作為交界場域的“現代性”：往返於沖繩八重山群島與殖民地台灣之間

Abstract

本文透過戰前沖繩八重山群島與殖民地台灣之間人與物資的移動，討論「現代性」相關知識結構如何在移動的日常生活實踐、帝國論述及主體意識的相互作用當中逐漸形成。兩地之間勞動力的交換，凸顯出帝國內部無法消弭的種種區別，雙方均設法將出身地的地緣、血緣人際網絡移植到移居地，卻也不免跟語言共同體的外部有所接觸，產生多種語言與民族的交錯與對話。日本對台灣的殖民地統治開始之後，「現代」開發與「日本」文化遠離八重山而去，之後卻又隨著八重山對殖民地統治的參與，繞道台灣再度向八重山接近。到台灣工作的八重山人在接受現代文明洗禮的同時，也受到殖民地台灣刻板印象（被稱為「生蕃」的原住民）與民族接觸生活實踐（漢人）兩者之間的落差所震撼。另一方面，移居八重山的台灣人不但將台灣的閩南文化再移植到八重山，八重山在地社會因民族差異、被殖民者歧視與生存競爭而將台灣人移民他者化的論述，也將兩段移墾的歷史（台灣人移墾八重山、其祖先從閩南移墾台灣）加以重疊，製造台灣人為「前現代」民族之刻板印象。雙方移動的經驗呈現出「現代性」如何成為帝國政經力學牽動下，多樣民族、人種、語言、文化與歷史互相交錯、不斷重劃疆界的「交界場域」。

Dealing with the movement of people and goods between Yaeyama Islands of Okinawa and colonial Taiwan from 1920s to 1944, this paper examines the process in which the episteme of ”modernity” had been formed through the interaction between everyday practice of movement, imperial discourses, and subject consciousness. In face of discrimination against border island and colony, People from Yaeyama and Taiwan both created their own communities in the host societies, showing that national and ethnic compartments still existed in the empire. Modernization enterprise and Japanese culture had been diverted from Yaeyama to the new colony Taiwan, but they came close to Yaeyama again with the return of Yaeyama people who worked in Taiwan and assimilated modern culture and Japanese culture. Yaeyama people were also unsettled by the gap between the imperial discourse of ”savage” Taiwanese aborigine and Han Chinese civilization they actually witnessed when they arrived Taiwan. Meanwhile, Taiwanese immigrants transplanted to Yaeyama their culture, which has been transplanted by their ancestor from southern China to Taiwan centuries ago. In the discriminating opinions towards Taiwanese immigrants, Yaeyama people had overlapped these two histories of immigration to produce the stereotype of ”premodern” Taiwanese people. I discuss how change of geopolitical position, inter-racial contact, and cultural transplantation produced in these movement has helped to constructed the episteme of ”modernity”under the empire.