Multiple Realities: Reconsidering Multiracialism in SingaporePosted in Asian Diaspora, Books, Media Archive, Monographs, Social Science on 2012-01-22 17:13Z by Steven |
Multiple Realities: Reconsidering Multiracialism in Singapore
World Scientific Publishing
Summer 2012
150 pages
ISBN: 978-981-270-604-1; 981-270-604-6
Eugene K. B. Tan, Assistant Professor of Law
Singapore Management University, Singapore
How has Singapore’s multiracialism policy evolved, and how has it impacted on ethnic relations and nation-building in a secure, yet perpetually vulnerable, Singapore? This important book addresses these important questions through a critical analysis of ethnic markers in key facets of Singaporean life, such as elections and race quotas in public housing, national service, ethnic self-help groups, the rise of “Chineseness” and increased religious piety. The author challenges the conventional wisdom that multiracialism in Singapore is unequivocally race-blind or nonethnic in its approach. Instead, he argues that Singapore is an ethnic-conscious state wherein race, culture and language are instrumentally mobilized as key resources in nation-building and political governance. This could have potentially ethnic/racial enhancing or polarizing effects, thus undermining the stability of the multiracial framework in Singapore.
Contents:
- Introduction — The Multiple Realities of Multiracialism
- Race and Multiracialism as a Mode of Governance in Singapore
- Institutionalizing Multiracialism: The Legal, Institutional Framework and the Periodization of Ethnic Relations
- Electoral Politics: Electing Race Consciousness?
- The Citizen’s Army: The Dilemmas of Faith, Loyalty and Citizenship
- The Essence of Self-Help and the Dilemmas of Ethnic Essentialism
- Multiracialism and the Growing Assertion of Chineseness: Ethnic Consciousness as a Cultural Resource
- The Specter of Religious Extremism: Veiled Threats, Fearful Faithful Piety and Enlarging the Common Space
- The Impoverishment of Multiracialism: The Lack of Shared Institutions
- Conclusion: The Way Ahead