Journal articles on the topic 'Singapore Race relations'

“Race” and racial categories play a significant role in everyday life and state organization in Singapore. While multiplicity and diversity are important characteristics of Singaporean society, Singapore's multiracial ideology is firmly based on separate, racialized groups, leaving little room for racial projects reflecting more complex identifications. This article explores national narratives of race, culture and belonging as they have developed over time, used as a tool for the state, and re-emerging in discourses of hybridity and “double-barrelled” racial identifications. Multiracialism, as a maintained structural feature of Singaporean society, is both challenged and reinforced by new understandings of hybridity and older conceptions of what it means to be “mixed race” in a (post-)colonial society. Tracing the temporal thread of racial categorization through a lens of mixedness, this article places the Singaporean case within emerging work on hybridity and recognition of “mixed race”. It illustrates how state-led understandings of race and “mixed race” describe processes of both continuity and change, with far-reaching practical and ideological impacts.

Abstract Creativity and risk-taking, widely accepted prerequisites for successful entrepreneurial behavior, were absent for a long time from Singaporean culture, where people were accustomed to well paying and readily available jobs in the public sector. As a result of the economic slowdown of the late 1990s, promoting entrepreneurial activities became a priority of the Singapore government. This study analyzes the entrepreneurial characteristics of Singapore's multi-racial and multi-cultural society, and attempts to find if there are any reasons as to why some people are more readily willing to engage in entrepreneurial behavior, based on factors such as race, gender, and culture. Keywords: Entrepreneurship, culture, innovation, risk propensity, Singapore

Racial discrimination is a global phenomenon that the United Nations seeks to eradicate. In contemporary Singapore, research shows that the basis for racial discrimination is anchored in the role of ethnic identity and how it frames the formulation of policies related to education, employment, housing, immigration and politics. These policies have been formulated and implemented by the People's Action Party (PAP) government that has been in power for over 50 years. When confronted with its racially based policies, the PAP government insists that it follows a tolerant approach towards different races and that it promotes the idea of multiculturalism and meritocracy as a racial equalizer. However, ethnic minorities in Singapore complain they are being discriminated against daily on the basis of their race or religion. They argue that their views are often not given airing in the local mainstream media and they are further prevented from discussing these issues openly due to legislation restricting freedom of expression and assembly on these matters. Given this background, the first visit of a UN Rapporteur on racism to Singapore, at the invitation of the PAP government in April 2010, allowed the city-state's race-based policies to be put in an international spotlight. This study examines the visit of the UN Rapporteur, his initial findings, government and civil society responses, and the significance of this first UN mission. The paper locates its research on racial discrimination in the context of Singapore's political framework and the United Nations' efforts to eradicate racism. It argues that ultimately, policy changes in Singapore can only take place as a result of politically challenging the PAP government.

Through the proposed frame of ‘everyday intimacies’, this article explores the entanglements of race and gender in inter-ethnic relationships. ‘Everyday intimacies’ brings together the minority experiences of everyday racism, the state practices and policies of multiculturalism, and their inflections in intimate relationships of marriage, friendship, and dating. This approach demonstrates not just how the state regulates people’s intimate life through policies of marriage and family, but also how other indirect processes of multicultural governance mediate intimate life. Drawing on biographical narratives of mainly Indian women from in-depth life story interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, the article brings the literature on intimacies in conversation with the scholarship on race and ethnic relations in Singapore. Through a focus on intimacy, the article illustrates how tacit knowledge and embodied effects of everyday racism relate to larger trends of intermarriages, rising singlehood among Indian women and possibilities of co-ethnic friendships and solidarities. In doing so, the article presents novel insight into race and gender relations in Singapore.

Abstract Large-scale immigration has turned Singapore into a highly diverse setting, where migrants and local-born Singaporeans encounter one another on a daily basis. In the past decade, the city-state has seen rising debates and contestations over racism, despite being known as a racially harmonious society. This article situates the public discourse on racism and “Chinese privilege” in the context of superdiversity and examines its wider implications for theorization and policy. Approaching the paradox of superdiversity from a political economy perspective, we investigate how three sets of factors have contributed to the rising public discourse on racism not only between migrants and locals but also among local-born Singaporeans: i) immigration regime and the strategy toward a knowledge economy, ii) new patterns of electoral politics, and iii) the impacts of China’s growing influences in Southeast Asia. This article offers two broader theoretical implications for the scholarship on migration and race relations in a context of superdiversity. First, the paradoxical co-existence of superdiversity and racism obtains not only between migrants and natives, as many studies have shown, but also between native races in the host society. Second, diversifications and new forms of contestations and racism are not only a result of the immigration regime and domestic politics of the host country, but are also shaped by the international political economy, as evidenced by the way in which the rise of China has intensified contestations on race relations in Singapore.

Abstract Singapore, with a five million population, has a vibrant charitable sector with over 2000 registered charities attracting approximately USD$2.18 billion in annual donations. How did Singapore’s charitable sector achieve its current level when it has been, in the past, segregated along mainly religious, race and clan-based communities? This paper explores this question by piecing together the current ecosystem, regulatory and tax infrastructure which facilitates the charitable sector in Singapore. Central to the development of the charitable sector has been the Singapore government’s role of being a gatekeeper, regulator and enabler of charities. In analysing the government’s role in the charitable sector, this paper locates Singapore’s charitable sector within the literature on government and nonprofit organization relations which has been described at times being cooperative, complementary, confrontational, and co-optive. These astute observations ring true with respect to the Singapore government’s relationship with the charitable sector. For organizations which pursue purposes consistent with state’s vision of public good, the state’s relationship with these charities has been largely cooperative and complementary. However, even within charities considered by the state to further public good, there is a strong element of co-optation where the state wields significant direct and indirect power over the charitable sector by way of provision of funding and board composition. In contrast, nonprofit organizations which engage in aims inconsistent with the state’s perceived public interest are, by law, unable to register itself as charities and enjoy corresponding fiscal benefits. Such nonprofit organizations also typically do not receive state funding. This demonstrates the confrontational nature of the state’s relationship with these nonprofit organizations. Through a close analysis of the laws, codes, media reports and academic literature on the charitable sector, the central thesis of this paper is that the charitable sector in Singapore is essentially a state facilitated endeavor.

