Conflict and Change at the Margins: Emergency Kampong Clearance and the Making of Modern Singapore

Seng, Loh Kah

doi:10.1080/10357820902923258

Cited by 16 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 8 publications

(2 reference statements)

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“…These white-rendered walls and solar shading overhangs were driven by the aesthetics of modern "tropical architecture," a movement originating once again from the metropole. Even though the SIT's efforts proved ineffective, the "politics and poetics" behind these modernist visions would be taken up by the newly elected government (Loh, 2009).…”

Section: T Ropica L Moder N I Sm a S I N F R A St Ruct U R A L F I E L Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Domestic Infrastructures For a Clean Cultured Citizenrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The developmentalist state extended the use of infrastructure as biopolitics to a totalitarian degree unprecedented during colonial times, controlling even minute daily habits toward the creation of “model citizens of a high‐modernist nation state” (Loh, 2009, p. 548). Historians have argued that HDB schemes effectively integrated marginally dwelling populations into the socio‐economic citizenry of an emerging nation‐state (Loh, 2009). I extend this argument with an analysis into how this modern subject was forged through the taming of subaltern tropicality, using the twin infrastructural instruments of “open space” and “machinized” housing (Seng, 2011).…”

Section: Domestic Infrastructures For a Clean Cultured Citizenrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Garden City: Infrastructure, spatial politics and resistance behind the nation‐building mode of “tropicality” in Singapore

Kai Lin

2024

Curator The Museum Journal

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Abstract“Tropicality” has historically been used as an epistemological tool by colonial settlers and thereafter local rulers to naturalize and espouse Western rationality and modernity. Singapore is no exception to this lingering Western framing, which continues to define state narratives of success and heritage. “Tropicality” as a hegemonic force manifests in infrastructures of large physical networks, institutionalized knowledges, and media representations. This paper dissects three chronological dominant modes of “tropicality”—the colonial, the nation‐building, and the contemporary neoliberal mode—alongside their corresponding subaltern lived worlds that speak of an alternative “tropicality” often unnoticed (Figure 1). These diametric strands are studied through hegemonic infrastructure and everyday acts that resist, appropriate, or hybridize these power‐laden spaces. A heterogenous methodology was adopted, capturing the epistemologies and metis employed in dominant and alternative tropicalities, respectively. Maps, charts, and archives are used to study the former; ethnographic observation, family memory, and affective experiences elucidate the latter. In this paper, I focus on the nation‐building mode of “tropicality”, which shaped Singapore's rapid urbanization in the 1960s. Modernist public housing schemes borrowed from the Tropical Architecture movement are situated within a larger infrastructural field that de‐skilled, cleansed, and civilized an “unruly” population, conflating natural and social order. However, these attempts at creating modern subjects were thwarted by everyday resistance performed at a critical mass, in which displaced populations tapped upon past metis, habitus, and ecological aesthetics to appropriate alienating modern infrastructure. Through these ad hoc infrastructural reconfigurations, a hybrid modern “tropicality” was negotiated. It is through deprivileging infrastructures of “tropicality” and drawing out alternative “infra‐structures” of multiple, lived tropical worlds that we may move toward post‐tropicality—a mentality built on an expanded understanding of how our modern environment is and has been shaped equally by dominant, neocolonial forces and also forsaken memories, practices, and everyday acts of resistance, which hold the key to alternative futures beyond the limited scope delineated by our inherited “tropical modernity”.

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Section: T Ropica L Moder N I Sm a S I N F R A St Ruct U R A L F I E L Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Domestic Infrastructures For a Clean Cultured Citizenrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Domestic Infrastructures For a Clean Cultured Citizenrymentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Garden City: Infrastructure, spatial politics and resistance behind the nation‐building mode of “tropicality” in Singapore

Kai Lin

2024

Curator The Museum Journal

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“…These villages exhibited weak state control, and subordinate groups often contested authority, potentially altering society's fundamental character (Douglas, 2002: p. 150;Merriman, 1991: p. 6). Despite this, Chinese and Malay-inhabited villages continued to thrive until 1961, with their influence extending to almost a quarter of the urban population (Seng, 2009).…”

Section: Political Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Cohesion of Kampong Lorong Buangkok: Community Amidst Singaporean Industrialization

Dahlan,

Faozan,

et al. 2024

Intl. J. Rel.

