The epilogue briefly summarizes the book and its arguments. This section also offers a brief discussion on the limits of instrumentalizing nationalism and the pitfalls of a narrow identarian understanding of sexuality. I suggest that the tactic of assimilationist, third-way activism that Pink Dot has historically adopted has reached an inflection point. I draw attention to the Singaporean ambassador’s comments at the 3rd Universal Periodic Review in 2021 at the United Nations Human Rights Council when Pink Dot was invoked to strengthen the hand of the state. The ambassador’s claim that Pink Dot’s annual events show that LGBT people in Singapore do not face discrimination should be read as part of a state strategy to co-opt resistance to fortify itself. It is in this sense, I argue, that flirting with nationalism like this risks backfiring and, if nothing else, is unlikely to lay the foundations for a larger emancipatory project. A reading of the repeal of Section 377A in 2022 helps show how, rather than treating sexual rights as an identity-based single-issue topic, it is only when a broader assault on heteronormativity is launched that the state will make concessions and there are substantive gains to be had. The closing pages thus suggest that undoing heteronormativity requires recognizing the potential for solidarity across the various queered constituencies that form the counter-nation and entails rejecting the heteronormativity–nation nexus.
Chapter 5 thinks through Pink Dot – the largest and most well-known LGBT movement in Singapore. It locates the social movement as the product of a long process of anti-politicization that has delegitimized overt displays of dissent and point-blank refusal of state narratives in favour of an assimilationist approach that emphasizes consensus between civil society and state actors. This, together with the reification of kinship in Singapore, helps explain why Pink Dot’s demands have generally been limited to little more than integration into the heteronormative present. Whilst remaining cognizant of the real constraints on civil society and movement organizers, I read Pink Dot as exemplifying a tactic that seeks to domesticize Singaporean sexual minorities by creating a subject position compatible with the nation. I would like to suggest that this reflects the limits of imbricating queerness with nationalism in Singapore.
The introduction begins by explaining how heteronormativity often functions as common sense in the formal discourses of the state and how it narrates the nation. It argues that heteronormativity in its various iterations and manifestations appears the natural way to govern, the most fair way of distributing resources, the most rational and logical mode of thinking, and the normal way of organizing life, and is always punctuated by an ‘Of course!’ that insists it is simply common sense. The introduction also sets the stage for the chapters that follow. It lays out the questions I am asking, the problems I want to address, the larger arguments I am making and how I intend to go about making them. And it charts the trajectories of thought I work with and alongside to give a sense of the book’s intellectual footing as well as its theoretical commitments. In the next section, I give an overview of the various methodological choices I make; and the final section of the introduction stages the rest of the book to come. It will rehearse the main claims I make across the five chapters beginning with a theorization of the Singaporean nation, analyses of various sites of heteronormativity and their workings, the limits to existing forms of resisting heteronormativity, and what this might tell us about the allure of the nation as a political form.
Chapter 1 considers what it means to understand Singapore as a straight nation where heteronormativity – the expression of a particular, prescribed form of heterosexuality – is the condition upon which subjectivity and admission into the nation rest. In contrast to liberal orthodox theories of the nation that view it as functioning on logics of inclusion, this chapter draws attention to nationalism’s investment in producing figures of otherness. Across the formal discourses of the state – the way the state narrates the nation – ethnicity and ‘race’ are less vivid markers of difference, in part because of the specifics of Singapore’s postcolonial condition. I want to suggest that across this discursive terrain, the otherness that nationalism requires finds its expression more perspicuously in the governance of sexuality and desire. Heteronormativity thus becomes a key modality through which nationalism is transmitted in Singapore and forms a dividing line that outlines what I call the counter-nation – the collection of the various groups of people that nationalism renders other in order to replicate and reproduce itself.
Straight nation investigates the relationship between nationalism and heteronormativity. It identifies a particular expression of heterosexuality – heterosexual coupling and the formation of the heterosexual nuclear family – that lies at the centre of the postcolonial independent Singaporean nation, and argues that it provides the basis for the propagation of nationalism. Repudiating liberal theories of the nation as a repository of belonging, it theorizes nationalism as a force exclusively invested in producing figures of otherness. In queer studies and, in particular, queer-of-colour studies, there is a strong lineage of work that advances a non-identarian approach to critiquing heteronormativity. Michael Warner, for example, describes this as an understanding ‘that sexuality isn’t always or only about sexuality’. However, despite scholarship that has made visible the effects of heteronormativity on LGBT people and non-normative sexualities, comparatively little attention has been paid to how heteronormativity operates on non-LGBT people, including heterosexual subjects, and shapes their lives as well. Straight nation intervenes in this space and analyses the production of subjectivity in Singapore as a historical consequence of the sedimentation of heteronormativity through a close reading of the discursive space generated by the state via the biographical literature of early political leaders, legal and political texts, archival records, oral histories, and media reports. Drawing on critical theory in queer and cultural studies, I argue that heteronormativity structures subjectivity in Singapore, which, allied with nationalism, xenologizes queerness. Many people are consequently rendered queer and foreign at the same time – Straight nation articulates a history of this process.
