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One People, One Nation, One Singapore: The Construction Of Multiculturalism In Singapore, Suvie Khong

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis investigates the way in which an official multicultural identity has been constructed in Singapore at the expense of the cultural specificity that exists within the multiculturalism framework. The construction of the multicultural identity in Singapore has been engineered socially through heritage policies, heritage preservation projects and the media. However, the official multicultural policy in itself is problematic because of the existence of the four independent parent cultures, so that a Singaporean is constantly reminded of a cultural identity which is determined by race, history, language and class. This is further complicated by a dominant Chinese population so that …