Michael Rudolph 2006:

“Nativism, Ethnic Revival, and the Reappearance of Indigenous Religions in the ROC: The Use of the Internet in the Construction of Taiwanese Identities”.

In: Ahn, Krüger, Radde (eds.), Online-Religions and Rituals-Online. Heidelberg: Online – Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet No. 1/2, 2006 (ISSN 1861-5813), p. 41-53.

Abstract

Since the mid-nineties, long abandoned and very un-Chinese ritual practices suddenly seemed to become popular again in China’s runaway-province Taiwan: In spite of the fact that most of the island’s 2% of indigenous population had been Christianized since half a century, intellectual elites of different aboriginal groups now referred again to ancestor-gods, tattooing and even headhunting as essential parts of their own traditional repertoire, often making abundant use of the internet in order to propagate these convictions to a broader Chinese speaking public. This contribution not only scrutinises the political context that made such a development possible, but also assesses this practice in terms of the identity construction of the specific ethnic groups.

Keywords: Taiwan Aborigines, nativism, identity formation, rituals, internet