南與北

Abstract

筆者在本文中回顧訪台六週期間的經驗，並以南方觀點與認同來反思這些經驗。文化研究具體地負載著許多分裂，筆者以「南與北」來托喻這些分裂。本文首先提出一組高低二元對立的概念，例如：批判理論 vs. 地方研究；或是普世的學術宏圖 vs. 關懷具體政治的知識實踐。這些二元對立──以及南與北的兩極──在英國極為常見，在筆者旅居台灣時更被週遭學者所強調。在全球文化轉運的情境下，本文試圖以南方觀點來呈現文化研究，並詳細探討兩個案例。首先是抽象理論與具體研究二者間的循環，其次是台灣國族認同的議題。筆者說明民主與平等的重要性，據以抗衡新自由主義的扭曲。本文也提倡一種理論與研究整合的觀點，呼籲二者皆應具有歷史特殊性的敏感度並能參與當代的政治任務。

In this paper I reflect on a six-week visit to Taiwan with a distinctively southern aspect and set of identifications. “North and South” becomes a metaphor for splits, always psychically loaded, in the practice of Cultural Studies. I describe a hierarchically ordered assembly of oppositions that can be summed up as critical theory versus local research, “universal” academic ambitions versus intellectual activity that serves a situated politics. These dichotomies – and a different North/South polarity – are familiar in my own experience in Britain, but were accentuated when I was obliged to take a southern perspective on cultural studies as itself a global cultural transaction. Two examples are explored in more detail: the circuit of abstraction (theory) and concretion (research and presentation) in the research process and the question of national identity in Taiwan. A case is made for the importance of democratic and egalitarian versions of the nation in opposing the global neo-liberal deformations and for a view of theory-and-research that is attentive to historical particularity and engages with contemporary political tasks.