Singapore as a Creative City: vignettes from the perspective of la flâneuse tropique
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25120/etropic.17.2.2018.3660Keywords:
ethnographic flânerie, flâneur, flâneuse, creative cities, Singapore, heritage, graffitiAbstract
The tropical metropolis of Singapore is on a quest to become a creative city. Its policies explicate the need to transform into a ‘renaissance city’, a global hub of creative industries and economies. Yet, for Singapore – better known for its panoptic rather than creative imaginary – the question remains ‘how does the government’s policy of creativity translate on the ground?’ As a theory and method of critically meandering through the city in order to participate and observe quotidian practices at the street level, flânerie offers a way of engaging and contributing to an ethnography of urban life. This paper explores flânerie through the perspective of the female flâneuse. Two vignettes – one concerning heritage and the other graffiti – provide thick descriptions of encounters with creative practices in Singapore.
References
ArtScience Museum (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.marinabaysands.com/museum/exhibition-archive/art-from-the-streets.html#0DvixEdh36R90Zyp.97
Baudelaire, C. (1964). The painter of modern life, and other essays. (Mayne, J., Ed. & Trans.) London: Phaidon Press.
Benjamin, W. (2003). The Arcades Project. (Eiland, H. & McLaughlin, K. Trans). Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Chaudhury, S. & Lundberg, A. (2018). Tropical Flânerie & the Creative Asian City: a perambulation of literature. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics. 17 (1), 74-89. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25120/etropic.17.1.2018.3643
de Certeau. M. (2011)[1984]. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkley: University of California Press.
du Cros, H. & Jolliffe, L. (2014). The Arts and Events. London & New York: Routledge.
Fleischmann, K. & Mann, R. (2018). Women on Walls: The Female Subject in Modern Graffiti Art. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics. 17 (2), 83-109.
Hardwick, P. A. 2008. 'Neither Fish nor Fowl': Constructing Peranakan Identity in Colonial and Post-Colonial Singapore. Folklore Forum 38(1), 36-55.
Kong, L. (2012). Ambitions of a Global City: Arts, Culture and Creative Economy in 'Post-Crisis' Singapore. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 18(3), 279-294.
Lundberg, A. (2016). Introduction: A Tropical Lens. eTropic: electronic journal of studies in the tropics, 15 (2), 1-4. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25120/etropic.15.2.2016
McKercher, B & du Cros, H. (2002). Cultural Tourism: the Partnership between Tourism and Cultural Heritage Management. New York & London: Routledge Press/The Haworth Press.
Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts MICA. (2008). Renaissance City Plan III. Published by Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts. Retrieved from National Arts Council website: https://www.nac.gov.sg/dam/jcr:18cf2883-7907-4938-9931-384333e210ce
Wong, M. W. (2012). Negotiating class, taste, and culture via the arts scene in Singapore: Postcolonial or cosmopolitan global? Asian Theatre Journal, 29(1), 233-254. Doi10.1353/atj.2012.0026
Yi’En, C. (2014). Telling stories of the city: Walking ethnography, affective materialities, and mobile encounters. Space and Culture, 17(3), 211-223. doi:10.1177/1206331213499468
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who submit articles to this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors are responsible for ensuring that any material that has influenced the research or writing has been properly cited and credited both in the text and in the Reference List (Bibliography). Contributors are responsible for gaining copyright clearance on figures, photographs or lengthy quotes used in their manuscript that have been published elsewhere.
2. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository, or publish it in a book), with proper acknowledgement of the work's initial publication in this journal.
4. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access or The Open Access Citation Advantage). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (i.e., a copy of a work which has been published in eTropic, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the eTropic publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.
5. Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.