Chapter 2 identifies three major sites of heteronormativity in Singapore – housing, family, and the military. It explores their interaction and commingling in the postcolonial nation-building project and how they produce a subject position in relation to each other. Singapore’s independence was marked by currents of strife, vulnerability, and crisis. The military and compulsory conscription play a key psychic role in assuaging the affects of vulnerability and relies on citizens’ willingness to potentially lay their lives on the line defending Singapore. Rather than relying on the abstract concept of the nation, however, persuasion here rests on a more material logic that uses home ownership as an affect that turns one’s home into a scalar substitute for the nation such that citizens have something material to protect; defend; and, if necessary, kill for. Access to public housing, however, is premised on heterosexual marriage and family formation where women are charged with the expectations of reproducing the nation, whereas men are designated the duty of protecting the nation via compulsory conscription. In this way, the triad of defence, domesticity, and the heterosexual nuclear family rests on a set of heteronormative and gendered logics that animate the nation. Queerness poses a problem because it becomes mutually exclusive to these logics.
Chapter 3 interrogates the work that kinship is made to do in service of the nation. Historicizing the heterosexual nuclear family shows how the abstract concept of family is narrowly defined by the ontological relations given to us by the language of kinship. Gendered relations of care and support are transformed into obligations, aided and abetted by gestures towards ‘Asian’ values. Kinship, together with its attendant obligations, is thus given pride of place in the hierarchy of social relations. Whilst treating kinship in this way typically privileges the heterosexual nuclear family unit, the chapter examines the historic 2018 judgement in UKM v. Attorney-General as an instance where logics of kinship were placed in direct contestation with the logics of heterosexual coupling. Whilst non-normative forms of kinship and parenting are far from entrenched, I read the outcome of UKM v. Attorney-General as reflecting the salience of heteronormative familism in organizing social relations in Singapore.
Chapter 4 investigates the relation between heteronormativity, citizenship, and membership of the nation. If the nation saddles its members with the expectations of heteronormativity, queerness can be read as conceptually stranded in the space of the non-domestic. Where does this leave non-citizens? And what is to be said about people who are prohibited from participating in this heteronormative spectacle? Without resorting to a simple local–foreigner or citizen–denizen binary, I suggest that some non-citizens – those who are classified as irredeemably foreign – have their incompatibility with the nation confirmed by being rendered queer. There is a racialized dimension to this classification. Non-citizens classified as ‘foreign talent’ – typically white, Euro-Americans – are invited into the nation, granted citizenship, and encouraged to help reproduce the nation. On the other hand, those classified as ‘foreign workers’ – typically South and Southeast Asians – are expressly denied any possibility of becoming part of the nation, much less reproducing it. A raft of laws work together to exclude them from membership of the nation whilst also excluding them from the possibility of marriage (and, in the case of women, child-bearing), thus ensuring that the paradigmatic figure of the foreign is rendered such by also being rendered queer.
The chapter explores the intriguing phenomenon where individuals and societies are drawn towards ‘rough’ frames, challenging the conventional preference for ‘smooth’ frames associated with positivity and desirability. The chapter delves into the psychological and social underpinnings that make the rough, the rebellious, and the unconventional appealing, suggesting that such attractions can stem from a quest for authenticity, a desire to signal individuality, or a response to societal monotony. By examining various examples, including cultural shifts towards embracing the grittier aspects of life and the rise of movements that glorify the raw and unrefined, the chapter demonstrates how rough frames can catalyse significant social change and foster deep connections among individuals rallying against the status quo. It further explores the role of media and popular culture in amplifying the allure of the rough, while also cautioning against the potential for manipulation and the blurring of ethical boundaries. Ultimately, the chapter suggests that the fascination with rough frames reveals much about human complexity, signalling a deeper yearning for meaning, authenticity, and belonging in an increasingly sanitized world. The narrative encourages readers to engage with the frames that shape their perceptions critically, recognizing the power of rough textures to inspire, challenge, and transform. Top of Form Bottom of Form
This book offers a comprehensive and accessible exploration of framing as a multifaceted process that is integral to social interactions and dynamics. It examines how framing shapes societal understanding and persuasion, navigating through a spectrum from conscious to unconscious, and from strategic to unplanned. It scrutinizes the process of making undesirable qualities appear favourable, the influence of the perceived intensity or ‘temperature’ of issues, strategically positioning narratives to alter meanings, and resizing conceptual boundaries to reshape societal norms. By analysing various aspects of framing, such as its impact on beliefs and actions concerning sustainability, health, and social well-being, the book highlights the intricate balance between influence and manipulation in framing processes. The work emphasizes the necessity of understanding framing not just as a tool for simplifying or complicating an issue, but also for clarifying or obscuring it, urging readers to consider the deep-rooted, evolutionary aspects of framing and its pivotal role in shaping human perception and action across diverse cultural and social landscapes.