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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2020

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Columbia
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Summary

The Introduction starts off by drawing attention to the “memory boom” in contemporary Taiwan among the “mainlanders” – the elderly Chinese civil war exiles and their Taiwan-born children. The mainlander “memory boom” revolves around their traumatic expulsion from China in the mid-twentieth century, which had been suppressed for nearly half a century. It then introduces the book’s main argument – the great exodus serves as the collective “cultural trauma” for the mainlanders to reinvent themselves as deserving citizens of a democratized Taiwan. Next, the chapter provides a brief history of Taiwan. This is followed by an overview of Chinese civil war historiography. The historiographical discussion segues into a theoretical discussion that problematizes the “single event” model of both the psychoanalytic approach and the sociological approach to trauma and memory. The theoretical discussion offers an alternative model based on the multi-event trajectory of mainlander trauma. It makes a categorical distinction between the mnemonic “cultural trauma” and the substantive “social trauma.” The chapter then connects this new understanding of trauma and memory to theorizing diaspora, which underscores dispossessed people’s temporal displacement. The chapter ends with an assessment of the research and debate on mainlander identity formation in present-day Taiwan.

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Chapter
Information
The Great Exodus from China
Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan
, pp. 1 - 39
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Introduction
  • Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: The Great Exodus from China
  • Online publication: 12 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784306.001
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  • Introduction
  • Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: The Great Exodus from China
  • Online publication: 12 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784306.001
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, University of Missouri, Columbia
  • Book: The Great Exodus from China
  • Online publication: 12 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108784306.001
Available formats
×