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This paper aims to conduct a comprehensive examination of the Malay community living in Kampong Lorong Buangkok, the last village in Singapore's Hougang area. This community is intriguing due to its preservation of customs, traditions, and a simplified economic system amidst Singapore's rapid industrial development. The study utilizes in-depth interviews with current residents of Kampong Lorong Buangkok and reveals their steadfast commitment to upholding Malay traditions as a social foundation. Residents persist in maintaining a traditional economy designed to promote unity and support productive community life. This economic system functions to enhance social unity, assisting the residents in coping with Singapore's high cost of living. The robust social cohesion within the community has enabled Kampong Lorong Buangkok to persist despite political tensions and the encroaching pressures of rapid Singaporean industrialization that jeopardize the village's survival.

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“…Singapore is a world-leading metropolitan city that has rapidly transitioned (across approximately 5 decades) from residents living in traditional multicultural villages known as kampongs to one of the most population-dense and technologically-advanced countries in the world ( 1 ) . This study aimed to explore the framework of traditional food culture, beliefs and practice in Singaporeans who grew up in kampongs via questionnaire-based interviews.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Traditional food practices in village settings remembered by older Singaporeans

Xiong

2017

Proc. Nutr. Soc.

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Singapore is a world-leading metropolitan city that has rapidly transitioned (across approximately 5 decades) from residents living in traditional multicultural villages known as kampongs to one of the most population-dense and technologically-advanced countries in the world (1) . This study aimed to explore the framework of traditional food culture, beliefs and practice in Singaporeans who grew up in kampongs via questionnaire-based interviews.Newcastle University Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering Ethics Committee approved the current study. A convenience sample of participants (n = 34) were recruited through convenience and word-of-mouth snowball sampling and interviewed both face to face (n = 29) and by telephone (n = 5). Interviews were conducted in English, Mandarin and Hokkien between October 2016 and January 2017 using a semi-structured questionnaire that included themes pre-identified from an exhaustive literature search.The majority of participants were male (n = 25) and of Chinese ethnic descent (n = 29). All participants were aged over 41 years of age, with a similar proportion of participants aged 51-60 years (n = 11), 61 to 70 years (n = 10) and over 70 years ((n = 10). A conceptual frame work of eight major themes was noted as a result of respondent input and the pre-identified structural themes of the questionnaire. These were self-sustenance, farming/horticulture, food and water safety, food and beverage retail, nutrition and health, kampong gastronomy and a culture of sharing (or gotong royong). Of these themes, 64 % (n = 22) of participants had noted collecting or maintaining fruit vegetables or rearing chickens. While almost a third of participants (29 %) noted memories of traditional food storage techniques, general feedback suggested relatively low levels of concern for food safety. In particular, a number of participants had noted that food was perceived to be safe if it was free from insects (ants and cockroaches). Alongside traditional travelling vendors and permanent cafes (kopitiams) and provisions shops, participants had also noted the importance of "direct selling" within the community, particularly of fish and seafood. Issues related to nutrition and health tended to be more related to limited availability of food. This also drove a lack of food waste, with leftovers either used in dishes the following day or collected up to give to pig farmers in return for produce or small gifts.Many of these kampong food practices from a kampong were fondly remembered by participants. Consideration of positive food values from early life (such as a strong culture of sharing and togetherness) could help in the development of government drives to improve dietary intake or benefit food security in relation to older Singaporeans.

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Conflict and Change at the Margins: Emergency Kampong Clearance and the Making of Modern Singapore

Cited by 16 publications

References 8 publications

The Garden City: Infrastructure, spatial politics and resistance behind the nation‐building mode of “tropicality” in Singapore

The Garden City: Infrastructure, spatial politics and resistance behind the nation‐building mode of “tropicality” in Singapore

Social Cohesion of Kampong Lorong Buangkok: Community Amidst Singaporean Industrialization

Traditional food practices in village settings remembered by older Singaporeans

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