Civilisation has for many decades been a rejected concept in anthropology and sociology because o... more Civilisation has for many decades been a rejected concept in anthropology and sociology because of its past evolutionary and Eurocentric misuses. Our reason for reintroducing it is that it will enable us to go beyond the narrow confines of time and space to which culture and society have been restricted and to raise our eyes to see the relations of societies and cultures to each other on a larger scale. In this chapter we will show how we can do this without the assumption of unilinear evolution and without Euro- or any other ethnocentrism.
Lu Lin Wumu was born in a shack by a stream in the mountains of northern Taiwan, near the very sm... more Lu Lin Wumu was born in a shack by a stream in the mountains of northern Taiwan, near the very small mining town of Shiding. He was adopted into the family of a small shopkeeper in the town as a young married-in son-in-law to a girl who had also been adopted into the family. At the age of 12, in the year 1886, his adopting father died leaving him, as the oldest male in the family, responsible for the public face of the family, including its shop, though his adopting mother remained in the role of the responsible adult.
Religion is profuse in Taiwan, and this is reflected in publications. In the last chapter of this... more Religion is profuse in Taiwan, and this is reflected in publications. In the last chapter of this collection, Randall Nadeau and Chang Hsun point out that Taiwanese academic publications on religion in Taiwan have increased hugely in the last two decades. Taiwanese anthropologists have probably been most prominent in this study. But this book contains only one chapter by an anthropologist writing as such. He is Huang Shiu-wey. Typical of an old anthropological habit, now that Chinese, according to Nadeau and Chang, are more studied than aboriginal inhabitants (yuanzhumin) by Taiwanese anthropologists, Huang's chapter is on the Ami. It stands awkwardly among the others, which are by historians and teachers in religious studies departments, with its use of anthropological concepts of culture and identity and its concentration on ritual and avoidance of a discrete concept of religion. One other chapter is about “religious culture.” It is by Julian Pas, the justly renowned editor of...
Socialist governance and popular sovereignty require state administration of care. In the People&... more Socialist governance and popular sovereignty require state administration of care. In the People's Republic of China (PRC) today, such state care is provided in the form of public services and in the guarantee of social security. Ideally, different levels of government should foster relations of care in local communities and remain responsive to “the people.” Local self-government, relations of mutual support and ritual communities, however, reveal the deficits of state care. Much like general philosophies of care, such local ethics of care propose universal benchmarks against which social practice can be measured. This article outlines the main contours of state care in the post-Mao Zedong PRC, and contrasts its findings with empirical research on public services, social security and ritual responsiveness. Mutual help, neighbourhood communities and ritual practice, in particular, provide alternative models of care. As such, they can be extended and universalized, and offer poss...
German acknowledgement of the injustices committed under its Nazi regime is exemplary in two sens... more German acknowledgement of the injustices committed under its Nazi regime is exemplary in two senses. One is the sheer scale of atrocity to be acknowledged. The other is the scale and depth of the acknowledgement organized and paid by the federal and local states of Germany. The precondition for acknowledgment was a sudden change of narrative and regime, initially imposed by the occupation forces, but taken up with increasing amplitude by the Federal German state. This is comparable with the changed narrative and regime in Taiwan, precondition for acknowledging the White Terror, a human injustice on a very much smaller scale. I use the idea of ‘contexts of redemption’ to describe this precondition. They are contexts created by world politics, in which world powers are engaged in the creation of new nations. Issues of international justice and the precedent of an international, cosmopolitan court of justice to try war criminals soon became enveloped in the ideological and military con...
Civilisation has for many decades been a rejected concept in anthropology and sociology because o... more Civilisation has for many decades been a rejected concept in anthropology and sociology because of its past evolutionary and Eurocentric misuses. Our reason for reintroducing it is that it will enable us to go beyond the narrow confines of time and space to which culture and society have been restricted and to raise our eyes to see the relations of societies and cultures to each other on a larger scale. In this chapter we will show how we can do this without the assumption of unilinear evolution and without Euro- or any other ethnocentrism.
Lu Lin Wumu was born in a shack by a stream in the mountains of northern Taiwan, near the very sm... more Lu Lin Wumu was born in a shack by a stream in the mountains of northern Taiwan, near the very small mining town of Shiding. He was adopted into the family of a small shopkeeper in the town as a young married-in son-in-law to a girl who had also been adopted into the family. At the age of 12, in the year 1886, his adopting father died leaving him, as the oldest male in the family, responsible for the public face of the family, including its shop, though his adopting mother remained in the role of the responsible adult.
Religion is profuse in Taiwan, and this is reflected in publications. In the last chapter of this... more Religion is profuse in Taiwan, and this is reflected in publications. In the last chapter of this collection, Randall Nadeau and Chang Hsun point out that Taiwanese academic publications on religion in Taiwan have increased hugely in the last two decades. Taiwanese anthropologists have probably been most prominent in this study. But this book contains only one chapter by an anthropologist writing as such. He is Huang Shiu-wey. Typical of an old anthropological habit, now that Chinese, according to Nadeau and Chang, are more studied than aboriginal inhabitants (yuanzhumin) by Taiwanese anthropologists, Huang's chapter is on the Ami. It stands awkwardly among the others, which are by historians and teachers in religious studies departments, with its use of anthropological concepts of culture and identity and its concentration on ritual and avoidance of a discrete concept of religion. One other chapter is about “religious culture.” It is by Julian Pas, the justly renowned editor of...
Socialist governance and popular sovereignty require state administration of care. In the People&... more Socialist governance and popular sovereignty require state administration of care. In the People's Republic of China (PRC) today, such state care is provided in the form of public services and in the guarantee of social security. Ideally, different levels of government should foster relations of care in local communities and remain responsive to “the people.” Local self-government, relations of mutual support and ritual communities, however, reveal the deficits of state care. Much like general philosophies of care, such local ethics of care propose universal benchmarks against which social practice can be measured. This article outlines the main contours of state care in the post-Mao Zedong PRC, and contrasts its findings with empirical research on public services, social security and ritual responsiveness. Mutual help, neighbourhood communities and ritual practice, in particular, provide alternative models of care. As such, they can be extended and universalized, and offer poss...
German acknowledgement of the injustices committed under its Nazi regime is exemplary in two sens... more German acknowledgement of the injustices committed under its Nazi regime is exemplary in two senses. One is the sheer scale of atrocity to be acknowledged. The other is the scale and depth of the acknowledgement organized and paid by the federal and local states of Germany. The precondition for acknowledgment was a sudden change of narrative and regime, initially imposed by the occupation forces, but taken up with increasing amplitude by the Federal German state. This is comparable with the changed narrative and regime in Taiwan, precondition for acknowledging the White Terror, a human injustice on a very much smaller scale. I use the idea of ‘contexts of redemption’ to describe this precondition. They are contexts created by world politics, in which world powers are engaged in the creation of new nations. Issues of international justice and the precedent of an international, cosmopolitan court of justice to try war criminals soon became enveloped in the ideological and military con...
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