Архив журнала

Abstract: This paper focuses on the discourses produced by the state of Singapore as it attempts to re-invent Singapore as a global city. This focus is especially intriguing because it bears on a prominent theme in globalization studies: the extent to which the state is still relevant as a cultural frame for the construction of identities, the management of economies, and the protection of individual rights. Singapore appears to be seeking this global city status, even though in the early years after its independence in 1965, it was primarily concerned with establishing itself as a nation state. The paper demonstrates how the shift towards a global city is marked by discursive differences in modulation, as the state attempts to acknowledge the increasing interconnectedness between Singapore, Singaporeans and the rest of the world. The changes in modulation are consequently not to be treated as incidental discursive features of the shift. Rather, they are markers of how the state is attempting to address the problems of global mobility and deterritorialization by reasserting the status of Singapore as a place (still) worth living in