Gene as a metaphor: The geneticization of aboriginal identity in Taiwan

     In the 1980s the government of Taiwan began to support the development of biotechnology. Since the 1990s, there has been an increasing number of researches in different fields devoted themselves to evaluate the genetic attributes of Taiwan’s aboriginal people from the perspective of biomedicine. More and more, the aboriginal minority has been biomedically represented in terms of their presumed genetic features. Constructed by a variety of sources such as government-supported research projects, professional journal articles, mass media, and suchlike, this discourse about the aborigines’ genetic attributes comprises three sub-discourses which focus on 1) the particular genetic origin of aboriginal illness and health, 2) the genetic basis of aboriginal identification, and 3) the genetic particularity of the aboriginal people as a buttress of the idea of Taiwanese nationality.

      I argue that there has been a “selective affinity” between genetic research and identity politics as a result of the rapid development of biomedicine in global scale. This phenomenon can be found in countries with different cultural and political backgrounds. My research takes the Taiwan case as an intriguing variant and tries to answer the following questions: What is the complicated relationship between genetic discourse and identity politics in Taiwan? What is the particular historical development and social mechanism that has led to this complicated relationship and how? What are the viewpoints and interests of different parties involved in the debates about the relationship between aboriginal genetic attributes, health, ethnic identification, and nationhood? What are the sociological implications of the geneticization of Taiwan’s aboriginal identity in terms of the study of ethnic politics?