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...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Material religion
Main Author: Lin, Wei-Ping 1966- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis [2017]
In: Material religion
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Matsu (Island) / Religious community / Temple construction
RelBib 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)
Description
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.
ISSN:1751-8342
Contains:Enthalten in: Material religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2016.1237050