Kevin Joseph Carrico

This project employs ethnographic methods to study unificationists in Taiwan: citizens who believe Taiwan should unify with China. Although support for unification is a non-mainstream sentiment in today’s Taiwan, unificationists have substantial political and cultural influence. Employing long-term ethnographic engagement over three years with pro-unification activists, thinkers, and sympathizers, this project asks how unificationists see China, where these visions come from, how these visions are experienced in their daily lives, and what their implications may be for the future. By studying pro-unification Chinese nationalism in the context of Taiwan, this project will shed new light on the bottom-up sources of this ideology’s appeal beyond top-down indoctrination. Theoretically, this project will enrich our understanding of the relationship between personal desires and sociocultural institutions, as well as contributing to the anthropology of exchange through the analysis of competitive rhetorical exchanges of the sacred (culture, history, nation) across the China-Taiwan divide. Outcomes include an ethnographic monograph on pro-unification movements in Taiwan, presentations to academic colleagues and the general public, a deeper understanding of the full spectrum of identity in Taiwan, the refinement of ethnographic theory on nationalism, sociocultural institutions, and exchange, and the application of ethnographic insights to a pressing global issue.