“What are you?” The construction of the race concept in Singapore and its impact on people's everyday lives

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Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Sociology - Individual, Groups, Society, grade: A-, National University of Singapore (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), course: Southeast Asia - A Changing Region, language: English, abstract: “Race” seems to be an omnipresent feature of society, public discourse and identity formation in Singapore. To offer a brief insight into how this important concept came to be and which impact it has on society and everyday life, shall be the objective of this paper.As the People’s Action Party has been in power since 1959 and its politics have unquestionably shaped this country immensely, the PAP’s influence will be discussed in the first chapter. After offering an overview of the historic circumstances that moulded the party’s ideology of multiracialism and hence race itself, more concrete measures of creating the CMIO categories will be presented.The second part of this paper is dedicated to analyzing the consequences of these policies on public discourse. Firstly I shall discuss how identity is categorized by race and how the perception of the “Other” is shaped accordingly. Finally I will shortly present how the race concept can be interpreted as an essentialization of the main racial traits – or what is considered as such by the authorities.