Comments on: Sports as Embodied Culture

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:00:50 +0000

I agree that the PRC and Taiwan are different, but they are not completely unrelated. The nation-state is a powerful prism and should not condition all our thought. There are many ways in which the social formation in mainstream society for China and Taiwan are closer than are the respective social formations of mainstream Chinese society and minority ethnic groups in the Chinese hinterland. Economically, the two are tightly tied. Linguistically, the Han Chinese share a lot. I don’t think one can view the PRC and Taiwan as entirely different or as synonymous. As a non-Chinese, I also think it’s important not to take a position with regard to the national destiny of Taiwan. It’s their business. Thus, I neither favor nor oppose Taiwan independence.

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By: shevy.dk » Mine del.icio.us-links den 9. august

shevy.dk » Mine del.icio.us-links den 9. august — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 00:30:58 +0000

[...] Sports as Embodied Culture – Antropologisk blogindlÃ¦g om kÃ¸n, sport og krop: “I am making a case that Sherry Ortnerâ

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By: Kerim

Kerim — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:38:32 +0000

I said something above which I feel deserves further clarification: When I say I don’t care for the politics of Taiwanese Independence I don’t mean that I don’t support recognition of Taiwan as an independent nation. I do. I just mean that I don’t like the way these debates are enacted in the local political context. I won’t elaborate those reservations here however, as I don’t think this is the appropriate context.

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By: Kerim

Kerim — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 09:33:33 +0000

While I don’t care much for the politics of Taiwanese Independence, as an anthropologist I take the nation-state seriously, and I think that as far as education is concerned there is no doubt that the Japanese and KMT era policies in Taiwan left a very different mark than what we see in the PRC. Given that perspective, I find it rather difficult to talk about the two countries as a single “socio-cultural unit” even if there are over a million Taiwanese business men living in Shanghai.

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By: Fuji

Fuji — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 04:26:20 +0000

Kerim:
You are absolutely right. I know I’m a mostly mainlander person, and it may not be good form, but I consider work in Taiwan and Hong Kong to be “China” — obviously not the PRC, but as a socio-cultural unit, in a Tu Weiming sense. I guess it is my own “strategic ambiguity.” One of my colleagues here at Davidson is a political scientist named Shelley Rigger (a Taiwanese politics expert, has written on the DPP), and she always makes sure I keep it straight!
Anyway, Shanghai looks a lot like Taibei, especially after they finish building that thing that was supposed to be taller than Taibei 101 (I think I read somewhere the builders have cut back for some reason). Now I’ll probably get more comments from Hong Kong-ers!