The Matsu archipelago between China and Taiwan, for long an isolated outpost off southeast China, was suddenly transformed into a military frontline in 1949 by the Cold War and the Communist-Nationalist conflict. The army occupied the islands, commencing more than 40 long years of military rule. With the lifting of martial law in 1992, the people were confronted with the question of how to move forward. This in-depth ethnography and social history of the islands focuses on how individual citizens redefined themselves and reimagined their society. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Wei-Ping Lin shows how islanders used both traditional and new media to cope with the conflicts and trauma of harsh military rule. She discusses the formation of new social imaginaries through the appearance of 'imagining subjects', interrogating their subjectification processes and varied uses of mediating technologies as they seek to answer existential questions. This title is Open Access.

Winner, 2023 HSS Scholarly Monograph Award, Academia Sinica Newsletter

'Island Fantasia shows us how the imagination can work in a way that is both socially shaped and subject to individual agency. It leads us to understand imagination as something always under construction, and thus marks a real advance over earlier work. Ethnographically, it opens up a fascinating place that has seen almost no previous anthropological study.'

Robert P. Weller - Department of Anthropology, Boston University

'In Island Fantasia, Wei-Ping Lin explores how the islanders of the Matsu archipelago in the Taiwan Straits have invented and re-invented themselves and their community. Using ethnography that is both sensitive and innovative, Lin shows persuasively how shifting geopolitics and new technologies have created new pressures and new possibilities for the construction of identity. Matsu is a highly distinctive, even unique, place. But Lin’s powerful and moving analysis suggests ways in which it has lessons relevant to communities everywhere.'

Michael Szonyi - Professor of Chinese History, Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University

‘this monograph is not only insightful for anthropology scholars and people interested in Matsu but also useful for students of other branches of social science and area studies.’

Kuang-Hao Hou Source: The China Quarterly