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Silver Screen Reversals Of The Domino Theory: American Cold War Movies And The Re-Imagination Of British Experiences In Southeast Asia, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Silver Screen Reversals Of The Domino Theory: American Cold War Movies And The Re-Imagination Of British Experiences In Southeast Asia, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay examines how Hollywood was affected by the successful anticommunism of Britain and its local allies in Malaya and Singapore, victories that unfolded alongside Vietnam’s mounting crisis in the early 1960s. It shows that American movies of this era which portrayed the intertwining of US and British experiences in 1950s Malaya and 1940s Singapore conveyed an uneasy yet clear optimism about U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia.
Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan
Merit And Inequality: Confucian And Communitarian Perspectives On Singapore's Meritocracy, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper compares criticisms of Singapore’s meritocracy, especially against its impact on income disparities and class divisions, with Michael Sandel’s critique of the meritocratic ethic in the United States. Despite significant differences in their history and politics, meritocracy has similar dysfunctions in both societies, allowing us to draw theoretical conclusions about meritocracy as an ideal of governance. It then contrasts Sandel’s communitarian critique of meritocracy with recent Confucian promotion of political meritocracy and meritocratic justice and argues that the Confucian principle of “promoting the virtuous and talented” is different from the contemporary conception of meritocracy. Textual evidence indicates that a …
Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan
Confucian Family Ideal And Same-Sex Marriage: A Feminist Confucian Perspective, Sor-Hoon Tan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article engages the views of PRC Confucian scholars who responded to the United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's citing of Confucius in his majority opinion on same-sex marriage in 2015. It questions their separation of tolerance for homosexuality from legalization of same-sex marriage and argue that tolerance is not enough. The arguments in the mainland Confucian discourse about same-sex marriage highlights the historical and persistent entanglement of Confucianism with patriarchy. Instead of reviving traditional patriarchal society, further entrenching and increasing gender inequality, contemporary Confucianism could shape its own unique modern society that aspires to (and hopefully one day …
“Fly Buddha To Mars”: The Co-Production Between Religiosity And Science & Technology At Longquan Monastery, Beijing, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Lily Kong
“Fly Buddha To Mars”: The Co-Production Between Religiosity And Science & Technology At Longquan Monastery, Beijing, Han Zhang, Junxi Qian, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article attempts at a re-theorization towards the symbiosis and co-production of religion, modern science and technology, inspired by theoretical thinking within geographies of religion and science and technology studies (STS). Recent scholarship on the geographies of religion has made substantive advancements in discerning the convergence of religion and secular modernity. However, science and technology (S&T), as an essential condition and driving force of secular modernity, remain peripheral to this ongoing theoretical agenda, yet to be fully incorporated into the analytical framework about the co-constitution of religion and secular modernity, arguably because of the entrench divide between the rationalism of …
An Integrated Theory Of Happiness: The Yang Zhu Chapter Of The Liezi, Devin K. Joshi
An Integrated Theory Of Happiness: The Yang Zhu Chapter Of The Liezi, Devin K. Joshi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article examines the integrated approach to theorizing happiness in the Yang Zhu chapter of the book associated with the Daoist master Liezi. While ancient critics famously denounced Yang Zhu as an amoral, pleasure-seeking hedonist, I argue the Yang Zhu chapter offers an individually rational but socially non-conformist approach to well-being of considerable relevance to contemporary scholarship on happiness. Not only does the chapter offer an intriguing and counter-intuitive argument about what constitutes and causes well-being, but its philosophical implications address a large number of inescapably foundational conceptual questions that can serve as metrics for evaluating theories of happiness in …
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Merit Transference And The Paradox Of Merit Inflation, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many religious traditions and ethical systems hold that individuals accrue merit through their good intentions, acts, and character, and demerit through their bad intentions, acts, and character. This merit and demerit, accumulated by individuals throughout their lives, gives each person a kind of ethical “score” that can determine what they deserve, and influence whether good or bad things happen to them (e.g., divine punishments and rewards, a favourable or unfavourable rebirth, etc.). In some traditions (most notably Buddhism, but also to a limited extent in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity), “merit transference” is a feature of these merit-based ethical systems. This …
Princely Adventures In The Sulalat Al-Salatin (The Genealogy Of Kings), Emily Soon
Princely Adventures In The Sulalat Al-Salatin (The Genealogy Of Kings), Emily Soon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.
