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Research projects currently conducted by faculty of the Division of Sociology:
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Connecting Singapore: Chinese Singaporean Transnational Sojourners |
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PI: Asst Prof Caroline Plüss |
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Funding: Academic Research Fund Tier 1 |
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Abstract |
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This project reconstructs and analyzes the biographies of 120 Chinese Singaporean (nationals) transnational sojourners who have lived in at least two countries, and who at the time of study either reside in Singapore, Hong Kong, London, or New York. My aim is to understand why and how the transnational sojourners seek to combine cultural, social and economic characteristics rooted in Singapore with cultural, social and economic characteristics rooted in the other places in which they live(d), and what their experiences with seeking to establish these connections are. In other words, this project aims to create knowledge on how 120 Chinese Singaporean transnational sojourners are carriers of processes of globalization. The study intends to make cutting-edge theoretical contributions to the scholarship on transnationalism, migration and globalization. Such work is highly relevant to increase understanding of how Singapore situates itself in an increasingly globalizing world. Singapore has a highly mobile population and the study will comment on why and how Singaporean transnational sojourners attempt to connect Singapore with other places culturally, socially and economically; and on their experiences resulting from doing so. |
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The Politics of Family and Welfare in Asia
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PI: Asst Prof Teo You Yenn
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As various Asian societies face demographic pressures in the form of lowered fertility and ageing population structures, states grapple with the issue of social goods and their distribution. The (ideological) aversion many of the states in the region have toward universal welfare have led to the development of various solutions that depend on the valorization of the family.The study investigates the intertwining of the politics of the family and the politics of welfare in four Asian countries—Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea. It challenges the assumption embedded in much current scholarship that it is “culture” that determines what states can and cannot do in the realm of public provisions. Instead, it interrogates how states produce and reproduce particular visions of the family through its approach toward welfare, and how this shapes social inequality and state-society relations more broadly. |
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Globalisation and Religion in Asia
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PI: Asst Prof Francis Lim Kheh Gee
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This project aims to document and analyse the complex relationship between globalisation and religion through examining different aspects of social and political life in the Asia such as ethnicity, technology, urbanisation and the public sphere. There are four research projects at different stages of completion: (1) Jesus in Tibet: transnational religion and ethnicity among Tibetan Catholic: Ongoing fieldwork in Yunnan and Tibet in China. One conference paper presented and one book chapter publish; (2) Christianity and the State in Asia: complicity and conflict: This collaborative research puts Christianity in Asia into sharper focus by exploring local and regional experiences and perceptions of the faith today, and how Christian churches and followers negotiate their public roles and identities vis-à-vis the state. I am the co-editor of a volume to be published by Routledge in July 2009; (3) Mediating Piety: technology and religion in contemporary Asia: This collaborative research breaks new ground by taking an interdisciplinary approach to analyse the interactions between technology and religion in the contemporary Asia. I am the editor of a volume to be published with Brill, expected end 2009; (4) The Globalisation of the Yiguan Dao Religion: Ongoing fieldwork in Singapore and Taiwan among Yiguan Dao practitioners. This research investigates the transnational networks of the religion and asks if a Chinese sectarian religion can become a global religion. |
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Nuclear Politics and Democracy in Southeast Asia |
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PI: Asst Prof Sulfikar Amir |
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Funding: HSS |
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Abstract |
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Focused upon the emergence of the nuclear regime in Southeast Asia, this study examines nuclear politics in Indonesia and Thailand, two Southeast Asian states with relatively new democratic experiences. By comparing nuclear politics in these new democracies, this study seeks to analyze similar and different structures of democratic institutions and practices that shape how nuclear power is presented and contested. The comparative elements this study is designed to probe encompass three aspects related to the impacts of democracy to the ways in which nuclear power developments are arranged, materialized, and responded. The first element is concerned with the nature of the state’s interests in nuclear power. In this element, the question asked is “how the state perceives the role of nuclear power to fulfill its immediate interests”. The second element to be examined is nuclear institutions in respective countries that cover the entire network of actors, state and non-state, supporting the nuclear enterprise. In this element, the question to be answered is “what kind of network structure propping up the nuclear regime to be effective in bringing about the necessity for nuclear power” The third element looks into anti-nuclear movements in the two countries in terms of the mobilization of counter-narratives, resources, and public supports. Thus, the question is “to what extent democratic systems in Indonesian and Thailand facilitate anti-nuclear movements to take actions against the state. |
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Migration and Education in Asia: A study of Korean Migrant Families in
Singapore
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PI: Asst Prof. Kang Yoonhee
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This project aims to explore the multiple motivations for and understanding of early overseas education (chogi yuhak) among South Korean students and their parents in Singapore. In the past three years, the number of Korean immigrants in Singapore has dramatically increased and children's education plays an important role in driving the Korean migrant flows to Singapore. Given this background, the proposed research aims to explore the meanings and significance of overseas education in contemporary Asian contexts, by investigating Korean educational immigration in Singapore. In this study, I demonstrate (1) the Korean families' strategies for facilitating their children's education in Singapore, (2) the Korean parents and children's attitudes toward language education, focusing on English and Mandarin as significant forms of "cultural capital" and (3) the Korean parents' and children's emotional responses to their migrant experiences. The research has drawn on in-depth interviews with both Korean parents and children in Singapore since August 2008. The first paper based on this project's findings is entitled "Going global in comfort: Koreans' early study abroad in Singapore." In this paper, I examine the Korean mothers and children's emerging notions of emotional comfort and familiarity as a form of emotional capital that is believed to facilitate the children's acquisition of cultural capital in Singapore. |
