Junior Scholar Seminar: 22 Feb 2021

Singaporean ‘Food Voices’ at the End of Life

Paul Victor Patinadan, Doctoral Researcher, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University

Monday, 22 February, 8–9pm Singapore time, via Zoom

The formation of food preferences, rituals and habits over the developmental course colours one’s socio-cultural and psychological lives. This phenomenon is especially salient in Singapore, which enjoys unique foodways due to integration of several collectivistic cultures. However, though forming significant parts of Singaporean existence across the lifespan, academic observations about food experiences for individuals at the end-of-life remain absent. These tonal ‘food voices’, curated from a lifetime of communal and interpersonal engagement, are reduced to a barely audible whisper. Patinadan’s study aims to understand the role of food and food experiences for Singaporean patients at the end-of-life and their families.

Paul Victor Patinadan is a Doctoral Researcher at the School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, funded by the Ministry of Education (MOE), Singapore. He is a certified Thanatologist. As an interdisciplinary mixed-methods researcher, he specializes in holistic palliative and end-of-life care, life and death education and psychosocial interventions and therapies.

Patinadan’s seminar is organised in collaboration with the School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University.

RESPONDENT

Vineeta Sinha is Professor and Head of the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. Her research and teaching interests include Hindu religiosity in the Diaspora; religion-state encounters; religion, commodification and consumption practices; history and practice of sociology; critique of concepts and categories in the social sciences; rethinking the teaching of classical sociological theory.

ABOUT THIS SERIES

The Singapore Studies Junior Scholar Seminars are organised by AcademiaSG, an international collective of Singaporean scholars, as part of our mission to promote research on Singapore. If you are a PhD student or post-doctoral scholar with research to share, read our Call for Proposals. We also welcome essays and commentaries for our Academic Views section. Write to our editors through our contact form to pitch an idea.