Towards the Colonial History in Contact Zone:The Indigenous Citizenship in the National Museum Classification System

• Main Authors: LU, MEI-FEN, 盧梅芬
• Other Authors: LIU, CHUN-YU
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/tq5g43

博士 === 國立臺灣藝術大學 === 藝術管理與文化政策研究所 === 105 === Under the national museum classification system of colonialism and nationalism, indigenous citizenship faces two main issues. The first is "classification". Indigenous peoples have been excluded from national history museums and art galleries, but have become a part of natural history museums and ethnographic museums. This has created segregation (“self” and “other”) and hierarchical ranking (superior colonists/inferior indigenous peoples) among citizens. The second is "separateness of time". When a nation-state undergoes a period of prosperity and continuous evolution of civilization, indigenous people are "frozen in the past", and represented through "spectacularization" and "authenticity". This modernist epistemology covers up the "co-existence" of “self” and “other”. Another side to the progress and prosperity of a nation is national violence, such as in colonial history in the contact zone when both the colonizers and the colonized are in the same place at the same time. The research question addressed in this study is why the indigenous peoples have been absent as historical subjects in Taiwan's democratic transformation from assimilation policies to multiculturalism. This is especially interesting, as during the eight-year Chen Shui-bian administration there was support for indigenous peoples and culture. It is also important to explore this question in the deconstruction and reconstruction of the national museum classification system under the new national history project. Why has there been no representation of the colonial history in the contact zone of Taiwan (President Tsai Ing-wen's so-called “national violence history”)? In this study, subjects are national museums (including National Palace Museum, National Museum of Taiwan History) involved in the new national history project and cultural identity constructs and which claim to include indigenous peoples, and ethnic museums (National Museum of Indigenous Peoples, Austronesian Culture Park). Moreover, comparisons are made with the National Taiwan Museum's reconstruction of "Taiwan's modernity" and its neglect of colonization, the termination of the Austronesian Culture Park vs. the establishment of the National Hakka Culture Park, and the lack of institutionalization of indigenous peoples’ historic justice vs. the institutionalization of human rights of transitional justice (Green Island Human Rights Culture Park). The research question is discussed on two levels. From the top level - museum classification, this comprehensive institutional and knowledge development system is a power technique to separate “self” and “other”. This discipline, in terms of the indigenous peoples, not only functions in ethnographic museums, but also in other types of museums. The regulation and control of national history and citizen identity are not individual and isolated power techniques. They are structurally arranged and complementary. The second is the presentation of "about the other", which emphasizes the analysis of indigenous peoples in permanent exhibitions and index special exhibitions. To conclude, following Taiwan's transformation to democracy, and with the hostility between Taiwan and China, it is difficult to achieve intersubjectivity of indigenous and ethnic Chinese peoples. On the contrary, the rights of indigenous peoples have been diluted. During the process of constructing the new national history and cultural identity, the rulers have announced the inclusion of the relatively powerless indigenous peoples, who have been most deeply harmed by assimilation, to manifest the image of democracy in political power. However, in practice, the highest level of acceptance is not "the other", but the new rulers of the Hokkien ethnic group. Moreover, colonial history in the contact zone has not yet unfolded, mainly due to the inability to deconstruct the "model of identity" (pride in indigenous identity) of the 1990s, as well as the limitations of multiculturalism (beautification of indigenous culture). President Tsai's apology to the indigenous people has initiated another type of new national history narrative and brought various ethnic groups into “co-existence”. However, there is not yet the awareness that through museums colonial history in the contact zone can be institutionalized and publicized.