Research physical or digital documents in non-English languages

Decolonising Cultural Policies in Singapore

Research Supervisor
Research Status
Ongoing
michelle.loh@lasalle.edu.sg
Research Goals and Objectives
  • To investigate various perspectives of Chinese or Tamil or Malay writings on cultural policies in Singapore 
  • To describe how non-English archives such as newspapers, web sources read, interpret and analyse Singapore's cultural policies 
  • To identify key strands of decolonisation that exist in the above archives
Research Questions and Methodology

This research aims to examine non-English (Chinese, Malay or Tamil) sources and uncover the perspectives of Singapore's art practitioners, cultural institutions, and key players on cultural policies' strategic directions and implementations to the arts and cultural industry. This research will answer the following research questions:

  1. Where can non-English archival sources be found?
  2. What are critical themes arising from published perspectives of art practitioners, cultural institutions, independent arts companies, art collectives and cultural freelancers on cultural policies? 
  3. How are non-English archival sources reliable and valid for the understanding and critical analysis of cultural policies?

Archival research will be the main methodology for this research.

Conceptual framework

This research project is situated within the decolonisation of archives as a conceptual framework. Decolonising work includes investigating and acknowledging voices of "the other". This would offer a unique perspective to policy studies and importantly, offer a voice other than the language, terminology and discourse of the colonial power.

Expected Outcomes

Focus on a specific cultural policy and a specified set of archives.

 

Example 1: Focus on Our SG Arts Plan 2018-2022 and only Chinese newspaper Zaobao opinion pieces, public insights and online forum for the same timeframe 2018 to 2022. 

Example 2: Focus on Renaissance City Plans and only Malay language documents and archives. 

Other timeframes could be:

  1. 1965 to 1989: pre cultural policies
  2. 1989 to 1999: Singapore’s first cultural policy, Advisory Committee on Culture and the Arts 1989
  3. 2000 to 2011: Second cultural policy, with three revisions. Renaissance City Plan 2000, 2004, 2008
  4. 2012 to 2018: Third cultural policy, Arts and Culture Strategic Review 2012
  5. 2014: Building blocks for a culture of creation: A plan for the Performing Arts 2014
  6. 2018 to 2022: Fifth cultural policy, Our SG Arts Plan 2018 – 2022
  7. 2023 to 2027: Our SG Arts Plan 2023 – 2027