Islamic Political Parties And Election Campaigns In Indonesia, Colm A. Fox, Jeremy Menchik
Islamic Political Parties And Election Campaigns In Indonesia, Colm A. Fox, Jeremy Menchik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Islamist political parties are a structural feature of politics across the Muslim world, raising persisting questions for scholars of democracy. Under what conditions will Islamists moderate to support democracy and pluralism? Under what conditions will they adopt more exclusive behavior? Taking a fresh approach, we focus on electoral competition and the conditions under which Islamic party candidates campaign using either inclusive nationalist appeals or exclusively Islamic appeals. Using a unique data source, we coded the appeals contained on the campaign posters of 572 Islamic party candidates in Indonesia. We found that demographics, urban–rural differences, and the level of government office …
The Dialectics Of Leadership Identity Construction: Case Studies From Indigenous Women Leaders, Mariana De Santibanes, Sonia M. Ospina, Seulki Lee, Angela Santamaria, Michelle Marie Evans, Dunen Muelas, Nazareth Guerrero
The Dialectics Of Leadership Identity Construction: Case Studies From Indigenous Women Leaders, Mariana De Santibanes, Sonia M. Ospina, Seulki Lee, Angela Santamaria, Michelle Marie Evans, Dunen Muelas, Nazareth Guerrero
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Challenging oversimplified models, the leader identity literature calls for new perspectives of leadership identity construction (LIC). Using a collective leadership lens and narrative methods, this collaborative study explores how Indigenous women’s leadership identities develop within a contest for power and voice. Observations, interviews, and micro-ethnographies helped identify how history, community dynamics and cultural contradictions influence LIC. We find the LIC process to unfold as a dialectical spiral, informed by contradictions experienced when enacting social identities in various spheres of influence. This highlights the intersectionality of salient identities when theorizing LIC, and suggests that minoritized leaders can resignify and ultimately, capitalize …
Imprinting-Like Effects Of Early Adolescent Music, Jiayu Fu, Lynn K. L. Tan, Norman P. Li, Xiao Tian Wang
Imprinting-Like Effects Of Early Adolescent Music, Jiayu Fu, Lynn K. L. Tan, Norman P. Li, Xiao Tian Wang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This research examines the hypothesis that music experienced during puberty in early adolescence imprints on individuals to promote the pursuit of friendships and mating. We conducted an online survey with samples from the United States and China (Study 1) and a within-subject experiment (Study 2). Results suggest that most songs and poems identified as “favorites” were learned during early adolescence. Furthermore, compared with recently acquired songs and poems, those from early adolescence reminded participants more about friendship and induced more emotional reactions. In the Chinese sample, the shared preference for similar songs from early adolescence increased friendliness perception. Music from …
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
'Kevin Vallier' Trust In A Polarized Age, Chandran Kukathas
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Vallier offers a defence of liberalism that is publicly justified as an answer to political polarization. This critique argues that the philosophical solution he offers - a version of liberalism more likely to be endorsed by moderately idealized agents - may not succeed because the source of polarization lies elsewhere: in resentments arising out of changed social conditions and the alienation of parts of society unhappy with the very liberal narrative in question.
