At our Mershon Monday on February 10, Professor Max Woodworth, Associate Professor of Geography, presented his ongoing research on Taiwan’s “military-dependent villages” (MDVs)—communities forged in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War (1946–49), when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) retreated from mainland China. Although these settlements date back to the late 1940s and officially closed in 1996, they remain central to Taiwan’s evolving politics of historical memory.
Professor Woodworth—who had focused on mainland Chinese cities before COVID-19 restrictions prevented travel there—shifted his fieldwork to Taiwan around 2020. The island was familiar to him, as he had worked there as a journalist for seven years after college.
Taiwan’s MDVs have a complicated legacy: they sprang from a state-sponsored housing policy that, in some views, favored mainland Chinese refugees over native Taiwanese, and debates persist over whether the KMT’s arrival signaled oppression of the Taiwanese or the salvation of desperate refugees. As he explained to the Mershon audience, the KMT’s exodus began in 1949 and continued into the early 1950s. Approximately 1.5 million refugees, including 100,000 dependents of KMT officers, arrived in urgent need of housing. Their government hastily erected rudimentary structures on the assumption that the stay would be brief. Confident they would soon reclaim mainland China, KMT leaders avoided using more permanent building materials, fearing they would signal a lasting exile.
By the mid-1950s, however, it became clear that returning to the mainland would not happen quickly. In response, sturdier building materials replaced mud and corrugated tin. Groups like the All-China Anti-Communist Women’s League raised funds to improve the settlements. Over time, many MDVs evolved into sizable neighborhoods of concrete buildings, some three or four stories high. At their peak, these villages housed about 450,000 people—roughly 4% of Taiwan’s population—and helped shape the island’s politics and infrastructure.
By the 1990s, calls to redevelop and close the MDVs grew, and a 1996 law forced residents to relocate. Yet for many from the 1949 generation, the MDV’s concrete row houses had become valued communities of mutual support. In an unlikely alliance, KMT loyalists and anti-KMT urban activists joined forces to protest relocation, ultimately preserving about 40 villages. Many now stand as historical and cultural sites open to visitors. As part of his fieldwork, Professor Woodworth has been touring these sites, where visitors learn about the small-scale manufacturing—often craftmaking, such as Christmas ornaments for export—that once underpinned household economies, as well as the day-to-day realities of MDV life.
Today, non-governmental organizations, local governments, and civic groups collaborate to curate MDV sites, grappling with how best to convey Taiwan’s postwar experience. Through his research, Professor Woodworth illuminates the politics of commemorating the MDVs. By highlighting the power of place to tell stories of conflict and displacement, he raises important questions about what it means to rebuild in the aftermath of war.
Mershon Monday Story by Postdoctoral Scholar Julia Marino, in collaboration with colleagues Helen Murphey and Nicholas Nyachega.