This article discusses the impact of Malaysia's formation on September 16, 1963. The establishment of Malaysia involves Malaya, Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore. Planning at the early stage includes Brunei but the State withdrew at the end of Malaysia's formation. Singapore also dropped out from the Malaysia Formation two years later in 1965. The formation of Malaysia has affected Malaysia to this day. The objective of the study is to discuss the benefits of politics, socialization and racial relations in Malaysia. Among the things discussed in this article are the benefits of the platform of socialisation and racial relations in Malaysia as well as the political aspects. Both of these were examined using historical approaches and library research. The findings show that Malaysia's establishment has made Malaysia a unique nation with racial diversity. This includes the establishment of many political parties based on their respective race or tribe, especially in Sabah and Sarawak. All Malaysians enjoy the benefits of Malaysia’s establishment for harmony and peace.

Colonial race relations are regularly portrayed in light of the attempts to divide and rule colonialised Asian communities. While this article does not challenge this view, it attempts to uncover a hitherto hidden level of interaction and even intermarriage at the grassroots level in colonial Malaya and Singapore. With the exception of the various Peranakan communities that predated British rule, little to no evidence exists to show that interaction and especially intermarriage existed within early first- and second-generation migrant communities during the British colonial period. The findings show how colonial attempts to encourage a heightened sense of race and its frailties may have fallen short among some sections of the Asian community.

In this review of research in applied linguistics and language teaching and learning in Singapore, more than one hundred national publications for the period 2000–2007 will be reviewed. Since this period encompasses certain changes that were introduced in Singapore schools at the start of the new millennium, it would be appropriate to take stock of the studies that showcase these changes. These studies fall under five main areas of local research: norms, standards and models; English language curriculum and policy; reading and writing instruction and research; mother tongue teaching and learning; and the teaching of English to international students. In this review, representative work under each research area will be discussed, and this will be done within the broad historical and sociopolitical context of research in Singapore. The results of the review suggest that practical concerns assume priority over theoretical issues, which are relegated to secondary importance. This can be explained in terms of the role of the state in education reform and governance and its top–down decision-making processes, the impact of globalization on education, and the role of education in the management of race relations in the country.

AbstractThis research note studies the political representation of racial minorities in Singapore. Specifically, it analyzes whether racial minority members of parliament (MPs) are more likely than Chinese MPs to represent the interests of racial minorities in the Parliament. I answer this question through conducting content analyses of the parliamentary questions raised during the plenary meetings of the 10th–12th Parliament of Singapore (2002–2015). In total, 6,678 questions were asked. Our results show that racial minority MPs were significantly more likely (21.79 times) than Chinese MPs to ask questions related to racial minorities. While this study shows that racial minority MPs were significantly more likely than Chinese MPs to ask questions related to racial minorities, it also highlights the inadequacy of representation of racial minority interests in the Parliament of Singapore. During our period of study, only 1.2% of the total number of parliamentary questions focused on racial minorities. Besides MPs' race, this study finds that partisan affiliation crucially influenced the likelihood of MPs to represent racial minority interests. Political parties played an important role in shaping MPs' representational behavior. Compared to the People's Action Party (PAP) MPs, opposition MPs were significantly more likely to raise racial minority-related questions. One possible explanation could be that opposition MPs used parliamentary questions as an important tool to challenge and criticize the governing party's policies on racial minorities. Another explanation could be that PAP racial minority MPs' first loyalty has to be to the party and government rather than their co-ethnics, given that they are beholden to party elites for their seats.

States, however, are still the main actors in International Relations. Although the Cold War had formally ended in 1991, as a matter of fact, the military competition still exists, including at the regional level. This article attempts to analyze the arms dynamic in Southeast Asia during the 2010-2015 periods. By using three models – action-reaction model, the domestic structure model, and the technological imperative – simultaneously and analyzing the data published by both the IISS and SIPRI, this study shows that conflict in the South China Sea had been the primary motive of several countries in increasing their military spending and enhancing their military capabilities, both qualities as well as quantities. Several countries accelerating their military strength had been Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia. However, Singapore had been the leading actor that has significant efforts in strengthening its military power. Relizing the difficulty to identify the actual motives of these several countries enlarging their hard power, the author argues that, within this arms dynamic, there is also a possibility or even the long-term tendency in terms of arms race as long as these major actors that relates directly to the South China Sea territorial conflict are not able carefully to maintain their security dilemma and perceived threats. Kata Kunci: Arms dynamic, Southeast Asia, military capability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the implication of trade on carbon emissions in a panel of eight highly trading Southeast and East Asian countries, namely, China, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Design/methodology/approach – The analysis relies on the standard quadratic environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) extended to include energy consumption and international trade. A battery of panel unit root and co-integration tests is applied to establish the variables’ stochastic properties and their long-run relations. Then, the specified EKC is estimated using the panel dynamic ordinary least square (OLS) estimation technique. Findings – The panel co-integration statistics verifies the validity of the extended EKC for the countries under study. Estimation of the long-run EKC via the dynamic OLS estimation method reveals the environmentally degrading effects of trade in these countries, especially in ASEAN and plus South Korea and Hong Kong. Practical implications – These countries are heavily dependent on trade for their development processes, and as such, their impacts on CO2 emissions would be highly relevant for assessing their trade policies, along the line of the gain-from-trade hypothesis, the race-to-the-bottom hypothesis and the pollution-safe-haven hypothesis. Originality/value – The analysis adds to existing literature by focusing on the highly trading nations of Southeast and East Asian countries. The results suggest that reassessment of trade policies in these countries is much needed and it must go beyond the sole pursuit of economic development via trade.

