Home away from home : an ethnographic study of the Taiwanese Canadians in Vancouver, with a focus on the early stage from the 1960s to the 1980s

This dissertation looks into the lives and experiences of early Taiwanese Canadians in Vancouver (1960s-1980s). The focus is particularly placed on how transnational migration experience has impacts on their self-image, national identity, and behaviours in the public sphere. An ethnographic research approach is taken to collect data of life histories through interviews, group interviews, and participatory observations in the community. It is found that early Taiwanese immigrants underwent enormous political pressure from their sending country. And this has in turn made Taiwanese immigrant community show a high degree of group solidarity and signs of radicalization over issues of identity politics. It is argued that the transnational social setting in the host society has engendered the chance for a reflexive examination of one’s national identity through interaction with the host society, the sending society, and other ethnic groups. And in particular it is also argued that the experience and the responding actions have led Taiwanese immigrants to proactively participate in public affairs. Theoretically the research broadens the understanding of conditions of nationalism by proposing a perspective giving transnational factors more weight in providing a framework for analysing complex phenomena of nation and nationhood in a rapidly transforming world.Arts, Faculty ofSociology, Department ofGraduat