ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to provide an analysis of the development of conceptualizations of Taiwan’s ethnic identities during the past seventy years. The conceptualization of ethnicity before the mid-1980s was characterized by the cultural/etic approach, which used cultural characteristics as core elements in defining which constituted an ethnic group, and ethnic categories were usually externally imposed by government officials and anthropologists without taking the local identities into consideration. After ethnicity became a salient social and political issue in 1987 as a result of ethnic political competition after the 1970s, however, it was also re-conceptualized. In this new social/emic approach, “shared disadvantaged social positions” across diverse cultural groups vis-a-via a specific culturally dominating group became an important element in defining an ethnic group. They were also self-identifications constructed by ethnic movement activists in pursuit of collective interests. A further reconceptualization of ethnicity may be needed in a democratized Taiwan.