Recent decades highlight an extraordinary growth of casino gambling all over the world. In the race to build casino-cities, particularly to reap economic and social benefits, most aspirers look to replicate the development models of the most famous casino-cities known to date, Las Vegas and Macao. Countries that have modelled after the aforementioned casino-cities have had mix results of success; e.g., Singapore, which followed Macao, yielded considerable success, while other states of the US which modelled Las Vegas, such as Atlantic City, did not have as much luck. In this respect, the countries adhere to the words of the wise; “Standing on the shoulders of the giants”. Yet, perhaps explaining why no country can really replicate the successful development experiences of Las Vegas and Macao, most countries fail to see beyond the glitz and glamor to recognize the key challenges and opportunities that helped make Las Vegas and Macao; e.g., with respect to the presence of domestic organized crime groups. This paper delves deep into identifying the key actors and circumstances that made the aforementioned cities what they are today, elucidating the integral development strategies used during their formative years. Utilizing a Marxian approach to understanding the state and state-civil society relations, the paper elucidates why no country can really replicate the development models of Las Vegas and Macao without appreciating its socio-political characteristics and the intricate ties between the upperworld and underworld during their formative years. In light of the findings, recommendations are provided for future research and pragmatic endeavours.

Over the last few years, an emergent body of International Relations scholarship has taken an interest in the rise of global cities and the challenges they bring to existing geographies of power. In this article, I argue that a focus on race and empire should be central to this literature. Using the Grenfell Tower fire in London as a starting point, the article shows that global cities are part of a historical and ongoing imperial terrain. From London to New York, São Paulo to Cape Town, Singapore to Cairo, the ‘making’ of global cities has typically gone hand in hand with racialized forms of displacement, dispossession and police violence. Drawing on the literature on racial capitalism, as well as Aimé Césaire’s image of the ‘boomerang’, I show that these strategies build on practices of urban planning, slum administration and law-and-order policing long experimented with in the (post)colonies. By examining the colonial dimensions of what many assume to be a strictly national problem for the welfare state, the article thus reveals global cities as part of a much wider cartography of imperial and racial violence. This not only calls into question the presentism of scholarship that highlights the ‘newness’ of neoliberal urbanism. In demonstrating how global cities and colonial borderlands are bound together through racial capitalism, it also exposes the positionality of scholars and policymakers that seek to counter the violence of neoliberalism with a nostalgic return to the post-1945 welfare state. As the Grenfell fire revealed, the global city is less a new type of international actor or governance structure than an extension and reconfiguration of the domestic space of empire.

AbstractThis Article seeks to explore the nature, function, source, and content of a constitutional civil religion (CCR) within Singapore’s constitutional experiment in managing the diversity of race and religion and promoting solidarity. CCR is constructed as a strategy to secure social harmony within the world’s most religiously diverse polity, through recognizing an irreducible plurality in ethnic and religious terms, while maintaining an indivisible unity through nurturing bonds of citizen solidarity. This dovetails with the function of the constitution as an instrument of social integration, involving the articulation and regular affirmation of shared community values and aspirations, as well as process and practices—or public rituals—which regulate dispute resolution or conflict management during instances or crises where racial and religious harmony is threatened. A functional approach is taken towards the idea of a civil religion, and the tasks of integration, legitimation, and inspiration it may play within a constitutional order. The nature of civil religion in general, and the sources of CCR in Singapore, as well as its expression as a public ritual in managing religious disharmony disputes is discussed.

