There are many things scholars cannot do, but building vocabularies and frameworks is a core part of our work. Recent developments are good reminders that ideas are slow-moving things with unpredictable trajectories.
Academics are repeatedly encouraged to contribute to the scholarship and to make a wider social impact. Most of AcademiaSG’s efforts so far have focused on the latter, defending and growing the space for academics to play a more public role (see our year-end report card below). But interlocutors within the academy are important, too. The […]
Shannon Ang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, considers whether and when it is useful to disaggregate data by race. A recent spate of racist incidents has led to more discussion of inter-ethnic relations and race-based policies, from arguments about concepts like Chinese privilege and Critical Race Theory to policy debates about the […]
蔡秀敏，新加坡历史学者，讨论在新加坡脉络下区分“华人优势”和“白人特权”的主要特点，包括政治威权主义的角色、语言不平等的格局和使“华人”成为“华人”的明显种族机制。与之相关的，是我们对本区域马来世界历史、华人移民史和殖民史的不完整理解。
Linda Lim, Professor Emerita at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan and AcademiaSG Editor, brings an economist’s perspective to the ongoing discussion of racism in Singapore. This piece contains some updates added on 28 June 2021. Recent discourse in Singapore on race, racism and race relations, including on AcademiaSG, has helpfully […]
Chong Ja Ian, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science of NUS, considers the media response to recent incidents of racial discrimination, particularly discussions of Critical Race Theory, and how to build greater understanding and empathy. All opinions are the author’s own. This piece is a translation of a Mandarin version published by AcademiaSG […]
Sai Siew Min, a Singaporean historian now based in Taipei, discusses key features of the Singapore context which distinguish “Chinese privilege” from “White privilege”, including the role of political authoritarianism, the landscape of linguistic inequalities, and the visibility of racialisation as “Chinese” in Singapore, which connects to our incomplete understanding of the history of the […]
族群共处向来带来的挑战，不是一件当成是理所当然的事情，更不能轻视。需要的是出同理心、宽容和中肯前提下，让民众进行公开对话，才更能充分体会彼此的痛处和理想，而找到初步共识。就因如此，强调一片和谐无事，或一直坚持闭门作业，往往容易使人忘记在建立族群关系上，需要下的努力。多数族裔因为在人数上的差异，往往更容易忽视少数的劣势和经验，面对地问题较小，所以有一定的责任跨出第一步。笔者以为，积极的对话与磨合，或许比穿异族服装、品尝异族食物，更符合推动新加坡现阶段的族群关系，更有利于迈向新加坡公民誓约里，以“不分种族、言语、宗教”为基础，“建设公正平等的民主社会”。
Faizah Zakaria, Assistant Professor at the NTU School of Humanities with a focus on environmental and religious histories, considers Singaporean discourse on the recent Israel-Palestine crisis, and questions the notion of ‘objective’ and pragmatic ‘views from nowhere’. Views expressed here are her own. Singaporeans tend to pride ourselves on pragmatism, including in our relationships with […]
Priscilla Chia, a lawyer at Peter Low & Choo LLC, argues that it is time to reconsider whether the GRC system is meeting its stated aim of achieving minority representation. This is an excerpt from Voting in a Time of Change, edited by Kevin YL Tan and Terence Lee (Ethos Books, 2021). One issue that remained in […]
Constitutional law professor Kevin YL Tan delves into history to show how once-honoured principles for delineating constituency boundaries have been compromised since the 1990s. To ensure that executive discretion does not exceed legal bounds, Singapore should revisit the all-party boundaries committee’s recommendation ahead of the 1959 general election: Singapore should create an independent and permanent […]
