Wei-ping Lin | National Taiwan University (original) (raw)
Papers by Wei-ping Lin
The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China,... more The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions. This title is Open Access.
Material Religion, 2017
Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals a... more 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.
Museum Anthropology Review, 2015
This work is a book review considering the title Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Relig... more This work is a book review considering the title Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities by Wei-Ping Lin.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2013
Drawing on ethnography from Mazu, a group of demilitarized islands between China and Taiwan, this... more Drawing on ethnography from Mazu, a group of demilitarized islands between China and Taiwan, this article argues that contemporary pilgrimage is an imaginative work that generates hope and potentialities for the increasingly marginalized islanders. I explore the imaginative qualities of the rituals, qualities that I refer to collectively as “virtual recentralization.” “Recentralization” connotes the islanders' longing to regain their Cold War status as the focal point between China and Taiwan, even though the desired goal can only be “virtual” as cross-strait tensions continue to diminish. These pilgrimages, with their eclectic, improvisatory, and novel forms, differ from traditional pilgrimages in important ways: rather than transmitting permanent and solid religious values, they are oriented towards performance and are imbued with elements of fiction and fantasy. They are the means by which the Mazu islanders, in this neoliberal era, imagine their future, reconfigure political...
This article, inspired by material culture studies, reconsiders the concept of ghost by means of ... more This article, inspired by material culture studies, reconsiders the concept of ghost by means of a detailed analysis of a particular type of religious architecture, the ghost shrine. By studying its material composition, naming and rites, I show how ghosts are conceived of as asocial and individual beings, gathering mostly in single-sexed groups. This forms the basis for understanding the incidence of a "ghost mother wanting a human son-in-law". In contrast to previous research which describes human-ghost relations from the perspective of the trouble-making and threatening roles of ghosts, this story importantly shows that it is not only ghosts who take advantage of human beings. Motivated by greed, humans also cross the spatial boundary separating humans and ghosts to coerce the latter for their own selfish ends. By dramatizing the gender contrast of ghosts and humans, the story of the ghost mother epitomizes people's ridicule and condemnation of human greed.
This article reconsiders the concept of ghosts and the relationships they build with humans by me... more This article reconsiders the concept of ghosts and the relationships they build with humans by means of a detailed analysis of a particular type of religious architecture, namely the ghost shrine. Ghost shrines in Taiwan are usually located outside of settlements; compared to temples, they are shabby, isolated, and off the beaten track. By studying the material composition, naming, and rites of these shrines, this paper will show how ghosts are conceived of as asocial and individual beings, gathering mostly in single-sex groups. This forms the basis for understanding the central incident investigated here of a “mother ghost seeking a human son-in-law.” In contrast to previous research that describes human-ghost relations in terms of the troublemaking and threatening roles of ghosts, this story importantly shows that it is not only ghosts who take advantage of human beings. Motivated by greed, humans also cross the spatial boundary separating humans and ghosts to coerce the latter for their own selfish ends. By dramatizing the gender contrast of ghosts and humans, the story of the mother ghost epitomizes people’s ridicule and condemnation of human greed.
The Journal of Religion, 2011
Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals a... more 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.
This paper explores how popular religion can offer a different interpretation of history than the... more This paper explores how popular religion can offer a different interpretation of history than the macro politico-economic perspective. It draws on ethnography from rural Taiwan to discuss how the local people have their own ways of understanding history. The author examines religious narratives, the revelations of spirit mediums, and changes in the governance of temples to show how the social histories of the region and the wider society are reconstituted locally. These religious narrations and practices, grounded in ideas of place and in the social relations between deities and their adherents, are important means of constructing local identity and conveying people's agency.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2008
Books by Wei-ping Lin
Cambridge University Press, 2021
Island Fantasia The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off ... more Island Fantasia The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions.
Materializing Magic Power is the first book to explore Chinese popular religion from the perspect... more Materializing Magic Power is the first book to explore Chinese popular religion from the perspective of materialization. A groundbreaking study, it places material culture and spirit mediums within a unified framework, and studies them in the contexts of both villages and cities.
Analyzing the divine power of Chinese deities by means of two important material forms -- god statues and spirit mediums -- offers a fresh approach, as the existing anthropological literature concentrates on only one of these aspects.
Examining the significances of materialization from cultural, social, and material perspectives, this book identifies personification and localization as the crucial cultural mechanisms that bestow efficacy on deity statues and spirit mediums, traces the social consequences of materialization, and demonstrates how the different natures of materials mediate distinct kinds of divine power.
Materializing Magic Power is also unique in its effort to paint a broad picture of the dynamics of popular religion in Taiwan. Following a detailed account of popular religion in villages, it discusses how rural migrant workers cope with challenges in urban environments by inviting branch statues of village deities to the city, establishing an urban shrine, and selecting a new spirit medium. These practices show how traditional village religion is being reconfigured in cities.