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The use of the family home as a setting for television sitcoms (situation comedies) has long been recognised for its ability to provide audiences with an identifiable site of ontological security (much discussed by Giddens, Scannell, Saunders and others). From the beginnings of American sitcoms with such programs as Leave it to Beaver, and through the trail of The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and on to Home Improvement, That 70s Show and How I Met Your Mother, the US has led the way with screenwriters and producers capitalising on the value of using the suburban family dwelling as a fixed setting. The most obvious advantage is the use of an easily constructed and inexpensive set, most often on a TV studio soundstage requiring only a few rooms (living room, kitchen and bedroom are usually enough to set the scene), and a studio audience. In Singapore, sitcoms have had similar successes; portraying the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in their home settings. Some programs have achieved phenomenal success, including an unprecedented ten year run for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd from 1996-2007, closely followed by Under One Roof (1994-2000 and an encore season in 2002), and Living with Lydia (2001-2005). This article furthers Blunt and Dowling’s exploration of the “critical geography” of home, by providing a focused analysis of home-based sitcoms in the nation-state of Singapore. The use of the home tells us a lot. Roseanne’s cluttered family home represents a lived reality for working-class families throughout the Western world. In Friends, the seemingly wealthy ‘young’ people live in a fashionable apartment building, while Seinfeld’s apartment block is much less salubrious, indicating (in line with the character) the struggle of the humble comedian. Each of these examples tells us something about not just the characters, but quite often about class, race, and contemporary societies. In the Singaporean programs, the home in Under One Roof (hereafter UOR) represents the major form of housing in Singapore, and the program as a whole demonstrates the workability of Singaporean multiculturalism in a large apartment block. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (PCK) demonstrates the entrepreneurial abilities of even under-educated Singaporeans, with its lead character, a building contractor, living in a large freestanding dwelling – generally reserved for the well-heeled of Singaporean society. And in Living with Lydia (LWL) (a program which demonstrates Singapore’s capacity for global integration), Hong Kong émigré Lydia is forced to share a house (less ostentatious than PCK’s) with the family of the hapless Billy B. Ong. There is perhaps no more telling cultural event than the sitcom. In the 1970s, The Brady Bunch told us more about American values and habits than any number of news reports or cop shows. A nation’s identity is uncovered; it bares its soul to us through the daily tribulations of its TV households. In Singapore, home-based sitcoms have been one of the major success stories in local television production with each of these three programs collecting multiple prizes at the region-wide Asian Television Awards. These sitcoms have been able to reflect the ideals and values of the Singaporean nation to audiences both at ‘home’ and abroad. This article explores the worlds of UOR, PCK, and LWL, and the ways in which each of the fictional homes represents key features of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Singapore. Through ownership and regulation, Singaporean TV programs operate as a firm link between the state and its citizens. These sitcoms follow regular patterns where the ‘man of the house’ is more buffoon than breadwinner – in a country defined by its neo-Confucian morality, sitcoms allow a temporary subversion of patriarchal structures. In this article I argue that the central theme in Singaporean sitcoms is that while home is a personal space, it is also a valuable site for national identities to be played out. These identities are visible in the physical indicators of the exterior and interior living spaces, and the social indicators representing a benign patriarchy and a dominant English language. Structure One of the key features of sitcoms is the structure: cold open – titles – establishing shot – opening scene. Generally the cold opening (aka “the teaser”) takes place inside the home to quickly (re)establish audience familiarity with the location and the characters. The title sequence then features, in the case of LWL and PCK, the characters outside the house (in LWL this is in cartoon format), and in UOR (see Figure 1) it is the communal space of the barbeque area fronting the multi-story HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks. Figure 1: Under One Roof The establishing shot at the end of each title sequence, and when returning from ad breaks, is an external view of the characters’ respective dwellings. In Seinfeld this establishing shot is the New York apartment block, in Roseanne it is the suburban house, and the Singaporean sitcoms follow the same format (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Phua Chu Kang External Visions of the Home This emphasis on exterior buildings reminds the viewer that Singaporean housing is, in many ways, unique. As a city-state (and a young one at that) its spatial constraints are particularly limiting: there simply isn’t room for suburban housing on quarter acre blocks. It rapidly transformed from an “empty rock” to a scattered Malay settlement of bay and riverside kampongs (villages) recognisable by its stilt houses. Then in the shadow of colonialism and the rise of modernity, the kampongs were replaced in many cases by European-inspired terrace houses. Finally, in the post-colonial era high-rise housing began to swell through the territory, creating what came to be known as the “HDB new town”, with some 90% of the population now said to reside in HDB units, and many others living in private high-rises (Chang 102, 104). Exterior shots used in UOR (see Figure 3) consistently emphasise the distinctive HDB blocks. As with the kampong housing, high-rise apartments continue notions of communal living in that “Living below, above and side by side other people requires tolerance of neighbours and a respect towards the environment of the housing estate for the good of all” (104). The provision of readily accessible public housing was part of the “covenant between the newly enfranchised electorate and the elected government” (Chua 47). Figure 3: Establishing shot from UOR In UOR, we see the constant interruption of the lives of the Tan family by their multi-ethnic neighbours. This occurs to such an extent as to be a part of the normal daily flow of life in Singaporean society. Chang argues that despite the normally interventionist activities of the state, it is the “self-enforcing norms” of behaviour that have worked in maintaining a “peaceable society in high-rise housing” (104). This communitarian attitude even extends to the large gated residence of PCK, home to an almost endless stream of relatives and friends. The gate itself seems to perform no restrictive function. But such a “peaceable society” can also be said to be a result of state planning which extends to the “racial majoritarianism” imposed on HDB units in the form of quotas determining “the actual number of households of each of the three major races [Chinese, Malay and Indian] … to be accommodated in a block of flats” (Chua 55). Issues of race are important in Singapore where “the inscription of media imagery bears the cultural discourse and materiality of the social milieu” (Wong 120) perhaps nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the segregation of TV channels along linguistic / cultural lines. These 3 programs all featured on MediaCorp TV’s predominantly English-language Channel 5 and are, in the words of Roland Barthes, “anchored” by dint of their use of English. Home Will Eat Itself The consumption of home-based sitcoms by audiences in their own living-rooms creates a somewhat self-parodying environment. As John Ellis once noted, it is difficult to escape from the notion that “TV is a profoundly domestic phenomenon” (113) in that it constantly attempts to “include the audiences own conception of themselves into the texture of its programmes” (115). In each of the three Singaporean programs living-rooms are designed to seat characters in front of a centrally located TV set – at most all the audience sees is the back of the TV, and generally