism

After the martial law period (1949–1987) ended, Taiwan embarked on democratization, which became interwoven with Taiwanization. Mainlander migrants, who came to Taiwan in the late 1940s with the Chinese Nationalist Party, and their offspring born in Taiwan, have come to be recognized or position themselves as the ethnic group of Mainlanders. Essential to this ongoing identity (trans)formation in Taiwanese society is how to remember the martial-law era. This article examines heritage tourism of two preserved sites built in early postwar Taiwan: the Shihlin Official Residence 士林官邸 of Chiang Kai-shek and the Forty-four South Village 四四南村, one of the earliest military dependents’ villages. More specifically, it investigates how tourist culinary programs and on-site exhibits de-militarize and de-sinicize the heritage sites to create a nostalgic prosthetic memory couched in a discourse of home-building and domesticity, which parallels the mainlanders’ changing foodways with their Taiwanization.

Internal orientalism on Taiwan: the ROC's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission and its portrayal of Tibetan Buddhism

ABSTRACT Tibetan Buddhism has played a shifting role in the official identity discourse of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. Established for the administration of Tibet, Mongolia, and other frontier regions in 1928, the ROC's Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission (MTAC) continued research and publication activity on Taiwan (1949–2017). A major focus of this work was Tibetan Buddhism. This article examines how MTAC portrayals of Tibetan Buddhism evolved in response to changes in the ROC's legitimating ideology and to Taiwan's shifting political and cultural context. During the martial law era (1949–1987), Tibetan Buddhism was largely portrayed as an exotic religion facing brutal Communist oppression. By the twenty-first century, the MTAC was repositioning itself as a supporter of Tibetan Buddhism within Taiwan. MTAC discourse on Tibetan Buddhism reflects both the growing detachment of ROC politics from Mainland affairs and the persistence of Orientalist views of Tibetans and their culture.

Mnemonic-Historical Materials of Literature: Local Prose Genealogy and Historical Context of Taiwanese Writers during Japanese Colonial Period in the Post-war Era

<p>當前臺灣文學本土論研究的解釋框架中，多以小說作為主軸，散文相對受到忽視。然而，散文對於臺灣文學本土論而言，其實有著不可或缺的意義，因為它作為個人經歷或歷史經驗的表述與再現，具有奠基於真實性的基礎，不僅涉及文學表意，更包含記憶政治的問題。日治作家在戰後回溯過去生命經歷的「散文」，具有述史的性質，因而既是自傳，同時也是「記憶性文學史料」。在日治記憶遭受壓抑的戒嚴期間，他們的散文集是戰後世代認識日治的第一手文本，更是建構日治臺灣史與臺灣文學史的重要一環。本文聚焦由戰後初期至解嚴之前這段期間，曾於生前或身後出版散文集的日治本土作家，透過文本分析，考察日治作家的生命史與精神史，以彰顯個人的歷史意識，並梳理散文的文類概念與語言使用，藉此探討不同時代散文集的出版意義，試圖指出在戰後戒嚴體制的時空情境裡，本土散文具備重建歷史記憶的功能，形成一個有別於中國抒情傳統的本土「述史」傳統。沿著這個脈絡，進而重新評估本土散文在臺灣文學史上的重要性，以拓展臺灣本土文學論的內涵。</p> <p> </p><p>The current studies of Taiwanese literary localism have built its framework mostly on novel; prose, by contrast, is often overlooked. However, prose has crucial significance for Taiwanese literary localism, in that it articulates and represents personal lives and historical experiences. Prose is based on reality, engaging with literary expression and the politics of memory. When Taiwanese writers who lived through the Japanese colonial period wrote about their past experiences in prose, their writings were characterized by a historical narrative. As such, their writings are both autobiographies and “Mnemonic-Historical Materials of Literature.” During the martial law era when Japanese colonial memories are suppressed, their prose collections are the first-hand texts for the post-war generation to learn about Japanese colonization; furthermore, they play a vital role in constructing the history of Taiwan under Japanese Colonial Rule and the history of Taiwanese literature. This paper focuses on Taiwanese writers under Japanese Colonial Rule, who had published prose collections during the life time or posthumously, from the early post-war years to the period just before the lifting of martial law. Through textual analysis, the paper investigates the life histories and spiritual histories to foreground the historical consciousness in these individuals. The paper also explores the notion of genre and the language use of prose to discuss the significance of publishing proses in a different era. The paper seeks to indicate that local proses serve to reconstruct historical memories during the martial law era, forming a local history narrative tradition distinct from the Chinese lyrical tradition. Following this vein, the paper reevaluates the significance of Taiwanese local prose in the history of Taiwanese literature, so as to enrich the scope of Taiwanese literary localism.</p> <p> </p>

