Social Cultural Engineering and the Singaporean State

Examines the role of the Singapore state in social cultural engineering and the formation of an identity from the socio-cultural and political anthropology perspectives Challenges ideas that an authoritarian state does not lead to development, especially cultural development Builds on the conceptual idea of state-society interaction and relationship

Autorentext

Kuah Khun Eng is currently visiting the Division of Sociology at the School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to this, she was Professor of Anthropology and Head of the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Monash University Malaysia and Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. She was also a visiting scholar and coordinate research scholar of Harvard-Yenching Institute at Havard University and a visiting professor at University of Paris Diderot. Her research focus is on Chinese Diaspora-Mainland Connections and Religion and Politics, focusing on Buddhism, politics and philanthropy, gender and social movements. She conducts her research primarily in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. She is the author of 2 books, editor/co-editor of 9 edited books, guest editor/co-editor of 4 journal issues and numerous journal articles and book chapters.

Inhalt

1 Introduction.- 2 State, Conservation and Ethnicisation of Little India in Singapore.- 3 Bugis Street in Singapore: Development, Conservation and the Reinvention of Cultural Landscape.- 4 Maintaining Ethno-Religious Harmony in Singapore.- 5 Buddhism, Moral Education and Nation Building in Singapore.- 6 Confucian Ideology and Social Engineering in Singapore.- 7 A Strategic Partnership between Buddhism and the State: Delivering Welfare Services in Singapore.- 8 Inventing a Moral Crisis and the Singapore State.- 9 Conclusion.