Shannon Ang, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Nanyang Technological University, is hungry for more data — here he suggests how we can better harness it for Singapore’s collective good. How likely is it that children of poor parents in Singapore are also poor when they grow up? Is it true that companies who hire primarily […]
Koh Choon Hwee, Visiting Assistant Professor at NUS LKYSPP and a historian of the Ottoman Empire, highlights Singapore’s forgotten connections to the Middle East and shows how polarised narratives and misrepresentations about this region—some of which are deeply Islamophobic—are already present in Singapore, posing a threat to social justice and harmony. As recent explosions in […]
Ng Kok Hoe, Head of the Case Study Unit and Senior Research Fellow at the LKY School of Public Policy, spoke to Ng Bee Leng, a social worker and community worker with 30 years’ experience, about the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on poverty—especially intergenerational poverty—in Singapore. Kok Hoe: Thank you for doing this interview, […]
Philip Holden, formerly Professor at the National University of Singapore, interviewed Debbie Fordyce—President of NGO Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)—to discuss the work of TWC2 and structural issues facing migrant workers. Philip: It’s a pleasure to interview Debbie Fordyce, president of TWC2. Some academics work directly on issues of migrant labour; many do not, and […]
Shona Loong, DPhil candidate at the University of Oxford, describes how the state has made employers responsible for migrant workers, to dire effect, and examines the implications for state-society relations and the role of NGOs. The COVID-19 cases among Singapore’s migrant worker population skyrocketed in mere weeks. On 1 April, they accounted for just ten […]
Chong Ja Ian, Harvard-Yenching Institute Visiting Scholar 2019-2020, argues that the pandemic reveals the need for Singapore to reconsider how it makes decisions about national directions and policy trade-offs. (Banner photo credit: Sumita Thiagarajan) Singapore’s state-affiliated mainstream media has lately been publishing pieces relating to inequality. Undoubtedly, this has to do with the disproportionate economic […]
Linda Lim, Professor Emerita at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, considers future directions for Singapore’s economy, including the need to reconsider existing approaches and reorient to a likely increasingly deglobalized world. My recent commentary in the Straits Times discussed how the world and national economies are likely to change as […]
Laavanya Kathiravelu, assistant professor at NTU, has been researching the lives of low-wage migrant workers for more than a decade and sits on the board of HOME (Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics). Here she examines how migrants’ needs during the COVID-19 pandemic have not been adequately addressed. Across the world, the coronavirus outbreak has made […]
Cherian George, professor of media studies at Hong Kong Baptist University, gave the keynote speech at The Substation’s “Space, Spaces and Spacing 2020” Conference on 21 March 2020. The Substation, an independent arts centre, turns 30 this year. George’s keynote launched his book, Air-Conditioned Nation Revisited, an anthology that marks 30 years of his writing […]
