Main Menu Top Menu

Wei-ping Lin(林瑋嬪)

Distinguished Professor

Position:

    • Professor, Dept of Anthropology

    • Director, Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences, National Science and Technology Council

Research Expertise: Anthropology of Religion, Imagination and Island Studies, Han Chinese

Profile

Education: Ph.D., Cambridge University (1998)

Positions held:

    • Deputy Dean, College of Liberal Arts, National Taiwan University
    • Chair of Department of Anthropology, National Taiwan University
    • Editor of Cambridge Taiwan Studies Series
    • Visiting Scholar, Harvard-Yenching Institute (2005-6, 2017-8)
    • Visiting Scholar, Harvard-Fairbank Center (2012-3)
    • Executive Board of Directors, Society for the Study of Chinese Religions (2011-6 )
    • Post-doctoral Research, Academia Sinica (1999)

Academic Honor: 

    • Distinguished Professor(2024-)
    • Chuan Lyu Lecture, Cambridge University, UK(2024)
    • Outstanding Research Award, National Science Council, Taiwan(2024)
    • Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences(2023)
    • Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences(2016) 

Contacts

E-mail: wplin@ntu.edu.tw 
Office: Room 406, Department of Anthropology, Administration Building, Shuiyuan Campus
TEL: (02)3366-4737

Monograph

「同島一命」是今日臺灣耳熟能詳的團結抗疫口號,事實上這句精神標語早在半世紀前已經出現,廣泛分布在我們熟悉卻又陌生的馬祖列島──熟悉於它地理上的存在,陌生於其他所有一切。

  本書是第一部馬祖民族誌。本書作者林瑋嬪不採冷戰框架由上而下俯瞰馬祖,改採由下而上的視角,引領我們貼近馬祖人的生活世界與內心感受。

  在歷史中很長一段時間,馬祖列島只是散落在中國東南沿海的島嶼,卻因美蘇冷戰與臺海兩岸衝突,一夕之間變成前線戰地,被迫接受軍事統治。然而,當軍事統治於一九九二年結束,擺脫戰地身分的島嶼反而面臨邊陲化的危機,以致馬祖人對於未來應走向何方,一直感到困惑憂慮。

  林瑋嬪二○○六年首度造訪馬祖,此後十餘年多次前往進行深入田野調查,思考馬祖人在當代如何重新認識自我與想像島嶼的未來。她以極富畫面的文筆,生動描繪馬祖從早期漁村時代、二十世紀軍管時期,到二十一世紀今日的樣貌;其中,「以小搏大」和「想像」為貫穿全書的核心概念,作者細密分析二者如何在歷史中形成演變,並且持續影響島上人們的行動。

 全書分為三個部分。第一部回顧島嶼歷史,介紹一九四九年前與後馬祖社會文化的巨大轉變,並揭示賭博之於馬祖的特殊意義。第二部探討新媒體技術(網路)引進馬祖後,對於建立馬祖想像共同體的重要性。第三部討論解嚴後馬祖人對島嶼未來提出的各種想像(跨海進香、博弈計畫),以及想像之間呈現的世代差異。

  臺灣和馬祖處境相似,身為夾處於強權間的島嶼,每當地緣政治發生變化,都必須快速因應,重新定位,設法增強乃至創造與世界的連結。因此,馬祖的故事,就是臺灣的故事;馬祖人的嘗試與努力,值得臺灣思索借鏡。

2021

Island Fantasia: Imagining Subjects on the Military Frontline between China and Taiwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Open Access: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/island-fantasia/D2F22090288A3E1F15DEBDD2735F5868

Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences(2023)

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.

Academia Sinica Scholarly Monograph Award in the Humanities and Social Sciences(2016)