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Racialisation in Singapore today: from the governance of migration policy to contemporary online media

Chandra, Chang Xiao Jing Sophie ( 2014)

In modern society, and one with clearly defined policies of multiracialism, the word ‘racism’ remains a largely unspoken word in official discourses in Singapore. However, the dominance of the government over the country’s nationalistic ideologies and ethnic consensus opens up a new window into the dimension of racism. I seek to better understand the increasing issues of race and racism in Singaporean society by exploring how the process of racialisation at the macro level contributes to the reproduction of racial norms, values and attitudes that govern everyday lives in Singapore. I draw on Foucault’s (1980) theory of “biopolitics” and Essed’s (1991) “everyday racism” to illustrate the ways in which Singapore is imagined by the government, and how these economic and political ideals are internalised in the racialised minds of Singaporean citizens and played out in practice at the micro-level. In doing so, I aim to conceptualise a bridge between the macro system of race-based policies and state ideologies and the micro inequalities that perpetuate the system, and thus, uncover the complex racist effects that the politicisation of race has had on Singaporean society.