only when the TV is incorporated into a storyline, as in the case of PCK in Figure 4 (note the TV set in the foreground). Figure 4: PCK Even in this episode of PCK when the lead characters stumble across a pornographic video starring one of the other lead characters, the viewer only hears the program. Perhaps the most realistic (and acerbic) view of how TV reorganises our lives – both spatially in the physical layout of our homes, and temporally in the way we construct our viewing habits (eating dinner or doing the housework while watching the screen) – is the British “black comedy”, The Royle Family. David Morley (443) notes that “TV and other media have adapted themselves to the circumstances of domestic consumption while the domestic arena itself has been simultaneously redefined to accommodate their requirements”. Morley refers to The Royle Family’s narrative that rests on the idea that “for many people, family life and watching TV have become indistinguishable to the extent that, in this fictional household, it is almost entirely conducted from the sitting positions of the viewers clustered around the set” (436). While TV is a central fixture in most sitcoms, its use is mostly as a peripheral thematic device with characters having their viewing interrupted by the arrival of another character, or by a major (within the realms of the plot) event. There is little to suggest that “television schedules have instigated a significant restructuring of family routines” as shown in Livingstone’s audience-based study of UK viewers (104). In the world of the sitcom, the temporalities of characters’ lives do not need to accurately reflect that of “real life” – or if they do, things quickly descend to the bleakness exemplified by the sedentary Royles. As Scannell notes, “broadcast output, like daily life, is largely uneventful, and both are punctuated (predictably and unpredictably) by eventful occasions” (4). To show sitcom characters in this static, passive environment would be anathema to the “real” viewer, who would quickly lose interest. This is not to suggest that sitcoms are totally benign though as with all genres they are “the outcome of social practices, received procedures that become objectified in the narratives of television, then modified in the interpretive act of viewing” (Taylor 14). In other words, they feature a contextualisation that is readily identifiable to members of an established society. However, within episodes themselves, it as though time stands still – character development is almost non-existent, or extremely slow at best and we see each episode has “flattened past and future into an eternal present in which parents love and respect one another, and their children forever” (Taylor 16). It takes some six seasons before the character of PCK becomes a father, although in previous seasons he acts as a mentor to his nephew, Aloysius. Contained in each episode, in true sitcom style, are particular “narrative lines” in which “one-liners and little comic situations [are] strung on a minimal plot line” containing a minor problem “the solution to which will take 22 minutes and pull us gently through the sequence of events toward a conclusion” (Budd et al. 111). It is important to note that the sitcom genre does not work in every culture, as each locale renders the sitcom with “different cultural meanings” (Nielsen 95). Writing of the failure of the Danish series Three Whores and a Pickpocket (with a premise like that, how could it fail?), Nielsen (112) attributes its failure to the mixing of “kitchen sink realism” with “moments of absurdity” and “psychological drama with expressionistic camera work”, moving it well beyond the strict mode of address required by the genre. In Australia, soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours have been infinitely more popular than our attempts at sitcoms – which had a brief heyday in the 1980s with Hey Dad..!, Kingswood Country and Mother and Son – although Kath and Kim (not studio-based) could almost be counted. Lichter et al. (11) state that “television entertainment can be ‘political’ even when it does not deal with the stuff of daily headlines or partisan controversy. Its latent politics lie in the unavoidable portrayal of individuals, groups, and institutions as a backdrop to any story that occupies the foreground”. They state that US television of the 1960s was dominated by the “idiot sitcom” and that “To appreciate these comedies you had to believe that social conventions were so ironclad they could not tolerate variations. The scripts assumed that any minute violation of social conventions would lead to a crisis that could be played for comic results” (15). Series like Happy Days “harked back to earlier days when problems were trivial and personal, isolated from the concerns of a larger world” (17). By the late 1980s, Roseanne and Married…With Children had “spawned an antifamily-sitcom format that used sarcasm, cynicism, and real life problems to create a type of in-your-face comedy heretofore unseen on prime time” (20). This is markedly different from the type of values presented in Singaporean sitcoms – where filial piety and an unrelenting faith in the family unit is sacrosanct. In this way, Singaporean sitcoms mirror the ideals of earlier US sitcoms which idealise the “egalitarian family in which parental wisdom lies in appeals to reason and fairness rather than demands for obedience” (Lichter et al. 406). Dahlgren notes that we are the products of “an ongoing process of the shaping and reshaping of identity, in response to the pluralised sets of social forces, cultural currents and personal contexts encountered by individuals” where we end up with “composite identities” (318). Such composite identities make the presentation (or re-presentation) of race problematic for producers of mainstream television. Wong argues that “Within the context of PAP hegemony, media presentation of racial differences are manufactured by invoking and resorting to traditional values, customs and practices serving as symbols and content” (118). All of this is bound within a classificatory system in which each citizen’s identity card is inscribed as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (often referred to as CMIO), and a broader social discourse in which “the Chinese are linked to familial values of filial piety and the practice of extended family, the Malays to Islam and rural agricultural activities, and the Indians to the caste system” (Wong 118). However, these sitcoms avoid directly addressing the issue of race, preferring to accentuate cultural differences instead. In UOR the tables are turned when a none-too-subtle dig at the crude nature of mainland Chinese (with gags about the state of public toilets), is soon turned into a more reverential view of Chinese culture and business acumen. Internal Visions of the Home This reverence for Chinese culture is also enacted visually. The loungeroom settings of these three sitcoms all provide examples of the fashioning of the nation through a “ubiquitous semi-visibility” (Noble 59). Not only are the central characters in each of these sitcoms constructed as ethnically Chinese, but the furnishings provide a visible nod to Chinese design in the lacquered screens, chairs and settees of LWL (see Figure 5.1), in the highly visible pair of black inlaid mother-of-pearl wall hangings of UOR (see Figure 5.2) and in the Chinese statuettes and wall-hangings found in the PCK home. Each of these items appears in the central view of the shows most used setting, the lounge/family room. There is often symmetry involved as well; the balanced pearl hangings of UOR are mirrored in a set of silk prints in LWL and the pair of ceramic Chinese lions in PCK. Figure 5.1: LWL Figure 5.2: UOR Thus, all three sitcoms feature design elements that reflect visible links to Chinese culture and sentiments, firmly locating the sitcoms “in Asia”, and providing a sense of the nation. The sets form an important role in constructing a realist environment, one in which “identification with realist narration involves a temporary merger of at least some of the viewer’s identity with the position offered by the text” (Budd et al. 110). These constant silent reminders of the Chinese-based hegemon – the cultural “majoritarianism” – anchors the sitcoms to a determined concept of the nation-state, and reinforces the “imaginative geographies of home” (Blunt and Dowling 247). The Foolish “Father” Figure in a Patriarchal Society But notions of a dominant Chinese culture are dealt with in a variety of ways in these sitcoms – not the least in a playful attitude toward