Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Under the trend of globalization, global and regional competition has become a critical issue in governance. In Taiwan, regional dynamics and competitions have become increasingly dramatic after joining the WTO in 2002. Taiwanese rural areas are not only a resource supplier to meet demands in global industrial competition, but are also required to produce its own personality for attracting visitors and investors, further fighting to win regional competitions. In order to describe the two orientations in rural development, the study arranges the geographical concepts of space and place as components of local. The research explores institutional changes among rural development in the 2000s, through analysis on national policies and projects, including land use, tourism, community revitalization, also massive public investments such as industrial parks or renewable energy. As governmental institution orients rural development, it generates dynamics between different levels and scales: at the national level, opening battlefields for regional competitions and at regional level, representing strategies building identity as a local. The study uses amphisbaena, a double-headed snake in the Greek Mythology, as a metaphor to illustrate relationship and stress between being a space and a place, while building a rural area as a distinguished “local.”