With the nationalist government -Kuomintang (KMT)retreating from mainland China in 1949, some 600,000 military personnel relocated to Taiwan. The military seized former Japanese colonial properties and built its own settlements, establishing temporary military dependents' villages called juancun ( ). When the prospect of counter-attacking the mainland vanished, the KMT had to face the reality of settling permanently in Taiwan. How, then, did the KMT's authoritarian power enter the everyday lives of its own support group? In this article I will focus on the coercive elements of KMT authoritarianism, which permeated these military villages in Taiwan. I will look at the coercive mechanisms through the analytical lens of Foucauldian discipline. I argue that disciplinary techniques such as surveillance, disciplining of the body and the senses, as well as the creation of morality regimes played an important role in the co-optation of village residents into KMT authoritarianism by normalising and naturalising it.

AbstractThis article focuses on the “social failure” of the relocation of the residents from informal historical settlements—military dependents’ villages (juancun)—to high-rise blocks in Taiwan. How does the relocation impact the community and restructure social relationships? I argue social failure is the product of new regulative regimes deriving from the new governance of the high-rise, rather than of the built form of the complexes in itself. New home technologies such as intercoms, elevators, and electronic keys contribute to arguments over safety and convenience, while new regulations, implemented by new forms of authority, including condominium meetings and building administrators, foster the disappearance of household informal economies. Finally, the high-rise dictates new aesthetic norms, which prevent established practices and routines, while promoting what I call aesthetic of assimilation.

Relocaliser le futur : objets biographiques, aspiration et réparation dans la ville de TaipeiRésumé Comment la relocalisation urbaine peut-elle se dérouler comme un moment de reproduction sociale ? En prenant le cas du village de Zhongxing à Taipei, une colonie militaire relocalisée en 2016, l'autrice montre dans cet article que si les vétérans de Chine continentale ont vécu le déménagement avec réticence, leurs épouses taïwanaises se sont volontiers mobilisées pour rapprocher les histoires familiales. En proposant une nouvelle ethnographie sur la « réparation familiale » et l'aménagement des autels ancestraux, l'autrice suggère qu'un déménagement n'implique pas uniquement la perte. Les épouses taïwanaises du village de Zhongxing racontent des histoires familiales suscitées par leur relation avec des « objets biographiques ». Elles transmettent les traditions familiales à travers des soins quotidiens, et dans le même temps, elles projettent leurs aspirations concernant l'avenir de leurs descendants sur l'ameublement de nouveaux appartements. Ce mariage de la matérialité, de l'aspiration, de la réparation et de l'affect montre que la relocalisation peut encourager la reproduction sociale de la famille et, pour certains, le passage du souvenir à l'aspiration.