ANTHROPOLOGY/SISEA 470

ESSAY TOPIC #6: TAIWAN

Due by email at 5 p.m. on Monday, June 8

B. Note: this topic requires you to know something already about Han-Han relations in the PRC. Much work has been done on ethnic relations among different Han groups in Taiwan; not much has been done in this regard in the PRC (though there is some work on pre-1949 China). In light of this,

a) How alike or different are Han-Han ethnic group relations and Han-Other ethnic group relationships in China?

b) To what extent does the minzu policy of the PRC contribute to the lack of attention to Han-Han ethnic relations in contemporary China?

C. Compare the construction of ethnicity, as a combination of self-recognition and recognition by others, among the Yuanzhumin (indigenes or aborigines) in Taiwan with the construction of ethnicity among any groups you choose in Southwest China. To what extent are they similar and different? To what extent are the differences due to the society and politics before the 1950s, and to what extent are they due to different policies of the PRC and ROC/ROC on Taiwan governments?

D. Take the treatments of multiculturalism in Taiwan from Hsin-yi Lu, Scott Simon (who also considers Canada in his analysis), and Kuangchun Li, and compare them with the account you read earlier for China in Susan McCarthy's Communist Multiculturalism. On the basis of these accounts, show whether and how the Communist approach to multicultural nation-building differs from those of the democratic governments in Taiwan and Canada.

General guidelines for essays
All essays should be submitted by email to the instructor by 5:00 p.m. on the posted due date. Essays that are submitted late on the due date will be graded down one notch (e.g. A- to B+ or B to B-); essays that come in after the due date will be graded down two notches (e.g. A to B+ or B+ to B-). Essays will be returned with extensive comments by one week from the announced due date and time.

Essays should be between 1500 and 2000 words in length, not counting bibliographic references. You may use any style (footnotes, endnotes, or embedded author and date) for references, as long as it is clear where you have gotten your information. Quotations should always be referenced, as should any information that is taken explicitly from a given source.