<i>Kampong</i>, fire, nation: Towards a social history of postwar Singapore

Seng, Loh Kah

doi:10.1017/s0022463409990099

Cited by 11 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…The country's national identity is premised upon a widely held understanding of the fundamentally vulnerable nature of its geopolitical, social and economic existence. The logic of security governs numerous aspects of public life, and elite rhetoric frequently reinforces such ideas (Ad'ha Aljunied, 2020; Seng, 1998;Tan, 2012).…”

Section: Conceptualizing Securitization In a Security-laden Authorita...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Krishnan

2024

Security Dialogue

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Securitization theory posits that security threats are socially constructed. Yet, how audiences influence the failure and success of securitization attempts is still not well understood. In this article, I argue that audiences bring their normative perspectives to bear upon the interpretation of securitization attempts. This theoretical addendum, I hold, permits a fuller appreciation of how audiences express their agency when receiving securitization attempts. I examine the Singaporean context, where the discursive backdrop favours the construction of security threats. While the Singaporean government has successfully securitized many issues, Lee Kuan Yew’s attempt to securitize the country’s declining birth rates failed dramatically. This occurred, I contend, as the Singaporean public was deeply offended by the normative premises of Lee’s eugenicist argument, thus refusing to engage with the issue on the government’s terms. These objections were only fuelled by the eugenics programme the government later introduced, ultimately causing the government to discontinue its pronatalist policies and significantly revise its rhetoric. This article develops the understanding of how securitization unfolds by expanding on the conceptualization of audience behaviour. By examining Singapore, which has failed to inspire many analyses of securitization, it also diversifies securitization theory’s empirical reach, highlighting its intelligibility within non-democratic contexts.

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Section: Conceptualizing Securitization In a Security-laden Authorita...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Krishnan

2024

Security Dialogue

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“…The Malay community in Singapore has paid a high price for the forced, fast and top‐down modernisation that Lee Kuan Yew imposed upon the country (Chua ; Rahim ; Seng ). One example is the forced resettlement of Malays in HDB blocks (Singapore public housing estates), which has also involved the introduction of regulations aimed at controlling the overall number of Malays in each block (Stimp ).…”

Section: Fgo Singapore Modernisation and Ethnic Religious Resiliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Female circumcision in multicultural Singapore: The hidden cut

Marranci

2014

Australian J of Anthropology

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In recent years discussion about female genital mutilation (FGM) has expanded and the UN has recently called for a universal ban of the practice. The practice in Southeast Asia is widespread among Malay Muslims and, although different styles and practices exist, procedures conducted in medical clinics are extremely minor and, according to gynaecological research, have no effect on sexuality due to the clitoris being left totally untouched. One of the states in which Malay Muslims maintain such a tradition is Singapore. Nonetheless, Singapore is rarely mentioned in academic studies or even in reports discussing the ritual. Even inside Singapore, only Malays tend to know of the tradition, while other ethnic groups remain oblivious to the fact that Singapore is among the states that allow such an operation. The present article does not discuss FGM per se and avoids contributing to the diatribe about labels and values, although these are, of course, extremely relevant. Instead it focuses on the reasons for the practice remaining hidden and undiscussed in Singapore, so much so that some respondents did not know that they had been circumcised.

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Framing the Issues Through Historical Context

O’Neill

2018

Urban Chinese Daughters

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Kampong, fire, nation: Towards a social history of postwar Singapore

Cited by 11 publications

References 14 publications

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Audience agency in a curious instance of failed securitization: Public resistance to the Singapore government’s eugenics program

Female circumcision in multicultural Singapore: The hidden cut

Framing the Issues Through Historical Context

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