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RECONSIDERING MULTIRACIALISM IN SINGAPORE
Multiple Realities?
by Eugene K B Tan (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
Readership: Academics and students with research interests in Singapore and
ethnic relations; all people with a general interest in Singaporean issues.
| 150pp (approx.) |
Pub. date: Scheduled Spring 2009 |
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