篇名 | 南與北:行旅台灣的反思 |
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卷期 | 2 |
並列篇名 | North and South: Reflections on a Spring Migration to Taiwan |
作者 | Richard Johnson |
頁次 | 001-026 |
關鍵字 | 文化研究的分裂 、 理論∕研究 、 政治∕學界 、 全球∕地方 、 台灣國族認同 、 新自由主義 、 抽象 、 具體化 、 差異的後現代主義 、 splits in cultural studies 、 theory/research 、 politics/academia 、 global/local 、 Taiwanese national identity 、 neo-liberalism 、 abstraction 、 concretion 、 different postmodernisms |
出刊日期 | 201010 |
筆者在本文中回顧訪台六週期間的經驗,並以南方觀點與認同來反思這些經驗。文 化研究具體地負載著許多分裂,筆者以「南與北」來托喻這些分裂。本文首先提出一組 高低二元對立的概念,例如:批判理論 vs. 地方研究;或是普世的學術宏圖 vs. 關懷具 體政治的知識實踐。這些二元對立──以及南與北的兩極──在英國極為常見,在筆者 旅居台灣時更被週遭學者所強調。在全球文化轉運的情境下,本文試圖以南方觀點來呈 現文化研究,並詳細探討兩個案例。首先是抽象理論與具體研究二者間的循環,其次是 台灣國族認同的議題。筆者說明民主與平等的重要性,據以抗衡新自由主義的扭曲。本 文也提倡一種理論與研究整合的觀點,呼籲二者皆應具有歷史特殊性的敏感度並能參與 當代的政治任務。
In this paper I reflect on a six-week visit to Taiwan with a distinctively southern aspect and set of identifications. “North and South” becomes a metaphor for splits, always psychically loaded, in the practice of Cultural Studies. I describe a hierarchically ordered assembly of oppositions that can be summed up as critical theory versus local research, “universal” academic ambitions versus intellectual activity that serves a situated politics. These dichotomies – and a different North/South polarity – are familiar in my own experience in Britain, but were accentuated when I was obliged to take a southern perspective on cultural studies as itself a global cultural transaction. Two examples are explored in more detail: the circuit of abstraction (theory) and concretion (research and presentation) in the research process and the question of national identity in Taiwan. A case is made for the importance of democratic and egalitarian versions of the nation in opposing the global neo-liberal deformations and for a view of theory-and-research that is attentive to historical particularity and engages with contemporary political tasks.