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Introduction: Postcoloniality, Race and Multiculturalism -- Daniel P.S. Goh an Philip Holden Part I: Postcolony and Cosmopolis 1. A literary history of race: reading Singapore literature in English in an historical frame -- Philip Holden 2. Malaysian history textbooks and the discourse of ketuanan Melayu -- Helen Ting 3. Eyes turned towards china: postcolonial mimicry, transcultural elitism and Singapore chineseness -- Daniel P.S. Goh 4. Pick and mix for a global city: race and cosmopolitanism in Singapore -- Angelia Poon 5. Makkal Sakti: The Hindraf Effect, Race and Postcolonial Democracy in Malaysia -- Vijay Devadas Part II: Representing Race, Performing Multiculturalism 6. Reading the films of independent filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad: cosmopolitanism, Sufi Islam and Malay subjectivity -- Gaik Cheng Khoo 7. Racial stereotypes in Singapore films: Commercial value and critical possibilities -- Kenneth Paul Tan 8. The Singapore Indian woman: a symptom in the quest for Chinese Identity -- Matilda

Résumé Cet article dépasse le clivage entre les explications socioculturelles et néo-weberiennes de la formation des États coloniaux en se concentrant sur la figure des gouverneurs coloniaux comme principaux agents dans le processus de construction de l'État qui se joue entre la métropole et la colonie. Il montre que la résistance de la part des populations locales était un élément central de la formation de l'État qui « interférait » avec les rationalités politico-économiques et ethnographiques du gouvernement colonial telles que les conçoivent ces deux approches. Les gouverneurs interprétaient les actes de résistance à travers le prisme d'intérêts économiques et de représentations ethnographiques : ces rationalités contradictoires, qui opposaient notamment les conservateurs et les technocrates, définissent le champ de la contestation politique du gouvernement colonial. En Malaisie et aux Philippines, ces rationalités contradictoires ont produit des trajectoires étatiques contrastées, allant de la domination indirecte, par le biais du protectorat, à la domination directe, bureaucratique et centralisée dans le premier cas et dans le sens inverse pour le second. Les deux trajectoires ont vu des politiques conservatrices et technocratiques se succéder pour aboutir à des crises politiques et générer le déclin du colonialisme, au moment où la résistance prend finalement la forme des mouvements nationalistes anti-coloniaux.

AbstractIn postcolonial societies, multiculturalism is a historical problem conditioned by colonial racial knowledge and state formation on the one hand, and by the ethnic conflicts of decolonization on the other. The reality and legacy of colonial racisms in colonized societies were not straightforward affairs. Anthropological knowledge was crucial for the construction of colonial state institutions, where racial ethnography determined the way each native ethnic group was ruled. In turn, nationalist consciousness developed along communitarian ethnic lines. The inheritance of the colonial racial state by nationalists created the conditions for postcolonial ethnic conflict. Drawing on the acclaimed Malaysia and Singapore cases of successful postcolonial management of ethnic conflict, I show the transition from colonial pluralism to postcolonial multiculturalism, in which nationalist leaders tapped into communitarian practices, scripted cultural identities and transformed themselves into a transcultural elite to maintain authoritarian rule through state multiracialism. However, globalization today is creating a new pluralism that threatens this multiracialism and presenting opportunities for democratization.

The metaphoric reading of native life as an unopened book by two ranking colonial administrators and authoritative ethnographers in Malaya and the Philippines cannot be a simple coincidence. Clifford and Barrows represent two empires, one conservative and peaking, the other liberal and ascendant, meeting in "the Malay Archipelago." Clifford was a product of the rugged and cultured education demanded of British aristocratic scions, while Barrows exemplified the rising American professional classes, holding graduate degrees in education and anthropology. Both men served well the metropolitan ideologies that guided the imperial hand: British Providence to provide good government to the Malay states; American manifest destiny to replace Spain as the agent of civilization in the Philippines. Using their ethnographic readings, Clifford helped perfect the art of British "indirect rule" Malaya, while Barrows established the Philippine mass education system, the main thrust of the United States' "benevolent assimilation." Both men retired as decorated officers and established literati, Barrows as the President of the University of California and Clifford a literary figure after Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling.

AbstractSoutheast Asia has come under scholarly focus for the contradictions of rapid development and environmental protection, and the ensuing politics. Most give Singapore a miss because it is a "strange" case that does not fit into a region where affected local peoples, "middle class" activists and developmental states struggle over the exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation. This paper claims that analysis of the "quiet" politics of environment in Singapore is instructive, and can correct the materialist bias evident in the understanding of Southeast Asian political economy/ecology. It argues that urban "middle class" environmental activism is a manifestation of resistance to enlarging systems of governance allied with capital. Environmentalism can be seen as a response against the encroachment of the system into the intimate living places of the lifeworld. This response is embedded within an international public sphere that enables environmental politics. These activists derive their motivation and political strength from public moral discursive actions. Environmentalism is a contemporary reflection of a fundamental sociological theme, the discontents' moral struggle for the good society, not necessarily reflecting parochial class interests.