Cultural diplomacy, artistic network, and the politics of decolonization between Taiwan and the Philippines in the Cold War era

ABSTRACT During the Cold War, cultural engagements frequently occurred between Taiwan and the Philippines due to their military and geopolitical alliance in East Asia. This essay explores this cultural linkage at both the diplomatic and individual levels by examining the politics and aesthetics of the art exhibitions both countries participated in as well as the intellectual encounters among individual artists. The First Southeast Asia Art Conference and Competition, a postwar art event held in the Philippines, demonstrated Taiwan’s cultural diplomacy in the Free World; it also highlighted the different figurations of colonial modernities and the emerging national identities developed in East and Southeast Asia in the postcolonial era. While the cultural linkage between Taiwan and the Philippines was a product of the geo-military strategy in the Cold War era, the translocal friendships and the artistic networks were actively maintained by the individual artists in the late Cold War years, after the Taiwan–Philippines diplomatic relation ended. This intra-regional network created an alternative trajectory of knowledge circulation that allowed Philippine leftist nationalist writings to be published in Taiwan in the latter’s martial law era. Furthermore, it provides a comparative perspective on the political discourses and artistic practices of decolonial initiatives in Taiwan and the Philippines.

Emancipatory Erasures

In her series Erased Slogans (2008–), artist and activist Kiri Dalena scours archives for photographs of protests in Manila during Martial Law Era under the Marcos dictatorship. Dalena digitally scans these black and white images and then painstakingly removes the texts on the protest signs. Her exhibition shows these landscapes of blank white surfaces held up by unidentified bodies. This essay focuses on Dalena’s work and situates the photographs of protest in the nexus of memory and activism exploring the act of erasure as a work of libatory memory. Erasure is not simply an accomplice to forgetting. Remembering through the aesthetics of erasure is a radical act of resistance that plays with time and reconceptualizes hope. Dalena’s work shows us that the emancipatory significance of photography lies not in its fixity, but in its ability to ask us to read what has been taken against what has been left behind. Because like liberation, memory is not something we have, but rather something we must do collectively.

Decorated Duterte: Digital Objects and the Crisis of Martial Law History in the Philippines

Much of the contemporary crisis in coming to terms with the past may have digital origins. We can see this crisis as engineered or assembled through a new series of historical actors: memes and posts on social media and, behind them, the work of trolls and paid influencers. These actors do not travel with first-person accounts of events so much as accumulate in the digital ephemera of daily lives and are then archived as the currency of digital capitalism, saved in individual online albums, on smart phones and then republished elsewhere. Their circulation and accumulation can be strategically directed by political actors who seek to overturn established historical consensus. Tracing the trajectory of memes featuring the Philippines’ President Duterte, this paper explores how digital objects have contributed to attempts to rework the history of the Martial Law era.

