The Anthropology of Taiwanese Society

This volume represents the state of the art of anthropology in Taiwan, summing up more than twenty years of fieldwork and publication. It also contains the fullest and best integrated set of anthropological data we have for any region of China, for any period of history. It deals directly with the difficult question that faces China anthropologists - in what sense is Taiwan a part of China? Should Taiwan be primarily described as a natural end product of a long cultural tradition (a Chinese province), or should it be primarily described as a product of external factors (a small, rapidly developing society with the world’s densest population, uniquely situated in the world economy)? For other anthropologists, the volume contains data and analysis that pertain to many current problems: the relationship between ethnicity and social class, the role of historical factors in anthropological explanation, the interaction between religious activities and state control, and the interplay between national and local political and economic systems.