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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Affective Cosmopolitanisms In Singapore: Dancehall And The Decolonisation Of The Self, Orlando Woods
Affective Cosmopolitanisms In Singapore: Dancehall And The Decolonisation Of The Self, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper advances a new understanding of cosmopolitanism; one that is rooted in the affective potential of the body. It argues that whilst the self is often projected onto the body, so too can the body play an important role in (re)imagining the self. As such, the body can decolonise the self from the mind, from the expectations of society and culture, and from the normative epistemological underpinnings of academic knowledge production. I validate these theoretical arguments through an empirical focus on the practice of dancehall in Singapore. Dancehall is an emancipatory cultural movement that emerged in Jamaica in the …
The Transnational Frontiers Of Japanese Education: Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism, And Global Isomorphism, Hiro Saito
The Transnational Frontiers Of Japanese Education: Multiculturalism, Cosmopolitanism, And Global Isomorphism, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Japanese education system today faces three transnationally created challenges. The first is multiculturalism. Given an increasing number of students whose parents are either migrants or naturalized citizens, the government needs to rethink the nature of public schools, which have traditionally catered to ethnic majority students, and explore how to make them culturally more inclusive. The second is cosmopolitanism. Although cosmopolitanism is regarded as a desirable disposition and competency in a globalizing world, the government has difficulty incorporating it into the education system that continues to function as a central vehicle of nation-building. The third is global isomorphism. While world …
How To Be Singaporean: Becoming Global National Citizens And The National Dimension In Cosmopolitan Openness, Wen Li Thian
How To Be Singaporean: Becoming Global National Citizens And The National Dimension In Cosmopolitan Openness, Wen Li Thian
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper looks at how cosmopolitanism is practised amongst Singaporeans who have experienced Singapore’s education reform in the 1990s. Cosmopolitanism in Singapore is tied to state-intervention with a national orientation. To complement Singapore’s push towards cosmopolitanism, the education reform in the 1990s promoted the idea of a national citizen with a global orientation. I looked at 40 Singaporeans born after the year 1990 to investigate cosmopolitan attitudes that have emerged from the tensions between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. To meet the state’s ideals of cosmopolitanism, these Singaporeans employed strategies to practice a particular form of cosmopolitan openness which prioritise national interests. …
The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito
The History Problem: The Politics Of War Commemoration In East Asia, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This essay summarizes my argumentin The History Problem: The Politics of WarCommemoration in East Asia. The historyproblem is essentially a relational phenomenonthat arises when nations promote self-servingversions of the past by focusing on whathappened to their own citizens with littleregard for foreign others. East Asia, however,has recently also witnessed the emergence of acosmopolitan form of commemoration takinghumanity, rather than nationality, as itsprimary frame of reference. Whencosmopolitan commemoration is practiced as acollective endeavor by both perpetrators andvictims, a resolution of the history problem willfinally become possible.
Historians As Rooted Cosmopolitans: Their Potentials And Limitations, Hiro Saito
Historians As Rooted Cosmopolitans: Their Potentials And Limitations, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In the 1990s, the so-called 'history problem' began to escalate in East Asia as the result of mutually reinforcing nationalist commemorations in Japan, South Korea and China. In response, historians from the three countries organized joint historical research and textbook projects. In this article, I examine the extent to which these joint projects succeeded in promoting the cosmopolitan logic of historiography that challenged nationalist commemorations. Specifically, I compare governmental and non-governmental projects and illustrate structural and dispositional mechanisms that facilitated the cosmopolitan logic of historiography. However, at the same time, I show that the joint projects have had only a …
The A-Bomb Victims' Plea For Cosmopolitan Commemoration: Toward Reconciliation And World Peace, Hiro Saito
The A-Bomb Victims' Plea For Cosmopolitan Commemoration: Toward Reconciliation And World Peace, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper critically revisits the A-bomb victims' plea for cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. To this end, I first elaborate the nature of cosmopolitan commemoration espoused by A-bomb victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in comparison with another form of cosmopolitan commemoration pertaining to the Holocaust victims. I then analyze limitations in these cosmopolitan commemorations and explore how they can be transcended. In light of my critical analysis, I argue that genuinely cosmopolitan commemoration, a prerequisite for reconciliation and world peace, will appear on the horizon if the commemorations of the two …
Competing Logics Of Commemoration: Cosmopolitanism And Nationalism In East Asia's History Problem, Hiro Saito, Yoko Wang
Competing Logics Of Commemoration: Cosmopolitanism And Nationalism In East Asia's History Problem, Hiro Saito, Yoko Wang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Recent studies in collective memory point to the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. But these studies have yet to specify how cosmopolitan commemoration emerges and articulates with existing nationalist commemoration. To solve this problem, we examine the “history problem” between Japan and South Korea by focusing on how relevant political and civic actors negotiated cosmopolitanism and nationalism in commemorating Japan’s past colonial rule and wartime atrocities. In light of our historical analysis, we argue that a synthesis of theories of institutional logics and social movements is useful in illuminating …
Actor-Network Theory Of Cosmopolitan Education, Hiro Saito
Actor-Network Theory Of Cosmopolitan Education, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In the past, philosophers discussed cosmopolitanism as a normative ideal of allegiance to humanity as a whole. A debate among social theorists, however, has examined cosmopolitanism as an incipient empirical phenomenon: an orientation of openness to foreign others and cultures. This paper introduces actor-network theory to elaborate the social-theoretical conception of cosmopolitanism. In light of the actor-network theory of cosmopolitanism, the paper proposes cosmopolitan education that aims to foster in students three dispositions: to extend attachments to foreign people and objects; to understand transnational connections in which their lives are embedded; and to act on these attachments and understandings to …