Changing Landscapes of Singapore

The transformations that have occurred in Singapore’s landscape have been rapid since independence. Changing Landscapes of Singapore discusses these changes from the perspective of lived landscapes which have day-to-day meanings for Singaporeans. It begins with an exploration of the major physical changes resulting from rapid urbanisation and industrialisation and Singapore’s attempt to balance the stresses …

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WPS 28 Ming China and Southeast Asia in the 15th Century: A Reappraisal

The 15th century was a period of intense interaction between Ming China and Southeast Asia. The period saw the Ming invade Ðại Việt, expand the scope of the Chinese polity by exploiting and then incorporating Tai polities of upland Southeast Asia, and launch a succession of hugely influential maritime armadas which travelled through Southeast Asia …

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WPS 26 The Asian Male Spectacle in Glen Goei’s Film That’s The Way I Like It (a.k.a. Forever Fever)

The Singaporean film Forever Fever projects a particular representation of Asian (read: Singaporean Chinese) masculinity that is as comfortable in its hybrid localized global identity as Singlish uniquely captures the grassroots national identity. Using Kam Louie’s model of ideal Chinese masculinities symbolized by the wen scholar and the more physical-oriented wu male, this paper argues …

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WPS 25 Sagong Tasi: Reconciling State Development and Orang Asli Rights in Malaysian Courts

All over the world today, indigenous peoples still face acute discrimination on their own native soils. While South-east Asian States ride the waves of globalisation and modernisation, indigenous peoples are increasingly nudged onto the periphery of modern society as they are stripped of their land by the advance of State developmental policies. The international community’s …

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WPS 24 User Behavior and the Impact of the Internet: A Study on Chinese Net Users in Beijing and Shanghai

There has been intense scholars’ concern in the social impact of new information communication technologies (ICTs) from the early 1990s. Foremost among these is the idea of the Internet’s democratizing potential, which is supposed to revitalize the public sphere and improve participatory democracy. Many proponents of this idea are western democracy enthusiasts who believe that …

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WPS 23 A Culture of Cherishing Children: Fertility Trends of Tertiary-Educated Malay Women in Malaysia

Arguments have been made for structural forces and religion as key factors in explaining for why fertility rates among Malays supercede that of Chinese and Indians in Malaysia. Such arguments, however, fail to highlight the role of culture in determining fertility. Bringing culture into the forefront in an analysis of fertility trends forms the nub …

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WPS 22 Cosmopolis and Nation in Central Southeast Asia

This paper is a study of the history of colonial archaeology in French Indochina. The formal study of archaeology began in December 1898 when the Governor-General, Paul Doumer, established the Mission Archéologique d’Indochine in Sàigòn, which was later reconstituted to form the École Française d’Extrême-Orient. In 1901, the first Bulletin de l’ École Française d’Extrême-Orient …

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