Five - Identity politics, community participation and the making of new places: examples from Taiwan

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1990s, a new cultural strategy that emphasises local identities and community participation has resulted in the creation of new urban places in cities in Taiwan. Many of these urban places have become new destinations for tourists and local people, involving the revitalisation of heritage, the reuse of spare space, and mega urban projects. This new cultural strategy is related to political decentralisation and economic transformation, both of which are driven by post-industrial development and new identity politics.

Locality has become an important focal point for mitigating the impacts of globalisation in the majority of industrialised countries. Due to the rise of post-Fordism and deindustrialisation, the economic bases and spatial structures of most places have changed. Global economic change also affects new discourses of urban development. Neoliberalism has reshaped previous urban policies that emphasised redistribution and balanced development, to include principles of competitiveness, privatisation, entrepreneurship, flexibility and decentralisation. This new emphasis has made it necessary for local governments and communities to play increasingly important roles in urban development. Within the terms of neoliberalism, however, community development becomes a double-edged sword. It can mean an increasing burden on community groups in mitigating social problems caused by the retrenchment of the state in providing welfare services. But it also potentially recasts people as ‘active subjects in politics’ who are able to join together and transform space into meaningful place (Shaw, 2011: 307).

In this chapter, two urban projects are used to explore the political and economic contexts of place-making in Hualien City, a small tourist city on the east coast of Taiwan. It explores the process of economic and political restructuring in Taiwan in the 1990s, the contextual factors informing the cultural strategies of central government, and the processes enacted for making new places in Hualien City. It goes on to argue that the rise of local identities and community participation in Taiwan has led to some degree of community empowerment, but that this is due primarily to a state project to build a Taiwanese identity and a democratic citizenry.

In the 1990s, identity politics stimulated the development of new places, the emergence of community groups, and a new practice of participatory community design that calls for the involvement of community members in the design process of public space or community works.