patriarchal figures. In UOR, the Tan family “patriarch” is played by Moses Lim, in PCK, Gurmit Singh plays Phua and in LWL Samuel Chong plays Billy B. Ong (or, as Lydia mistakenly refers to him Billy Bong). Erica Sharrer makes the claim that class is a factor in presenting the father figure as buffoon, and that US sitcoms feature working class families in which “the father is made to look inept, silly, or incompetent have become more frequent” partly in response to changing societal structures where “women are shouldering increasing amounts of financial responsibility in the home” (27). Certainly in the three series looked at here, PCK (the tradesman) is presented as the most derided character in his role as head of the household. Moses Lim’s avuncular Tan Ah Teck is presented mostly as lovably foolish, even when reciting his long-winded moral tales at the conclusion of each episode, and Billy B. Ong, as a middle-class businessman, is presented more as a victim of circumstance than as a fool. Sharrer ponders whether “sharing the burden of bread-winning may be associated with fathers perceiving they are losing advantages to which they were traditionally entitled” (35). But is this really a case of males losing the upper hand? Hanke argues that men are commonly portrayed as the target of humour in sitcoms, but only when they “are represented as absurdly incongruous” to the point that “this discursive strategy recuperates patriarchal notions” (90). The other side of the coin is that while the “dominant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone” (but isn’t), “the sitcom’s strategy for containing women as ‘wives’ and ‘mothers’ is always contradictory and open to alternative readings” (Hanke 77). In Singapore’s case though, we often return to images of the women in the kitchen, folding the washing or agonising over the work/family dilemma, part of what Blunt and Dowling refer to as the “reproduction of patriarchal and heterosexist relations” often found in representations of “the ideal’ suburban home” (29). Eradicating Singlish One final aspect of these sitcoms is the use of language. PM Lee Hsien Loong once said that he had no interest in “micromanaging” the lives of Singaporeans (2004). Yet his two predecessors (PM Goh and PM Lee Senior) both reflected desires to do so by openly criticising the influence of Phua Chu Kang’s liberal use of colloquial phrases and phrasing. While the use of Singlish (or Singapore Colloquial English / SCE) in these sitcoms is partly a reflection of everyday life in Singapore, by taking steps to eradicate it through the Speak Good English movement, the government offers an intrusion into the private home-space of Singaporeans (Ho 17). Authorities fear that increased use of Singlish will damage the nation’s ability to communicate on a global basis, withdrawing to a locally circumscribed “pidgin English” (Rubdy 345). Indeed, the use of Singlish in UOR is deliberately underplayed in order to capitalise on overseas sales of the show (which aired, for example, on Australia’s SBS television) (Srilal). While many others have debated the Singlish issue, my concern is with its use in the home environment as representative of Singaporean lifestyles. As novelist Hwee Hwee Tan (2000) notes: Singlish is crude precisely because it’s rooted in Singapore’s unglamorous past. This is a nation built from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. Singlish thus offers users the opportunity to “show solidarity, comradeship and intimacy (despite differences in background)” and against the state’s determined efforts to adopt the language of its colonizer (Ho 19-20). For this reason, PCK’s use of Singlish iterates a “common man” theme in much the same way as Paul Hogan’s “Ocker” image of previous decades was seen as a unifying feature of mainstream Australian values. That the fictional PCK character was eventually “forced” to take “English” lessons (a storyline rapidly written into the program after the direct criticisms from the various Prime Ministers), is a sign that the state has other ideas about the development of Singaporean society, and what is broadcast en masse into Singaporean homes. Conclusion So what do these home-based sitcoms tell us about Singaporean nationalism? Firstly, within the realms of a multiethnic society, mainstream representations reflect the hegemony present in the social and economic structures of Singapore. Chinese culture is dominant (albeit in an English-speaking environment) and Indian, Malay and Other cultures are secondary. Secondly, the home is a place of ontological security, and partial adornment with cultural ornaments signifying Chinese culture are ever-present as a reminder of the Asianness of the sitcom home, ostensibly reflecting the everyday home of the audience. The concept of home extends beyond the plywood-prop walls of the soundstage though. As Noble points out, “homes articulate domestic spaces to national experience” (54) through the banal nationalism exhibited in “the furniture of everyday life” (55). In a Singaporean context, Velayutham (extending the work of Morley) explores the comforting notion of Singapore as “home” to its citizens and concludes that the “experience of home and belonging amongst Singaporeans is largely framed in the materiality and social modernity of everyday life” (4). Through the use of sitcoms, the state is complicit in creating and recreating the family home as a site for national identities, adhering to dominant modes of culture and language. References Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Budd, Mike, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1999. Chang, Sishir. “A High-Rise Vernacular in Singapore’s Housing Development Board Housing.” Berkeley Planning Journal 14 (2000): 97-116. Chua, Beng Huat. “Public Housing Residents as Clients of the State.” Housing Studies 15.1 (2000). Dahlgren, Peter. “Media, Citizenship and Civic Culture”. Mass Media and Society. 3rd ed. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. London: Arnold, 2000. 310-328. Ellis, John. Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Hanke, Robert. “The ‘Mock-Macho’ Situation Comedy: Hegemonic Masculinity and its Reiteration.” Western Journal of Communication 62.1 (1998). Ho, Debbie G.E. “‘I’m Not West. I’m Not East. So How Leh?’” English Today 87 22.3 (2006). Lee, Hsien Loong. “Our Future of Opportunity and Promise.” National Day Rally 2004 Speech. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.gov.sg/nd/ND04.htm>. Lichter, S. Robert, Linda S. Lichter, and Stanley Rothman. Prime Time: How TV Portrays American Culture. Washington D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 1994. Livingstone, Sonia. Young People and New Media: Childhood and the Changing Media Environment. London: Sage, 2002 Morley, David. “What’s ‘Home’ Got to Do with It? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 6 (2003). Noble, Greg. “Comfortable and Relaxed: Furnishing the Home and Nation.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 16.1 (2002). Rubdy, Rani. “Creative Destruction: Singapore’s Speak Good English Movement.” World Englishes 20.3 (2001). Scannell, Paddy. “For a Phenomenology of Radio and Television.” Journal of Communication 45.3 (1995). Scharrer, Erica. “From Wise to Foolish: The Portrayal of the Sitcom Father, 1950s-1990s.” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 45.1 (2001). Srilal, Mohan. “Quick Quick: ‘Singlish’ Is Out in Re-education Campaign.” Asia Times Online (28 Aug. 1999). Tan, Hwee Hwee. “A War of Words over ‘Singlish’: Singapore’s Government Wants Its Citizens to Speak Good English, But They Would Rather Be ‘Talking Cock’.” Time International 160.3 (29 July 2002). Taylor, Ella. “From the Nelsons to the Huxtables: Genre and Family Imagery in American Network Television.” Qualitative Sociology 12.1 (1989). Velayutham, Selvaraj. “Affect, Materiality, and the Gift of Social Life in Singapore.” SOJOURN 19.1 (2004). Wong, Kokkeong. Media and Culture in Singapore: A Theory of Controlled Commodification. New Jersey: Hampton Press, 2001. Images Under One Roof: The Special Appearances. Singapore: Television Corporation of Singapore. VCD. 2000. Living with Lydia (Season 1, Volume 1). Singapore: MediaCorp Studios, Blue Max Enterprise. VCD. 2001. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (Season 5, Episode 10). Kuala Lumpur: MediaCorp Studios, Speedy Video Distributors. VCD. 2003. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Pugsley, Peter. "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>. APA Style Pugsley, P. (Aug. 2007) "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>.