Continuity, History, And Identity: Why Bongbong Marcos Won The 2022 Philippine Presidential Election, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Continuity, History, And Identity: Why Bongbong Marcos Won The 2022 Philippine Presidential Election, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In May of 2022, Bongbong Marcos won a commanding 59 percent of the vote to become president of the Philippines. His victory was, on some level, shocking to scholars and analysts of Philippine politics. As a result, a plethora of different theories have been proposed, in an attempt to explain why Marcos won. In this paper, we use nationally representative survey data to explore which factors predict (and do not predict) voting intention for Marcos. We find that, a) support for former President Rodrigo Duterte, b) positive perceptions of the late President Ferdinand Marcos and martial law, and c) ethnic …
The Political Ecology Of Death: Chinese Religion And The Affective Tensions Of Secularised Burial Rituals In Singapore, Quan Gao, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
The Political Ecology Of Death: Chinese Religion And The Affective Tensions Of Secularised Burial Rituals In Singapore, Quan Gao, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores the political ecology of death and the affective tensions of secularised burial rituals in Singapore. Although scholars have recently acknowledged the roles of biopower and affect in shaping environmental politics, religion and death as socio-affective forces have not been substantively engaged with by political ecologists. We argue that death is inherently both a spiritual and ecological phenomenon, as it exposes not only the spiritual geographies that structure how people see the natural world, but also the affective tensions and struggles over what counts as a “proper” form of burial in relation to religion and nature. First, we …
Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik
Deconstruction Of A Dialogue: Creative Interpretation In Comparative Philosophy, Steven Burik
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
It is common knowledge that Martin Heidegger’s attempts at engaging non-Western philosophy are very much a construct of his own making. This article in no way seeks to disagree with those observations, but argues two things: first, that Heidegger’s “dialogue” with his two main other sources of inspiration, the ancient Greek thinkers and the German poets, is not different in kind or in principle from his engagement with East Asia. One can of course quite easily argue that Heidegger’s main interest was the ancient Greek thinkers, and then the poets, and only lastly Asia. But this hierarchy in preference does …
Choreographing Neutrality: Dance In Cambodia’S Cold War Diplomacy In Asia, 1953-1970, Espena Darlene Machell
Choreographing Neutrality: Dance In Cambodia’S Cold War Diplomacy In Asia, 1953-1970, Espena Darlene Machell
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article examines the role of dance in Cambodia’s Cold War diplomacy in Asia from 1953 up until the establishment of the Khmer Republic in 1970. It explores how Sihanouk leveraged Cambodian dances to enact Cambodia’s neutral stance during the Cold War and forge cordial relations with other Asian states. Through an examination of the myriad of dance performances of the Royal Ballet and other Khmer dance troupes within the context of Cambodia’s diplomatic relations in Asia, this paper demonstrates how dance afforded a space for Inter-Asia referencing amidst the Cold War tension in the region. Premised on an interdisciplinary …
How Do Filipinos Remember Their History? A Descriptive Account Of Filipino Historical Memory, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
How Do Filipinos Remember Their History? A Descriptive Account Of Filipino Historical Memory, Dean C. Dulay, Allen Hicken, Anil Menon, Ronald Holmes
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How do Filipinos remember their history? To date this question still has no systematic answer. This article provides quantitative, descriptive results from two nationally representative surveys that show how Filipinos view three of the country's major historical events: the Spanish colonization of the Philippines; martial law under President Ferdinand Marcos; and the 1986 People Power Revolution. The descriptive results include several takeaways, including: first, the modal response towards all three events was indifference (versus positive or negative feelings); second, positive feelings towards martial law were highest among those who were alive at that time; third, the distribution of feelings towards …
What Is The Fallacy Of Approximation?, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra
What Is The Fallacy Of Approximation?, Matthew Hammerton, Sovan Patra
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many philosophers appeal to the “fallacy of approximation”, or “problem of second best”. However, despite the pervasiveness of such appeals, there has been only a single attempt to provide a systematic account of what the fallacy is. We identify the shortcomings of this account and propose a better one in its place. Our account not only captures all the contexts in which approximation-based reasoning occurs but also systematically explains the several different ways in which it can be in error.
