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The phantasmagoria of Singapore's cosmopolitanism
Author
Ho, Stephanie Louise
Supervisor
Poon, Angelia
Abstract
As Singapore attempts to transform itself into a 21st century cosmopolis, the spotlight is often cast on the „foreign talent‟, the mobile and well-heeled professionals that the cosmopolizing process aims to attract to the island‟s shores. Less attention is paid to those who are excluded from this limited and circumscribed form of cosmopolitanism—transient workers whose temporary stay on the island is signified by their state-issued work permits. It is in this light that this dissertation examines four texts produced by Singaporeans—two short films, one feature film and a short story—which demonstrate that transient Others are subjected to psychic trauma as a result of being divided between several binary opposites which fracture their sense of self and their affiliation with the world: They are neither here (Singapore) nor there (place of origin), neither a part of nor apart from their families, neither welcome nor rejected outright and neither modern and mobile nor powerless. The unavoidable stresses emerging from the need to constantly mediate between multiple poles surely amplify the anguish caused by migration and subsequent emotional and physical hardships encountered.
This dissertation appropriates the eighteenth and nineteenth century notions of phantasmagoria and argues that the transient subaltern‟s experience of cosmopolitanism in Singapore is phantasmagorical in nature. Having to cope with the spectrality of being betwixt and between one‟s homeland and Singapore, with being a mere phantasmic familial presence, with receiving only a phantom welcome in Singapore, and with being deceived by illusory mobility and agency—these are the traumas of being a transient Other on the island. Through textual analyses of Brian Gothong Tan's Imelda Goes to Singapore, Josephine Chia's A Sad Dream (Mimpi Sedih), Han Yew Kwang's The Call Home and Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys, this dissertation also aims to illustrate how the uncanny and unwelcome effects of Singapore‟s cosmopolitan phantasmagoria are very often the result of policies which dictate that Singaporeans‟ relations with transient workers are approached from a purely essentialist and rationalist logic.
This dissertation appropriates the eighteenth and nineteenth century notions of phantasmagoria and argues that the transient subaltern‟s experience of cosmopolitanism in Singapore is phantasmagorical in nature. Having to cope with the spectrality of being betwixt and between one‟s homeland and Singapore, with being a mere phantasmic familial presence, with receiving only a phantom welcome in Singapore, and with being deceived by illusory mobility and agency—these are the traumas of being a transient Other on the island. Through textual analyses of Brian Gothong Tan's Imelda Goes to Singapore, Josephine Chia's A Sad Dream (Mimpi Sedih), Han Yew Kwang's The Call Home and Eric Khoo's 12 Storeys, this dissertation also aims to illustrate how the uncanny and unwelcome effects of Singapore‟s cosmopolitan phantasmagoria are very often the result of policies which dictate that Singaporeans‟ relations with transient workers are approached from a purely essentialist and rationalist logic.
Date Issued
2011
Call Number
HD5856.S55 Ho
Date Submitted
2011