Fieldnotes From History (55)—Provincial Elections-p

Click here for the introduction to the Round and Square series "Fieldnotes From History."

One year ago on Round and Square (20 July 2011)—Seinfeld Ethnography: Motor Oil

[a] Provincial Center RF

Click below for other fieldnotes dealing with Taiwan's 1985 provincial elections:

Election 1         Election 2          Election 3          Election 4          Election 5          Election 6
Election 7         Election 8          Election 9          Election 10        Election 11        Election 12
Election 13       Election 14        Election 15        Election 16        Election 17        Election 18

Part of an occasional Round and Square series that follows the blog’s main theme (east meets west, round meets square, and past meets present), these snippets from my early fieldnotes are reproduced as they were written by hand—and then revised on an ancient desktop computer—during my first fieldwork stay in Taiwan (1985-1987).  All entries are the way that I left them when I returned to the United States in 1987—some nicely-stated and some embarrassing. Although the series began with my assumption that the entries can stand alone, I have found that separate comments and notes might help readers understand a world that is now, well, history. These are always separate from the original fieldnote.

The next several dozen entries in this series represent my memories—in the form of fieldnotes that were already well on their way to being letters—of Taiwan's provincial elections in November 1985. I had taken down what I call "jottings" at the time, and "now," two months later, I was ready to get a little bit more detail down in the form of fieldnotes. If you are somewhat unfamiliar with the five-stage process that framed my work habits even back then, it might be worth a quick look at the introduction to this series. Suffice to say here that in Taiwan in 1985 I was working from "jottings" to "fieldnotes" most of the time. Every month or so, I would write a letter that made it all into a more sustained narrative. Even early on, I realized how powerfully the knowledge that I would be writing letters influenced my fieldnotes. You may see it, too. It has remained my method to this day.

[b] Direct RF

Like many fieldnotes, these were "written up" (a term I dislike, but am occasionally willing to use) after the fact. I wonder if most students of anthropology know how common this is. The implications for research, eye-witness authenticity, and historiography are numerous. It is a reality that has never gone away for field researchers of all kinds, though, and I suspect that it never will. 

Comment 

I'll stick with the point here, even though (I'll keep this brief) I would now prefer elegant little details about daily campaigning to these broad matters. Broad or not, they are important, though. To this day we hear people from Vladimir Putin to Jackie Chan saying something along the lines of "our people cannot handle democracy." This is the kind of truism—and that is surely one of the things we engage in our work—that should be studied by anthropologists. It is meme-like in its persistence, and is worthy of careful reflection.

What I regarded back then as a throwaway observation can be thought-through from new perspectives today. Maybe crappy old notes are more useful than even I thought.  

Notes 

[1] The Nationalists did, indeed, have a plan, and it is covered in several of the notes in this series. The fact that it led to direct elections within a decade (despite the chaos to which Jackie Chan refers) is significant.

[c] Participation RF

[2] The century of near-total autocracy on Taiwan since 1895 (almost exactly 100 years before the first direct presidential elections) must not be forgotten. The Japanese, followed by Jiang's (Chiang Kai-shek's) Nationalists, did not have serious opposition, making the eventual "opening" quite interesting for the observer interested in political culture. Internal pressures, while relevant, were nowhere close to what other states had encountered in the 1970s and 1980s. The "opening" is somewhat curious in that sense (and one can think to another state, across the Strait of Taiwan, that must be thinking about plans). In short, these questions remain relevant. 

16 February 1986 

Taipei
Taiwan’s local elections have a reputation for being corrupt—permeated by graft, vote buying, and even gangland violence. Many people have noted that countries such as China and the Soviet Union, with centuries of imperial rule behind them, cannot adjust as easily to democratic practices as countries without the burden of autocracy. This has a kind of surface appeal that ultimately cannot hold up to scrutiny. No society is inherently democratic. A more significant matter is the relationship between past practice and leaders' visions of political power for the future. 

Here, the Guomindang has a plan, and the biggest question is whether or not it can hold to it. It is true that in Asia, democracy is a system of government that has historically come from the outside, but it must be instituted from within. Japan has adjusted quite well to its form of democracy, as have India and others. For me, the greater issue remains the limited and peculiar forms of political participation found on the island. This has historical dimensions (occupation in some form or another for hundreds of years) as well as ethnic ones, and it is hard to see how electoral politics on Taiwan can avoid struggles over Taiwanese and mainland ethnicity.

[d] Overview RF