Contested Heritage in Taiwan

This theme explores sites that commemorate or memorialize dark chapters in Taiwan’s history, sometimes without critical framing and reflection, as well as those heritage sites that are overlooked or actively ignored because of their controversial nature. Some of these sites relate to what British anthropologist Sharon MacDonald calls “difficult heritage”, in which societies confront past atrocities, but given the succession of ruling regimes in Taiwan, the cultural landscape is particularly fraught with contested memory.