Producing 'Lack as Tradition': A Feminist Critique of Legal Orientalism in Colonial Taiwan

This paper is an investigation into and a critique of the ideological construction of East Asian legal tradition as a 'lack' in the Japanese colonial project in Taiwan. Echoing Teemu Ruskola's and Laura Nader's critiques of Legal Orientalism but in a setting that transcends the West/non-West division, this study explores the colonised people's sense of legal inferiority- how they internalised Orientalism while claiming local subjectivitythrough a feminist lens, demonstrating the gender dimension of Legal Orientalism. The discussion begins with an analysis of the colonised people's 'lagging behind' in the civilising process and their 'lack' of rule of law in colonial eyes, followed by an exploration of the 'lag' and 'lack' discourses both in the debate about whether or not Japan should have applied its civil code in the colony of Taiwan and in texts on colonial women's liberation, and concludes with a brief discussion on how the perception of 'lack as tradition' informs the narratives of Orientalist legal history.