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Tanners of Taiwan

Life Strategies and National Culture

Contributors

By Scott Simon

Formats and Prices

Price

$36.00

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $36.00
  2. ebook $22.99

This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around March 4, 2005. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.

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.”

On Sale
Mar 4, 2005
Page Count
192 pages
Publisher
Avalon Publishing
ISBN-13
9780813341934

Scott Simon

About the Author

Scott Simon is a happiness entrepreneur and founder of Scare Your Soul. He is dedicated to creating, curating, and leading opportunities for people around the world to be happier and more courageous. Scott founded the Scare Your Soul organization in 2015, organically growing it from one Facebook post to a global movement with sixty volunteer ambassadors worldwide. He has presented to groups around the world, appeared widely on TV and podcasts, given a TEDx Talk, and brought his passion for courage to retreats, a life coaching practice, and mindfulness meditations in person and online.

Learn more about this author