Performative silence: Race, riot and the end of multiculturalism

Abstract

On 8 December 2013, the monotonous placidity of Singapore’s streets was disrupted by antisocial violence in a district called Little India. Such acts of mass aggression were unheard of in a country whose policies of multiculturalism have been hailed as exemplary for developed nations. This article examines the conditions and consequences of the riot in Singapore and posits that the event signified a rupture in the politics of multicultural practice. It analyses media representations, official state narratives and vitriolic public responses to consider how the voices of the rioters have been violently silenced. Framed by what Georges Bataille terms the dialectic of civilized speech versus silent violence, where silence is regarded as dispossession and objectification, and vocality as empowerment and subjectivity, this article considers the performativities of silence and violence, and the ways the riot is an event of dissensus, a politics of interruption that fractures hegemonic, state-prescribed narratives of multiculturalism.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Outbreak Inequality: Mainstream Reporting of Singapore's Migrant Workers in the Margins

“…While the mainstream press created dialogic moments for frames on structural remediation to emerge, unlike in previous studies (e.g., Tan, 2016;Goh et al, 2017;Ahmed et al, 2019;Kaur-Gill et al, 2019), the press also continued to center sensationalist articles that evoked streams of xenophobia. The various opposing dialectics play out in mainstream reporting.…”

“…The study located that migrants worker voices were activated in media reports to discuss their health crisis, they still remained in the peripheries of reporting. However migrant worker voices were not absent or largely erased as discussed in previous research (Kaur et al, 2016;Tan, 2016;Goh et al, 2017;Kaur-Gill et al, 2019). A rights discourse, however, remained inconsiderable in mainstream news about migrant workers and their health.…”

“…While in other previous literature, migrant worker voice remained in the margins of mainstream discourse (Kaur et al, 2016;Tan, 2016), worker voices were spotlighted in moments of this health crisis as rupture points. These voices were anchored in a few ways.…”

“…These include erasures of voice in mainstream discourses, where their stories remain unheard (Breen et al, 2006;Grove and Zwi, 2006). Tan's (2014) research on stereotypes in conversation with the integration of migrant workers in Singapore revealed that the mainstream press disseminated both positive and negative stereotypes of migrant workers. Negative stereotypes included "migrant workers as dangerous people" (p. 174) and "migrant workers as people with low integrity" (p. 174), threatening local livelihoods.…”

“…Nevertheless, (Goh et al, 2017) conclude that, ultimately, migrant workers should center their advocacy, which remains in line with the CCA's position of migrant worker voices entering dominant discourses and re-framing them. Similarly, Tan (2016) shares that the denial of voice and the discourse failing to move toward structural transformation limits the reimaginations of change for the margins.…”