Despite constituting less than 10 percent of the Singapore resident population, the Indian community is in no way marginal to the country. Yet, the last three decades have shown that Indian identity making in Singapore is laden with shifts and tensions. This flux is connected to the context of state-led multiculturalism and a liberal immigration regime. This chapter demonstrates how these forces have transformed earlier arrangements of space, language use, media and popular culture to what the Indian community and Indianness in Singapore is currently. These shifts of norms and practices necessitate an understanding of how navigating within a majority Chinese population and intra-ethnic divides complicates the process of identity-making. Multiculturalism in Singapore is an evolving project, fraught with complexities which inevitably shapes and (re)defines Indian identity here.

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Indians in Singapore: A Community in Flux

  • Mathews Mathew,
  • Sophy Tio

摘要

Despite constituting less than 10 percent of the Singapore resident population, the Indian community is in no way marginal to the country. Yet, the last three decades have shown that Indian identity making in Singapore is laden with shifts and tensions. This flux is connected to the context of state-led multiculturalism and a liberal immigration regime. This chapter demonstrates how these forces have transformed earlier arrangements of space, language use, media and popular culture to what the Indian community and Indianness in Singapore is currently. These shifts of norms and practices necessitate an understanding of how navigating within a majority Chinese population and intra-ethnic divides complicates the process of identity-making. Multiculturalism in Singapore is an evolving project, fraught with complexities which inevitably shapes and (re)defines Indian identity here.