Abstract
Abstract This thesis explores the ethnicity governance during the period of Japanese rule in Taiwan. For quite some time, there has been a tendency to consider Taiwanese society as an indivisible whole, when confronting the Japanese colonial government. The research on the era of Japanese rule has ignored the discussion on ethnic relations. On the other hand, the Great Qing rule and the Japanese rule are considered as two entirely different systems in sociological research. In terms of state governance, this study investigates the continuity and changes from Great Qing era to the period of Japanese rule. Conceptually, we discuss the ethnicity governance of Japanese colonial government through the “political rationality” and the “governmental technology” in governmentality. This study is driven by the following puzzles. First, how did the Japanese colonial government know of and govern the various ethnic groups? Second, why did ethnicity governance generate the gap? Third, for ethnicity governance what did the Japanese colonial government change and develop? This study discovers that the Japanese colonial government showed a certain degree of ability to govern the ethnic groups. But for the political rationality of ethnicity governance, there was no corresponding governmental technology, which leads to the ethnic conflict and boundaries. There’s a gap between the ethnic knowledge constructed by the government and the act of actual governing . The existence of ethnic conflicts, the continuity of boundaries or gaps in governance demonstrates the limitations of Japanese colonial rule over Taiwanese ethnic groups.