Arts Marketing, David Ocon
Arts Marketing, David Ocon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Although there are hundreds of resources on traditional and commercial marketing, the materials available specifically for arts marketing are scarce, posing additional challenges for Gillian. Furthermore, while some focus on arts management, few of them address marketing from the perspective of a small-to-medium (often financially struggling) arts organization. An organization like Gillian’s often has limited resources, both financial and human, and can only approach marketing informally. However, it experiences the same pressures to perform well as larger arts institutions. Often, survival depends on how well it implements the marketing strategies that marketing staff create on their own. This chapter is …
The Search For Spices And Souls: Catholic Missions As Colonial State In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay
The Search For Spices And Souls: Catholic Missions As Colonial State In The Philippines, Dean C. Dulay
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
A growing literature posits that colonial Christian missions brought schooling to the colonies, improving human capital in ways that persist to this day. But in some places they did much more. This paper argues that colonial Catholic missions in the Philippines functioned as state-builders, establishing law and order and building fiscal and infrastructural capacities in territories they controlled. The mission-as-state was the result of a bargain between the Catholic missions and the Spanish colonial government: missionaries converted the population and engaged in state-building, whereas the colonial government reaped the benefits of state expansion while staying in the capital. Exposure to …
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
British Neo-Colonialism In Malaya And Singapore, And U.S. Empire In The Pacific, Wen-Qing Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay places the Vietnam War upon the larger canvas of Southeast and East Asian history by studying the long shadow that Britain’s Empire cast over U.S. entanglements across the region. It shows how British officials in Malaya and Singapore directly contributed to the expansion of US involvement in post-1945 Southeast Asia, as well as the overall pro-US trajectory of the region well before the Americanization of the Vietnam conflict.
Exhibiting Transnationalism After Vietnam: The Alpha Gallery In Pursuit Of An Authentic Southeast Asian Art Form, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Exhibiting Transnationalism After Vietnam: The Alpha Gallery In Pursuit Of An Authentic Southeast Asian Art Form, Wen-Qing (Wei Wenqing) Ngoei
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay examines how the Alpha Gallery, an independent artists cooperative established by Malaysians and Singaporeans, curated and staged art shows in the 1970s that advanced its project to unearth and promote an intrinsically Southeast Asian aesthetic. The cooperative pursuit a transnational vision of inter-regional connections between the Bengali Art Renaissance of the early twentieth century and Balinese folk art. It also harbored ambitions of sparking a cultural renaissance in Southeast Asia, though these were ultimately unfulfilled. Importantly, as this essay shows, the cooperative’s transnational vision mirrored the racist thinking and paternalism of Euro-American colonial discourses about civilizing the region’s …
Substantive Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi, Christian Echle
Substantive Representation Of Women In Asian Parliaments, Devin K. Joshi, Christian Echle
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Combining data from nearly 100 interviews with national parliamentarians from ten Asian countries, the contributors to this book analyze and evaluate the advancement of gender equality in Asia. As of the year 2022, no country in Asia has gender parity in its parliament. Meanwhile, the proportion of national-level women parliamentarians in Asia averages a mere 20%. What is more important than simple descriptive representation, however, is whether outcomes for women are improving. Rather than focusing on numerical representation, the chapters in this book focus on the substantive representation of women. In other words, what do women and men parliamentarians do …
Realising Contingent Religious Subjects Through Relational Spaces Of Missionary Encounter, Orlando Woods
Realising Contingent Religious Subjects Through Relational Spaces Of Missionary Encounter, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores the ways in which the religious subject can be a contingent position that is responsive to the broader socio-religious context within which it is expressed. These contingencies are acutely observed amongst short-term missionaries (STM), who seek out encounters with difference in pursuit of a more cosmopolitan subjectivity. Yet, whilst spaces of missionary encounter are inherently relational, the missions literature has tended to downplay the effects of relationality on the realisation of these subject positions. By focussing on the experiences of Singaporean missionaries working amongst Christian communities in Southeast Asia, I contribute a more nuanced and less predetermined …
The Politics Of Institutional Reform: Vulnerability And Bureaucratic Independence In Asian Agriculture, Jacob Ricks
The Politics Of Institutional Reform: Vulnerability And Bureaucratic Independence In Asian Agriculture, Jacob Ricks
