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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Rethinking The Inclusionary Potential Of Religious Institutions: The Case Of Gurdwaras In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods
Rethinking The Inclusionary Potential Of Religious Institutions: The Case Of Gurdwaras In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
Whilst Singapore’s Sikh community is relatively small, it is also heterogeneous. Its diversity reflects differences in ancestral and socio-economic backgrounds. As spaces of worship that regularly bring together the Sikh community in space and time, Sikh temples—gurdwaras––are often conceived as important places through which a shared sense of religiously-defined community is reproduced. Yet, as much as religion can provide a bridge that integrates people of different ethnic, racial, national, and linguistic groups into a single faith community, so too can it act as a buttress through which differences and divisions are enforced within the community. We argue that whilst gurdwaras …
The Irreducible Otherness Of Desi And Desire In Singapore’S Gurdwaras: Moral Boundary-Making In The Shadows Of A Multicultural Society, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
The Irreducible Otherness Of Desi And Desire In Singapore’S Gurdwaras: Moral Boundary-Making In The Shadows Of A Multicultural Society, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
This article considers the emergence of new multiculturalisms taking root in Asia by exploring how value-based frameworks and moral judgements are deployed to create new lines of difference within co-ethnic communities. These frameworks and judgements cause multiculturalism to become a more subjective, and thus splintered construct that is increasingly decoupled from state discourse. Further, it considers how religious spaces are typically associated with the performance of morally “right” attitudes and behaviours, and therefore provide fertile yet underexplored sites through which multicultural subjectivities are formed and enacted. It illustrates these theoretical ideas through an empirical examination of how moral boundary-making within …
The Demands Of Displacement, The Micro-Aggressions Of Multiculturalism: Performing An Idea Of "Indianness" In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
The Demands Of Displacement, The Micro-Aggressions Of Multiculturalism: Performing An Idea Of "Indianness" In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection College of Integrative Studies
This paper explores the ways in which state-defined discourses of multiculturalism can unintentionally create a framework through which micro-aggressions are enacted against those interpreted as "other". These definitions cascade down from the state to majority and then minority ethno-national groups, who leverage positions of relative dominance to establish the terms of acceptance and integration into society. By negotiating these terms, ethnicity becomes a performative construct through which difference is asserted and reified. We illustrate these ideas through an empirical analysis of Singapore's minority Indian community, and how Singaporean Indians perform an idea of "Indianness" in response to their Singaporean Chinese …
‘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 …
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 …
Just Doing Their Job: The Hidden Meteorologists Of Colonial Hong Kong C.1883–1914, Fiona Williamson
Just Doing Their Job: The Hidden Meteorologists Of Colonial Hong Kong C.1883–1914, Fiona Williamson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article investigates the contribution made by indigenous employees to the work of the Hong Kong Observatory from its inception and into the early twentieth century. As has so often been the case in Western histories of science, the significance of indigenous workers and of women in the Hong Kong Observatory has been obscured by the stories of the government officials and observatory director(s). Yet without the employees, the service could not have functioned or grown. While the glimpses of their work and lives are fleeting, often only revealed in minor archival references, this article seeks to interrogate these sources …
Book Review: Becoming Better Muslims: Religious Authority And Ethical Improvement In Aceh, Indonesia (By David Kloos) & Chinese Ways Of Being Muslim: Negotiating Ethnicity And Religiosity In Indonesia (By Hew Wai Weng), Charlotte Setijadi
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Indonesian Islam has earned something of a bad reputation in recent times. Amid reports of rising intolerance against religious minorities, terrorism attacks, high-profile blasphemy cases and the growing political influence of hard-line Muslim groups, it is easy to take an alarmist stance and assume that Indonesia’s approximately 225 million Muslims are heading down the path of puritanism. Indeed, even seasoned analysts of Indonesia often forget that Indonesian Islam is heterogeneous, and that the everyday experiences of Muslims from different socio-cultural backgrounds are extremely diverse. This is why Hew Wai Weng’s and David Kloos’ respective books are much-needed additions to contemporary …
Between Evangelism And Multiculturalism: The Dynamics Of Christianity In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Between Evangelism And Multiculturalism: The Dynamics Of Christianity In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Christianity has experienced rapid growth in Indonesia, particularly the Evangelical and Pentecostal/Charismatic movements, which find fertile ground among the urban middle class. This phenomenon has given rise to fears of Christianisation among the Muslim majority, who perceive the Christian growth as a moral threat. Tensions between Christians and Muslims have been part and parcel of religious developments in Indonesia. The author addresses the ways in which Protestant churches in Indonesia negotiate between evangelism (to fulfil the ‘Great Commission’) on the one hand, and multiculturalism (peaceful coexistence with difference) on the other. The article will examine how Christians in Indonesia navigate …
Multicultural Citizenship Education In Indonesia: The Case Of A Chinese Christian School, Chang Yau Hoon
Multicultural Citizenship Education In Indonesia: The Case Of A Chinese Christian School, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This study investigates how multicultural citizenship education is taught in a Chinese Christian school in Jakarta, where multiculturalism is not a natural experience. Schoolyard ethnographic research was deployed to explore the reality of a ‘double minority’ — Chinese Christians — and how the citizenship of this marginal group is constructed and contested in national, school, and familial discourses. The article argues that it is necessary for schools to actively implement multicultural citizenship education in order to create a new generation of young adults who are empowered, tolerant, active, participatory citizens of Indonesia. As schools are a microcosm of the nation-state, …
Prison’S Spoilt Identities: Racially Structured Realities Within And Beyond, Nafis Hanif
Prison’S Spoilt Identities: Racially Structured Realities Within And Beyond, Nafis Hanif
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article begins by seeking an explanation for the solidarity between Malay inmates and guards in perpetrating abusive and discriminatory treatment towards Malay transvestites. In the course of explaining an empirical phenomenon in the Singapore prison, this article has examined Singapore's history and ethnic demography, the ethnic Malay minority's lack of socio-economic development and modernisation vis-a-vis the ethnic Chinese majority, geo-politics, the ideology and strategic choices of the state's political elite and their implications for inter-ethnic interactions between Malays and Chinese. As this article will argue, prison culture, rather than being divorced from larger society, is in effect able to …
Exalting The Past: Nostalgia And The Construction Of Heritage In Children's Literature, Lily Kong, Lily Tay
Exalting The Past: Nostalgia And The Construction Of Heritage In Children's Literature, Lily Kong, Lily Tay
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this paper, we analyse the portrayal of Singapore in local children's literature and seek to understand why such a portrayal was prominent, and to what effect. We argue that this literature is characterized by a nostalgic recollection of past times and places. This emergence of the past as an important concern in Singapore is not limited to the literary arena, but reflects a larger condition: a broader adult yearning to transcend the constrictions of present place and time. We suggest that this nostalgia has surfaced because of the phenomenal changes in Singapore, which have caused people to come face …
Folktales And Reality: The Social Construction Of Race In Chinese Tales, Lily Kong, Elaine Goh
Folktales And Reality: The Social Construction Of Race In Chinese Tales, Lily Kong, Elaine Goh
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper illustrates how folktales are a repository of primary material for the geographer. Using the example of The Strange Tales of Liaozhai, we discuss how these tales are not purely fictive constructs but constitute instead fictive, historical and projected realities. As an example of the value of such analysis, we discuss Chinese constructions of race as revealed in the tales.