Download - G. L. Ooi and B. J. Shaw, Beyond the Port City: Development and Identity in 21st Century Singapore
G. L. Ooi and B. J. Shaw, Beyond the Port City:Development and Identity in 21st Century Singapore
Prentice Hall, Singapore, 2004, 184 pp
Roy Jones
Published online: 26 October 2006� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006
As one of the world’s few remaining city-states,
Singapore would be an idiosyncratic place even
without its distinctive ethnic mix and political
structures. It is also passing through interesting
times following the recent Asian economic crisis
and the exacerbation of political and cultural
tensions following 9/11 and the ‘War on Terror’.
It is in these contexts that the authors set out to
provide an applied historical geography of Singa-
pore which describes the evolution of its econ-
omy, society and polity from those of a colonial
port city, assesses its current situation as an
affluent and diverse ‘‘developmental state’’ (p. 3)
in a rapidly changing region and considers the
prospects for its future beyond (what they con-
tend to be) a contemporary ‘‘crossroads’’ (p. 9).
The subject categorisation of this book as
‘Economics’ on the publisher’s website is there-
fore rather misleading. As the full title suggests,
and as the authors argue in their introductory
chapter, the ‘‘book is generally preoccupied with
the constitution of social identities and specifi-
cally with the Singapore identity given the devel-
opment of its political economy’’ (p. 11). Here,
and throughout the volume, they therefore con-
trast the ‘‘hegemonic narratives’’ (p. 9) of the
colonial port city, which operated for the benefit
of the imperial power and treated the ethnically
diverse population on a divide and rule basis, and
of the contemporary independent nation state as
it attempts to set and to modify its own develop-
mental goals.
Chapter 2 therefore traces the early nineteenth
century historical processes whereby Singapore
displaced its rivals, such as Penang and Malacca,
to become the region’s, pre-eminent port before
considering the port’s more contemporary con-
straints and competitors. Chapter 3 concentrates
on the post independence drives for modernisa-
tion and westernisation, emphasising the extent to
which ‘‘little exists without planning in Singa-
pore’’ (p. 35) and to which social and environ-
mental amenity have been preserved and, indeed,
improved over several decades of rapid economic
and industrial growth—a salutary reminder to
societies pursuing more free market models of
economic development. But this chapter also
emphasises the relative lack of public involve-
ment in political decision-making and of local
identity in a state committed to integration with
the global economy.
Chapter 4 considers these omissions in the
context of Singapore’s (multi) ethnic policies,
contrasting the segregated residential patterns of
the colonial city with the deliberately integrated
housing policies of the modern state and demon-
R. Jones (&)Faculty of Media, Society and Culture,Curtin University of Technology,Perth, WA, Australiae-mail: [email protected]
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GeoJournal (2006) 66:377–378
DOI 10.1007/s10708-006-9032-1
strating how ‘‘ethnic differences have been man-
aged ... in programmes to pre-empt their politi-
cisation’’ (p. 63). This theme is further developed
in Chapter 5, ‘‘The Politics of Control: Making
Good Citizens’’. It describes the trajectory from
the elimination of popular politics in the 1960s,
through the increase in the power of the bureau-
cracy in the 1970s to the creation of, in Castells’
terms, a ‘developmental state’, in which the state
is the lead actor, economic development is the
end and political stability (achieved through the
ongoing dominance of the governing People’s
Action Party) is the means, by the 1980s. How-
ever, this chapter also describes how governance,
particularly at the local level, has become ‘‘a
technical exercise that has become more spatially
and socially relevant to planners than to resi-
dents’’. Indeed this lack of civic engagement is
posited as a major element of the ‘crossroads’ at
which Singapore is, it is claimed, currently situ-
ated.
Chapter 6 provides an alternative perspective
on the issues raised in the preceding chapters
though an insightful juxtaposition of the housing
and electoral geographies of Singapore, illustrat-
ing how the ‘developmental’ goal of achieving
socio-economic mix within housing developments
impacts upon ‘identity’ by preventing the estab-
lishment of ethnic enclaves and thus upon the
electoral system by dispersing and disempowering
the ethnic vote.
Chapter 7, subtitled ‘‘Ship Chandlers and
Bankers’’, traces Singapore’s transformation from
an ex-imperial shipping and manufacturing hub to
a global centre of commerce, communications
and air transport. However, this transformation
has also increased the ethnic and socio economic
diversity of the Singaporean (resident) population
as its economic success attracts increasing num-
bers of expatriate professionals and domestic and
construction workers. It has also changed the
planning and urban development imperatives,
since centres of global commerce and, still more
so, centres of global tourism benefit from the
possession of distinctive place identities and,
therefore, from the distinctive cultural, historical
and environmental characteristics which give rise
to such identities. Chapter 8 therefore considers
several examples of how place identities have
been generated, fought for and, on occasion,
preserved in Singapore and, in the process, it
documents rare examples of successful political
resistance and civic engagement. Indeed not only
do the authors see heritage and identity issues as
a possible basis for the ‘‘revival of civic society’’
(p. 137) in Singapore, but they conclude the book
by contending that Singapore must both discover
an ethnic and cultural identity and sell this
identity on the global market if it is to succeed
in the new millennium.
In a minor way this volume likewise lacks an
identity insofar as it uses terms such as ‘kilome-
ters’ and ‘programmes’ to such an extent that it is
unclear which variant of English (Singlish?) it
purports to use. Furthermore, while the publisher
claims that this work is intended for both a
Singaporean and an international audience, it can
often demand a degree of local knowledge (e.g.
on the nature of the ‘verandah riots’ or the ‘25%
quota’ in schools) which may not be possessed by
an international readership. Such a readership
would also benefit from the more generous
provision of maps and photographs.
However, these are detailed criticisms. Both
Singaporean and international readers should
also appreciate the scholarship that is evident
from the effective and imaginative integration of
a mass of detailed academic and archival material
from Singapore with an impressive range of
sources from the global literature on global and
port cities and, indeed, on urban studies more
generally. In the best traditions of historical
geography, this volume succeeds in combining a
wide range of economic, political, social and
environmental information in order to provide
valuable insights into the evolution of a place.
What makes it particularly valuable, both within
and beyond Singapore, are the ways in which
these retrospective views are also used to identify
significant concerns relating to the country’s
present and its future.
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