An alternative cinema of poverty: Understanding the Taiwanese-language film industry

The term taiyupian refers to over one thousand low-budget, Taiwanese-language films made between the mid-1950s and early 1970s. How should we understand this industry? It was neglected and forgotten for many years. By the time scholars became interested in the 1990s in revisiting taiyupian as part of the ‘sadness’ of the island’s martial law era, only 178 complete films survived. More recently, they have been revalorized and promoted as cult movies. In response to the limitations of those frameworks, this essay proposes approaching taiyupian as an alternative ‘cinema of poverty.’ Here, cinema of poverty is not a derogatory remark. Nor is it praise for high modernist purism, along the lines proposed by Jerzy Grotowski in his concept of a theatre of poverty. Rather, it is an analytical term, referring to the adoption of ingenious methods to realize a Hollywood-style cinema industry and culture on a low budget. In other words, this alternative cinema of poverty was also a cinema of aspiration. The essay asks if this practice can be considered as an exuberantly commercial practice of what Lu Xun in the 1930s called ‘grabbism’ (nalai zhuyi), appropriating anything that works from other cultural forms and overseas to create a locally distinctive cosmopolitanism of the poor. Furthermore, it argues that the idea of the taiyupian industry as an alternative cinema of poverty places it in a lineage of similarly neglected popular and commercial film industries that emulated Hollywood on a budget here.

PERFORMING HUMAN RIGHTS: PISTA RIZALINA’S INTERROGATIONS OF MARTIAL LAW, EXTRA-JUDICIAL KILLINGS AND HISTORICAL REVISIONSM AT THE CULTURAL CENTER OF THE PHILIPPINES

The essay inquires a general question: what is the relationship of theater and human rights? A preliminary reflection is provided using the different activities staged at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on the occasion of Pista Rizalina (Fiesta Rizalina) in September 2017. The festival was named after Rizalina Ilagan, a student activist-artist abducted by the military during the Martial Law era under President Ferdinand E. Marcos. To date, Ilagan’s body has not been found. The festival is a commemoration of the victims of human rights violations encountered by thousands of Filipinos since the Martial Law era of Marcos. In the end, it is argued that performing human rights at the CCP is a tool to transmit traumatic experiences for the understanding of those who did not suffer violence, oppression and tyranny (i.e. today’s younger generation). The relationship of theatre and human rights is asserted to be a rehearsal for a community where the other is encountered with care and responsibility.Keywords: theatre and human rights, protest theatre, Philippine society and culture, Ferdinand Marcos, Rodrigo Duterte, theatre and activis

Nation branding in contemporary Taiwan: a grassroots perspective

ABSTRACTThis paper, based on textual analysis and interviews, offers a complementary perspective of scholarly studies of nation branding which focus on the state and corporate elites involved in such undertakings. It places grassroots initiatives in branding Taiwan through tourist souvenirs and other video and graphic materials against the larger background of cultural policies and official branding campaigns, and shows grassroots actors’ complex entanglement with official institutions, policies and discourses despite declared scepticism towards the latter and a low degree of direct collaboration. It compares official and grassroots messages and argues that the latter are more coherent; capture a local specificity and encourage a tourist gaze centred around the ‘human touch’ theme; distance themselves from China, the significant ‘other’ of Taiwanese nationalism; and markedly highlight an epistemological and representational strategy based on individual, sensorial experience, which may constitute a response to biased and untrustworthy state national narratives of the martial law era.

A Critical Assessment of Z.A Bhutto’s Policies (1973–1977)

When Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto ascended to power in Pakistan, the country was in its critical phase of economic deterioration. He, in fact, had to face multidimensional challenges from all directions simultaneously. An extreme level of hopelessness and futility among the nation was painfully evident as a result of the severe cross-border tensions with India during that time. Following the martial law era of Field Marshal Ayub Khan, the repulsive regional differences and class discrepancy were prevailing in the economy. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto came up with the idea of equality and social justice in order to quickly gain attention and favor from masses by adopting policies in the favor of common masses. He made several reforms in different major sectors of the economy in the first place which were merely based on the proposition of nationalization. A great debate has been conducted since then to justify whether the policy of nationalization came out as a curse or blessing for the country. This paper attempts to find out what the persisting literature talks about it, to provide our own point of view with some strong notions.

