Let us have data for breakfast together


Academic Views

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 […]

August 29, 2020

The Middle East: A useful foil for thinking about Singapore’s past and present


Academic Views

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 […]

August 25, 2020

A conversation with Debbie Fordyce, TWC2 President


Academic Views, Coronavirus

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 […]

May 14, 2020

Who are we trading off? Considerations for Singapore’s post-pandemic social compact


Academic Views, Coronavirus

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 […]

April 23, 2020

Protecting the precarious: COVID-19 and migrant workers


Academic Views, Coronavirus

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 […]

April 8, 2020