Why Build a Temple?: The Materialization of New Community Ideals in the Demilitarized Islands between China and Taiwan
Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals as an obstacle to modernization and has thus been devalued. This article points out how this pejorative view of religion has latently persisted in contemporary Taiwan in the formulation of an important po...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2017]
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| In: |
Material religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 13, Issue: 2, Pages: 131-155 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Matsu (Island)
/ Religious community
/ Temple construction
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| IxTheo Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BM Chinese universism; Confucianism; Taoism KBM Asia |
| Further subjects: | B
materialization
B China B Taiwan B Chinese religion B Mazu Islands B Community |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals as an obstacle to modernization and has thus been devalued. This article points out how this pejorative view of religion has latently persisted in contemporary Taiwan in the formulation of an important policy of community development. The author draws on ethnography from the Mazu Islands, a former frontier military base, to investigate the predicaments and breakthroughs of community projects carried out there, and to show that a sense of community began to emerge only when the local elites recognized the importance of religion and began to participate in building the village temple. By allowing different generations of Mazu people to negotiate their ideas of community, the process of temple construction has transformed their often adversarial social relations. This paper demonstrates that religion, and in particular the process of its materialization, can serve as a basis for the formation of a new community in the twenty-first century. |
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| Physical Description: | Illustrationen |
| ISSN: | 1751-8342 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Material religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2016.1237050 |