Much has been written about Tamil diaspora as well as Muslim women in Singapore, but only separately. This exploratory article would aim to fill that empirical gap by focusing on a detailed ethnographic study of Tamil Muslim women in Singapore as gendered racialized bodies, thus examining the actualities and dilemmas of being visibly transnational Muslim women in a diasporic space by unpacking the interconnections between identity and belongingness. This work uses a trans-local lens to understand the transnational experiences and hybridized shape-shifting identities of Tamil Muslim women in a diasporic space like Singapore, thus reconceptualizing transnationalism and diaspora. Using an intersectional lens also gives a new edge in addressing the multiple loopholes and interconnections that come together to impact the everyday experiences of Tamil Muslim women in Singapore. This research would thus contribute to feminist literature and (Tamil diaspora) diaspora literature by exploring intersections of identities such as race, religion, and gender that interplay in relation to transnational belongingness from a female standpoint, that of the Tamil Muslim women in Singapore based on the everyday experiences and realities of the social structure within their local environment.

AbstractThis paper will demonstrate the prevalence of 'ethnic thinking' in everyday life and the role which culture plays in defining individuals and groups in Singapore. I will argue that the Singapore state has intentionally created a national identity which rests on the idea of the assumed purity of the different ethnic groups which exist within that nation. Singpore's multi-racial policies force the heterogeneous character of the population into four 'races' and there are no officially recognised inter-ethnic individuals within the state. The official promotion of 'ethnic' culture which claims that ethnic identity and culture are somehow identical results in a culture of stereotypes which shapes everyday life - where people live and how they interact as neighbours, for example. The stereotypes are reinforced by religious festivals. While state support of ethnic differentiation has helped to prevent ethnic violence, the politicisation of ethnic identity may ironically encourage conflict in the future when ethnic and economic divisions coincide.