The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China,... more The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions. This title is Open Access.
Material Religion, 2017
Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals a... more 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.
Museum Anthropology Review, 2015
This work is a book review considering the title Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Relig... more This work is a book review considering the title Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities by Wei-Ping Lin.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2013
Drawing on ethnography from Mazu, a group of demilitarized islands between China and Taiwan, this... more Drawing on ethnography from Mazu, a group of demilitarized islands between China and Taiwan, this article argues that contemporary pilgrimage is an imaginative work that generates hope and potentialities for the increasingly marginalized islanders. I explore the imaginative qualities of the rituals, qualities that I refer to collectively as “virtual recentralization.” “Recentralization” connotes the islanders' longing to regain their Cold War status as the focal point between China and Taiwan, even though the desired goal can only be “virtual” as cross-strait tensions continue to diminish. These pilgrimages, with their eclectic, improvisatory, and novel forms, differ from traditional pilgrimages in important ways: rather than transmitting permanent and solid religious values, they are oriented towards performance and are imbued with elements of fiction and fantasy. They are the means by which the Mazu islanders, in this neoliberal era, imagine their future, reconfigure political...
This article, inspired by material culture studies, reconsiders the concept of ghost by means of ... more This article, inspired by material culture studies, reconsiders the concept of ghost by means of a detailed analysis of a particular type of religious architecture, the ghost shrine. By studying its material composition, naming and rites, I show how ghosts are conceived of as asocial and individual beings, gathering mostly in single-sexed groups. This forms the basis for understanding the incidence of a "ghost mother wanting a human son-in-law". In contrast to previous research which describes human-ghost relations from the perspective of the trouble-making and threatening roles of ghosts, this story importantly shows that it is not only ghosts who take advantage of human beings. Motivated by greed, humans also cross the spatial boundary separating humans and ghosts to coerce the latter for their own selfish ends. By dramatizing the gender contrast of ghosts and humans, the story of the ghost mother epitomizes people's ridicule and condemnation of human greed.
This article reconsiders the concept of ghosts and the relationships they build with humans by me... more This article reconsiders the concept of ghosts and the relationships they build with humans by means of a detailed analysis of a particular type of religious architecture, namely the ghost shrine. Ghost shrines in Taiwan are usually located outside of settlements; compared to temples, they are shabby, isolated, and off the beaten track. By studying the material composition, naming, and rites of these shrines, this paper will show how ghosts are conceived of as asocial and individual beings, gathering mostly in single-sex groups. This forms the basis for understanding the central incident investigated here of a “mother ghost seeking a human son-in-law.” In contrast to previous research that describes human-ghost relations in terms of the troublemaking and threatening roles of ghosts, this story importantly shows that it is not only ghosts who take advantage of human beings. Motivated by greed, humans also cross the spatial boundary separating humans and ghosts to coerce the latter for their own selfish ends. By dramatizing the gender contrast of ghosts and humans, the story of the mother ghost epitomizes people’s ridicule and condemnation of human greed.
The Journal of Religion, 2011
Since the early twentieth century religion has been seen by the Chinese state and intellectuals a... more 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.
This paper explores how popular religion can offer a different interpretation of history than the... more This paper explores how popular religion can offer a different interpretation of history than the macro politico-economic perspective. It draws on ethnography from rural Taiwan to discuss how the local people have their own ways of understanding history. The author examines religious narratives, the revelations of spirit mediums, and changes in the governance of temples to show how the social histories of the region and the wider society are reconstituted locally. These religious narrations and practices, grounded in ideas of place and in the social relations between deities and their adherents, are important means of constructing local identity and conveying people's agency.
Comparative Studies in Society and History, 2008
Cambridge University Press, 2021
Island Fantasia The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off ... more Island Fantasia The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions.
Materializing Magic Power is the first book to explore Chinese popular religion from the perspect... more Materializing Magic Power is the first book to explore Chinese popular religion from the perspective of materialization. A groundbreaking study, it places material culture and spirit mediums within a unified framework, and studies them in the contexts of both villages and cities.
Analyzing the divine power of Chinese deities by means of two important material forms -- god statues and spirit mediums -- offers a fresh approach, as the existing anthropological literature concentrates on only one of these aspects.
Examining the significances of materialization from cultural, social, and material perspectives, this book identifies personification and localization as the crucial cultural mechanisms that bestow efficacy on deity statues and spirit mediums, traces the social consequences of materialization, and demonstrates how the different natures of materials mediate distinct kinds of divine power.
Materializing Magic Power is also unique in its effort to paint a broad picture of the dynamics of popular religion in Taiwan. Following a detailed account of popular religion in villages, it discusses how rural migrant workers cope with challenges in urban environments by inviting branch statues of village deities to the city, establishing an urban shrine, and selecting a new spirit medium. These practices show how traditional village religion is being reconfigured in cities.