UCLA

This dissertation examines the Taiwanese Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) paradigm and a central facet of the current government project to ensure the long-term survival of traditional performing arts: the Important Traditional Performing Art Transmission Plan (Transmission Plan). It aims to answer the following questions: (1) How does Taiwan, despite its international isolation and lack of official cross-border networks, construct a heritage governance system to sustain traditional preforming arts? (2) How do different actors participate in and negotiate with each other in the Taiwanese ICH paradigm? (3) How do traditional performance groups from different ethno-linguistic communities, transmitting a wide variety of professional and amateur genres, mediate and negotiate issues of tradition, authenticity, belief, creativity, value, and sustainability in their transmission practices? (4) How do traditional performance artists/groups respond to the nation’s strategies of employing heritage as a resource for nation-building, cultural diplomacy and exchange? (5) How can the rather unusual case-study of Taiwan help us test assumptions developed from the experiences of nations linked into the dominant UNESCO-driven paradigm of heritage conservation, and assist us in refining contemporary thought and practice in the field of cultural sustainability? By illustrating the bureaucratization of traditional performing arts from case studies of the Indigenous groups, Han Chinese amateur music clubs, and Han Chinese professional theatrical troupes, this dissertation proposes five premises on which Taiwan’s current ICH policy and practice are based, and that together differentiate it from analogous policy and practice in other nations. First, it involves scholars to an unusual extent. Second, the self-conscious pursuit of “authenticity” is less emphasized than in many other countries. Third, Taiwan’s items of ICH are often a hybrid mixture of forms representing multicultural interactions, rather than some kind of notional “purity.” Fourth, while Taiwan’s ICH framework is based on that of UNESCO, it is bureaucratically highly Taiwanized. Fifth, Taiwan’s ICH is an essential soft power resource for a nation that exists in a uniquely challenging international context. Finally, this dissertation aims to reveal the singularity of the Taiwanese ICH paradigm and what it can contribute to global ICH discourses.