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This thought-provoking book explores strategies employed by Singapore, a multiracial society, to create a Singapore "nation" with an emphasis on the role of landscape. As such, the authors cast keen eye on religious buildings, public housing, heritage landscapes, and street name changes as tangible methods of nation-building in a postcolonial society. The authors illustrate how "nation" and "national identity" are concepts that are negotiated and disputed by varied social, economic, and political groups-some of which may actively resist powerfuI state-centrist attitudes. Throughout this work, the role of the landscape prevails both as a way to naturalize state ideologies and as a means of providing possibilities for reinterpretation in everyday life.
About the author
Lily Kong is associate professor in the Department of Geography and dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore. Among numerous publications, she coauthored
Singapore: A Developmental City State and coedited
Globalization and The Asia-Pacific: Contested Territories. Brenda S. A. Yeoh is associate professor in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore. She is the coauthor of
Singapore: A Developmental City-State, co-editor of
Gender and Migration and author of
Community and Change: The Tanjong Pagar Community Club Story.
Summary
Has globalization neutralized the institution of "nation"? This text focuses on attempts to build "nation" through landscape; specifically those strategies employed by Singapore, a multi-racial society. The authors cast an eye over religious buildings, public housing and street name changes.
