Re-assembling the memorial landscape: the politics of walking tours in Taipei

Abstract

This article argues that the memorial landscape is a dynamically composed assemblage of heterogeneous elements, and that the guided walking tour is a practical tactic through which discourses and materials might be re-assembled and thus re-signified. Guided walking tours therefore epitomise the relational rethinking of memorial landscapes, or quasi-heritage, in everyday urban life. Based on three case studies in Taipei, Taiwan, we discuss how memorial landscapes featuring the urban underclass and civil resistance might be strategically re-assembled. We explore to what extent the bodily practices, narratives, and reconfiguration of space have produced new memorialised landscapes. We conclude that guided walking tours are a form of social intervention that can reframe our understanding of memorialization or quasi-heritagization, especially in the urban arena where heterogeneous values increasingly compete.

Keywords:

• Assemblage
• social movement
• resistance
• cultural hierarchy

Notes

1. At first, the tour charged only NT$300 (about US$10), but this proved financially unsustainable. The price was raised to NT$400 at the beginning of 2016.

2. Source: Hidden Taipei. https://www.hiddentaipei.org/.

3. For some activists, the aim of the heritagization appeal was to stop the official regeneration plan even after the anti-demolition had failed. However, others focused more only on the preservation of the prison site.