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Although effective bureaucracies are seen as key for service provision in developing states, we still have limited explanations for their emergence. I argue getting these institutions right is a political, rather than technical, challenge based on a set of theoretical predictions for reform outcomes acknowledging the interaction between a state’s political vulnerability and degree of bureaucratic independence. I apply these predictions to a controlled comparison of irrigation sector reforms in three Asian countries. The results demonstrate that the success of institutional reforms necessary to implement policies is contingent on both the degree of vulnerability experienced as well as the extent …
Well-Being And Meaning In Life, Matthew Hammerton
Well-Being And Meaning In Life, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Many philosophers now see meaning in life as a key evaluative category that stands alongside well-being and moral goodness. Our lives are assessed not only by how well they go for us and how morally good they are, but also by their meaningfulness. In this article, I raise a challenge to this view. Theories of meaning in life closely resemble theories of well-being, and there is a suspicion that the former collapse into the latter. I develop this challenge showing that it is formidable. I then answer it by offering a novel account of what meaning in life is and …
The Fundamental Divisions In Ethics, Matthew Hammerton
The Fundamental Divisions In Ethics, Matthew Hammerton
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
What are the fundamental divisions in ethics? Which divisions capture the most important and basic options in moral theorizing? In this article, I reject the ‘Textbook View’ which takes the tripartite division between consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics to be fundamental. Instead, I suggest that moral theories are fundamentally divided into three independent divisions, which I call the neutral/relative division, the normative priority division, and the maximizing division. I argue that this account of the fundamental divisions of ethics better captures the main concerns that normative ethicists have when assessing moral theories. It also helps us make progress in comparative …
Class(Ify)Ing Christianity In Singapore: Tracing The Interlinked Spaces Of Privilege And Position, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Class(Ify)Ing Christianity In Singapore: Tracing The Interlinked Spaces Of Privilege And Position, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper considers how two facets of identity – religion and class – are performed, (re)produced and negotiated within the spaces of the Christian school, home and church in Singapore. We show how the social structuring of one space can inform and influence the structuring of another. Spaces of Christianity in Singapore tend to be mutually reinforcing, strengthening the linkages between religion and class, and in particular reifying the position of Christianity as a religion of the privileged classes. However, the ways in which Christian spaces are reified can become problematic when space is in fact shared with less privileged …
‘We Are People Of The Islands’: Translocal Belonging Among The Ethnic Chinese Of The Riau Islands, Charlotte Setijadi
‘We Are People Of The Islands’: Translocal Belonging Among The Ethnic Chinese Of The Riau Islands, Charlotte Setijadi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Riau Islands Chinese are an anomaly in the study of Chinese Indonesians. For one, while many of their ethnic Chinese counterparts in other parts of Indonesia can no longer speak Chinese due to the New Order regime’s assimilation policy, Chinese languages are alive and well in the Riau Islands. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2017–2018, this paper seeks to understand the Riau Islands Chinese’s cultural resilience and sense of belonging as a borderland ethnic minority. I argue that long-standing inter-Island and cross-border mobilities and cultural flows with Singapore have been central to the maintenance of Riau Islands Chinese …
From Roadman To Royalties: Inter-Representational Value And The Hypercapitalist Impulses Of Grime, Orlando Woods
From Roadman To Royalties: Inter-Representational Value And The Hypercapitalist Impulses Of Grime, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores how digital media can cause the representational value of rap artists to be transformed. Ubiquitous access to digital recording, production and distribution technologies grants rappers an unprecedented degree of representational autonomy, meaning they are able to integrate the street aesthetic into their lyrics and music videos, and thus create content that offers a more authentic representation of their (past) lives. Sidestepping the mainstream music industry, the digital enables these integrations and bolsters the hypercapitalist impulses of content creators. I illustrate these ideas through a case study of grime artist, Bugzy Malone, who uses his music to narrate …
Deprovincializing Racial Capitalism: John Crawfurd And Settler Colonialism In India, Onur Ulas Ince
Deprovincializing Racial Capitalism: John Crawfurd And Settler Colonialism In India, Onur Ulas Ince
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Recent literature on racial capitalism has overwhelmingly focused on the Atlantic settler-slave formation, sidelining the history of European imperialism in Asia. This article addresses this blind spot by recovering the aborted project of British settler colonialism in India through the writings of its most prominent advocate, John Crawfurd. It is argued that Crawfurd’s vision of a liberal empire in India rejected slavery and indigenous dispossession yet remained deeply racialized in its conception of capital, labor, and value. Crawfurd elaborated a “capital theory of race,” which derived racial categories from a civilizational spectrum keyed to the capitalist organization of production. His …