The Story
This thoughtprovoking book explores strategies employed by Singapore, a multiracial society, to create a Singapore "nation" with an emphasis on the role of landscape. As such, the authors cast keen eye on religious buildings, public housing, heritage landscapes, and street name changes as tangible methods of nationbuilding in a postcolonial society. The authors illustrate how "nation" and "national identity" are concepts that are negotiated and disputed by varied social, economic, and political groupssome of which may actively resist powerfuI statecentrist attitudes. Throughout this work, the role of the landscape prevails both as a way to naturalize state ideologies and as a means of providing possibilities for reinterpretation in everyday life.
Description
This thoughtprovoking book explores strategies employed by Singapore, a multiracial society, to create a Singapore "nation" with an emphasis on the role of landscape. As such, the authors cast keen eye on religious buildings, public housing, heritage landscapes, and street name changes as tangible methods of nationbuilding in a postcolonial society. The authors illustrate how "nation" and "national identity" are concepts that are negotiated and disputed by varied social, economic, and political groupssome of which may actively resist powerfuI statecentrist attitudes. Throughout this work, the role of the landscape prevails both as a way to naturalize state ideologies and as a means of providing possibilities for reinterpretation in everyday life.