Cybercrime, criminal libel and the media: From ‘e-martial law’ to the Magna Carta in the Philippines

President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines on 21 September 1972. Issuing the declaration under Proclamation 1081 which suspended civil rights, gagged the news media and imposed military authority in the country, Marcos defended this draconian move under the Philippines Constitution in response to a series of bombings allegedly caused by communist rebels. The emergency rule at the height of the Cold War was also planned to quell rebellion and drive national development. Four decades later, on 12 September 2012, President Benigno Aquino III signed Republic Act No. (RA) 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act, into law. This legislation was immediately widely condemned as a threat to freedom of expression on the internet, the media and online privacy and has been likened by human rights groups, media freedom advocates, ‘netizens’ and opposition Congress members as comparable to the Marcos Martial Law era. Kabataan Representative Raymond Palatino branded the legislation ‘e-Martial Law’, comparing it to repressive Marcos-era decrees censoring and harassing the media. Fifteen Supreme Court appeal petitions were lodged against the Cybercrime Law but the subsequent ruling found the law constitutional in February 2014. This article examines the law, challenges since the constitutional ruling, and demands for repealing the law and replacing it with a so-called ‘Magna Carta’ of internet media freedom.Pictured: Figure 1: Protests against the Cybercrime Law have been widespread in the Philippines. Image: Interaksyon

Transitional Justice and Teaching Youth about the Martial Law Era in Philippines

Transitional Justice and Teaching Youth about the Martial Law Era in Philippines

Power Relations in Creating and Distributing Official Knowledge in Children’s Literature: Historical Picture of Taiwan

With a specific focus on power relations in creating and distributing knowledge in society, this study examines the government‐published children’s series Historical Picture of Taiwan produced in Taiwan in the Martial Law era (1949–1987) to uncover ideological assumptions and persuasions permeating both linguistic and visual representations of the history of Taiwan. Drawing on the sociology of school knowledge and critical theories of ideology (Althusser, 1986; Hollindale, 1992), hegemony (Gramsci, 1988), and selective tradition (Williams, 1989), the research investigates the relations between literary representations and contemporary socioeconomic, cultural, and political circumstances. Apple’s (1990) concept of relational analysis is adopted with the analytic methods of constant comparative analysis (Butler‐Kisber, 2010) and ideological analytical approach (Serafini, 2010) to relationally compare and analyze both written texts and images and to relate them to sociohistorical and cultural changes in society.

Changes in Philippine labour relations policy: Convergence or divergence of productivity, flexibility and welfare?

AbstractIn the first decade of the present century, a succession of changes to Philippine labour law and jurisprudence sought to contribute to productivity and social welfare by introducing greater industrial relations flexibility, based on collective bargaining and voluntary dispute settlement. The article examines whether these changes actually resulted in any shift from a rights-based system for resolving industrial disputation to a system based on workplace-level interest-based negotiation, and whether they were accompanied either by higher labour productivity or by improved social welfare. The analysis draws on a conceptual framework that identifies coherent national labour regulation systems as being based on a convergence of three institutional approaches – to the operation of labour markets, of labour relations and of social security. Broadly, such labour regulation systems can be classified as either civil law or common law based. The Philippine labour regulation system is shown to have a hybrid basis, whose origins are briefly traced by identifying the legacy of the colonial and post-colonial phases, the martial law era and the restoration of democracy in 1986. Whereas Australia, another hybrid system, appears to have achieved some coherence in changes to the regulation of industrial relations, labour markets and social welfare, in the Philippines, such changes have not converged. In the 1990s, efforts to mitigate the traditional legalistic and adversarial character of industrial relations through liberalisation of restrictions on the right to organise were cross-cut by the effects of the growing labour market flexibility that resulted from integration into the global economy. Legal changes between 1999 and 2011 have not fostered voluntary self-organisation of distributive bargaining at enterprise level. Union membership, collective bargaining coverage and numbers of workers involved in notified or actual industrial action have declined, while reliance on compulsory arbitration and monetary compensation claims has remained high. Labour productivity has not improved. Within the context of globalisation, the labour market is increasingly characterised by numerical flexibility and a prevalence of small enterprises. High unemployment levels and a large informal sector indicate divergence between the systems for regulating labour and welfare.