AbstractIn the past two decades, the dramatic growth of Protestant Christianity in Singapore, fuelled by the worldwide Christian Charismatic Renewal, has attracted sociological attention. This paper discusses the historical development of Singaporean modernity and the concomitant rise of the existential self. The argument is that increasing distantiation of individuals from rationalizing societal and cultural institutions in modernity leads to increasing self-consciousness and simultaneously, the transcendentalization of the individual's phenomenological consciousness. This condition threatens to reveal the constructed nature of erstwhile-reified social objects and categories, allowing individuals to realize freedom while posing anguish. The latter is postulated as driving individuals to resolve their existential selves using transcendent or transient cultural resources. Based on ethnographic data from six months of fieldwork, this paper argues that Protestant Charismatic fundamentalism, the most popular option for Christian converts, is particularly suited to resolve the existential self in Singaporean modernity. This is because it offers both resolutions in an intense and balanced combination, while situating these resolutions in relationships of the self with others; and provides a worldview that helps the existential self make sense of everyday life in global modernity.

AbstractChristian megachurches have been growing in members, organization, and financial resources in the large cities of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines and in Singapore. However, they remain as religious minorities facing an asymmetrical balance of political power due to the Islamization of politics, strong state secularism, or the close entanglement of the political elites with majority Catholicism. We propose a framework of minoritarian politics to understand the actions adopted by the churches to defend and advance their interests. While the scholarship on religion and politics tends to focus on churches' direct engagement with political elites and the mobilization of grassroots movements, we argue that the megachurches prefer to minister to the middle by forging outreach networks to accumulate social capital with a broad range of intermediaries. This is not just due to theological conservatism, but also because ministering to the middle has been the effective strategy given the political circumstances.

The global spread of Pentecostalism has been facilitated by a combination of transnational impulses and indigenizing interests. In the case of independent Pentecostal megachurches, their growth in urban centres is reflected in both Western and Asian societies. Megachurches in America and Southeast Asia have flourished because of their unique blend of middle-class congregants, appeal to consumerist and popular culture, as well as their compatibility with the urban lifestyle patterns of their congregants. However, it would be a mistake to assume that the drivers of growth and the conditions behind the common features of these megachurches are the same. Examining Jakarta, Surabaya, Kuala Lumpur, and Manila, we show that megachurches are not located in shopping malls and commercial complexes merely for growth purposes or to align with the consumerism ethos of capitalism. Deeply local concerns, such as hostile neighbourhoods dominated by Muslim or Catholic majorities, have led to the camouflaging of Christian symbols in urban settings. The purposeful targeting of youth also reveals the Southeast Asian megachurch engaging with the new urban mobilities triggered by rapid economic development. We conclude that the Southeast Asian city's structure and layout are being repurposed by Christian innovation and reinterpretation. Christianity in the Southeast Asian city is hidden in plain sight. (Pac Aff / GIGA)

Introduction : tracking the affective twists in Asian nationalisms / Chih-ming Wang -- Complex histories of the foreign in Indonesia / Adrian Vickers -- Hate-loving nation-state : theorizing Asian nationalist affects / Kwai-Cheung Lo -- Introverted jingoism in a post-imagined-community digital era : the upswings of hate speech demonstration in Japan / Koichi Iwabuchi -- We are already living together : race, collective struggle, and the reawakened nation in post-3/11 Japan / Vivian Shaw -- From the outside : performing Korean diaspora, redoing national affiliation / Hyunjung Lee -- Loyalty on trial : Chinese-Filipinos and the west Philippine sea dispute / Tina Clemente -- Freedom is elsewhere : circulating affect and aversion for Asian and Islamic others in Indonesia / Carol Chan -- Let's save the nation from being multicultural! : the emergence of the anti-multiculturalist movements in South Korea / Hyun Mee Kim -- Feels so foreign in my own homeland : xenophobia and national identity in Singapore / Raj Velayutham -- Becoming a revanchist city : reflections on Hong Kong nativist affects / Iam Chong Ip -- Image-driven nationalism : visuality, digital platform, and generation post-80s / Jack Qiu -- Sydney's Chinatown and the rise of China / Ien Ang -- Conclusion : the geopolitical unconscious of inter-Asia / Daniel P.S. Goh