Philippine Tourism: Evolution towards Sustainability

Tourism industry in the Philippines has been identified as one of the powerful engines for a strong and sustained economic growth. To determine whether the Philippine tourism industry is moving towards sustainable development, this paper explores the evolution of the tourism industry in the Philippines by tracing its historical transformations and determining its typology. Four major periods has been recognized, namely: 1] pre-martial law era (years before 1972); 2] martial law era (1972-1986); 3] post-martial law era (1986-2000); and 4] 21st century era (2001-present). The eras are based on the country’s major political regimes. Corresponding events and numerous initiatives undertaken by the government agencies, non-government organizations and private sectors that significantly affect the tourism industry are described and analyzed. It is concluded that tourism is a well established industry in the Philippines that contributes to an inclusive economic growth of the country. The continued concerted efforts of all the stakeholders of the industry in the implementation of all these initiatives will surely lead to a sustainable Philippine tourism.

From control to autonomy? Journalism awards and the changing journalistic profession in Taiwan

In most professional fields, award giving often symbolizes the establishment of professional standards by acknowledging and promoting exemplary practices. Theoretically, awards also serve as an important indicator of the level of professional autonomy in a specific field. In Taiwan, numerous journalism awards have been established over the last 50 years under the claim of enhancing news quality. Yet these awards do not necessarily signify a high level of journalistic autonomy in Taiwan; instead, they have become an implicit control mechanism through which the government operates to shape news production to further its political agenda. Previous studies on Taiwan's news media during the Martial Law era often focused on the restrictions imposed on the media, analyzing the oppressive methods employed by the government to undermine the freedom of the press. This study, however, examines how the government uses award giving to establish and exemplify its journalistic preferences and thus control news production. Specifically, this study reviews the history of the major journalism awards established in Taiwan since the 1950s with a focus on three aspects in each historical period: (1) the characteristics of the award organizers; (2) the objectives of establishing the awards; and (3) the genre of the winning works.

History, Identity, and the Politics of Taiwan’s Museums

Museums in Taiwan—as elsewhere—have always been embroiled in politicised debates over collective identity, both reflecting and helping to shape the contours of identity discourse. During the four decades of the Martial Law era, the Kuomintang (KMT) regime used museums as vehicles for its campaigns to nurture patriotic citizens of a “Republic of China” encompassing the entire Chinese mainland. However, with the onset of democratisation from the late 1980s, museums increasingly reflected and reinforced a strengthening consensus over Taiwan’s historical and cultural distinctiveness, while also mirroring the considerable pluralism of popular identity consciousness. This trend was accentuated under the regime of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) after 2000, but 2008 witnessed the return to power of a KMT determined to establish warmer ties with China. This paper examines the extent to which the new regime’s more accommodative approach to China has extended into the realm of museums, while considering whether developments within the sector, and within broader Taiwanese society, mean that museums are no longer quite the pliable tools of official cultural policy that they once were.

The Question of Identity in Recent Scholarship on the History of Taiwan

AbstractThis essay provides a survey of emblematic works of recent scholarship on Taiwanese identity written in English and Chinese by scholars from around the world. The objective is to determine what a post-2000 “second wave” of scholarship says about the definition and origins of island-wide Taiwanese identities. This second wave is distinguished by a greater attention to pre-1945 and martial law era Taiwanese history, more attention to a range of identities, both national and non-national, and by the use of sources that had not been readily available to scholars writing in the 1980s and 1990s. I argue that recent works have advanced the field considerably, but that they are too heavily influenced by contemporary debates over Taiwanese independence and too reliant on literary sources to fully answer the question of “who are the Taiwanese?” I conclude by suggesting directions for future scholarship on the subject.