Biracial Phenotypes as Ambivalent SignifiersRacialisation is the process of imbuing a body with meaning (Ahmed). Rockquemore et al.’s study on American Black-White middle-class college youth emphasises the importance of phenotypes in interracial children because “physical appearance is the primary cue for racial group membership… and remains the greatest factor in how mixed-race children are classified by others” (114). Wilson’s work on British mixed race 6 to 9-year-olds argues that interracial children classify other children based on how “they locate themselves in the racial structure and how they feel about the various racial groups” (64).However, interracial children often struggle with claiming a racial identity that does not correspond to their obvious physical appearance because society is more likely to classify or perceive the child based on their corporeal manifestations than their self-identified racial master status. In instances where they are unacknowledged or rejected by homoethinc groups, interracial persons may be deemed ‘illegitimate’ trespassers within social contexts. In response, interracial bodies may selectively hyper/under-visibilise one racial identity depending on personal connotations of the social group in particular settings (Choudhry 119). Choudhry’s book on the ‘chameleon identities’ of mixed race Black-Asian and White-Asian British young people sets out four ‘interpretative repertoires’ that interracials cognitively adopt: ‘Identity in Transition’ where individuals are still coming to terms with their master status; ‘One Ethnic Identity’ where individuals always privilege one race over the other regardless of context; ‘Interethnic Identity’ where individuals consciously and equally express their dual race and parentage at all times; and ‘Situational/Chameleon-like Identity’ where individuals selectively emphasise one race over the other when it benefits them (112-116). This paper follows on a similar mode of enquiry among Malay-Chinese women in Singapore, whose racial master status is situationally-based.In ethnically heterogeneous and culturally diverse Singapore, an individual’s racial phenotype is convenient shorthand that demarcates Others’ appropriate interactions with and expectations of them. Malbon describes these brief encounters in crowded urban settings as ‘mismeetings’, in which a body’s visual markers allow for a quick assessment and situation of a person’s identity and status. A visibly racialised body thus informs Others on how to negotiate cross-cultural sensitivities and understandings with them in a shared social space. For instance, this visibility may help inform the Other of an appropriate choice of mother tongue to be adopted in conversation with a stranger, or whether to extend non-halal food to a ‘Malay-looking’ – and by extension in most parts of South East Asia, Muslim – person.Unlike previous studies, this paper is not focused on interracial individuals’ felt-race, cognitive development, or the ethnic influence in their upbringing. Instead, it concentrates on their praxis of enacting corporeal markers to enable homophilous interactions with homoethnic social groups. Some Malay-Chinese in Singapore have phenotypic features that may not distinctly reflect their ethnic diversity. Hence, they are not readily acknowledged or accepted into some homoethnic contexts and are deemed ‘illegitimate’ trespassers. It is important for Others to be able to situate them since this “brings with it privileges or deprivations that affect [their] relationships with others and [their] relation to the world” (Mohanty 109). Every day interactions that affirm or negate one’s biraciality then become micropolitics of legitimating one’s in-group status; in the words of one woman’s reactions to Malay classmates excluding her from conversations about Hari Raya, “I also Melayu ok”. These women thus find themselves under- or hyper-visibilising facets of their biracial corporeality to negotiate legitimacy and sense of belonging. Through in-depth interviews with five young Malay-Chinese women who have had to renegotiate their biraciality in educational institutions each school year, this paper seeks to document the intentional under/hyper-performativity of biraciality through visible bodily signifiers. It argues that these biracial women who are perceived as illegitimate inhabitants of social settings have agentically adopted the ambivalence others display towards them as everyday micro-actions to exercise their autonomy, and strategically reposition themselves favourably.The five women were contacted through snowball sampling among personal networks in polytechnics and universities, which are education settings where students have the liberty to dress themselves, and thus, visibilise facets of their identity. These settings were also places in which the women had to continually under/hyper-visibilise and remark their race and ethnicity in rotating tutorial and lecture groups every semester, therefore (re)constructing their identities through peer interactions (Wilson in Choudhry 112).They were aged between 18 and 23 at the time of the interview. Their state-documented ‘official’ race, self-identified religion, and state-assigned mother tongue are tabulated below. Pseudonyms are employed.Semi-structured open-ended interviews were conducted to draw out personal nuances and interpretations of their bodies as read by Others. Our face-to-face interaction proved to be especially useful when informants physically referenced bodily markers or performed verbal cues to convey their under/hyper-visibility strategies.InformantNadiaAtiqahSaraClaireWahidaSexFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleFemaleAge2322221822‘Official’ raceMalayMalayMalayMalayChineseReligionChristianMuslimChristianChristianMuslimMother tongueMandarinMalayMandarin MandarinMalayThe Body BeingAmong primary phenotypic cues, the women acknowledged popular perceptions of Chinese as fair-skinned and Malay as darker-skinned. This shorthand has been ingrained into society through rampant media images, especially in annual national-wide initiatives based in educational institutes such as Racial Harmony Day, International Friendship Day, and National Day. These settings utilise a ‘racial colour code’ to represent the CMIO – Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others; the four racial categories all Singaporeans are officially categorised into by the state – multiracialism in Singapore. Media imagery employs four children of different skin tones clad in ethnic dress, holding hands as symbolic of unity across diversity. So normative was this image even at the level of Primary School (7-12 year-olds) that Sara found her legitimacy in Chinese lessons questioned: “I used to be quite tanned in Primary School, quite Malay-looking… during Chinese lessons, the teacher always explained [difficult things] to me in English, as if I don’t understand Mandarin. But I even took higher Chinese...”The non-congruence of Sara’s apparently Malay phenotype and Mandarin mother tongue was perceived by her teacher as incompetence; Sara was an ‘illegitimate’ pupil in Mandarin class. Despite having been qualified enough to enrol in the higher Chinese stream that she says only takes in 10% of her cohort annually, Sara felt her high performance was negated because the visual marker of her Malayness took precedence during interactions with the teacher. Instead, English was adopted as a ‘neutral’ third language for conversing.In other instances, the women reported that while their skin tone generally enabled an audience to assign them a race, closer observations of their facial features such as their eyes signposted their racial hybridity. Claire states: “People always ask if I’m mixed blood because my eyelashes are very long and thick.” Sara experienced similar questioning gazes from strangers: “… maybe it’s my big eyes, and thick eyebrows… and my double eyelids are also very ‘Malay’?"Both Claire and Sara pointed out anatomic subtleties such as the folds of their eyelids, the size of their eyes, the volume of their eyebrows, and the length of their eyelashes as markers of their racial hybridity. There also emerged a consensus based on personal experience that Malays are more likely to have double eyelids, larger eyes, thicker eyebrows, and longer lashes, than to Chinese.Visual emphases on subtle characteristics thus help audiences interpret the biraciality of these women despite the apparent ‘incongruence’ of their skin tone and facial features. However, since racial identity is “influenced by historical, cultural, and contextual factors” (Rockquemore et al. 121), corporeal indications only serve as a primary racial cue. The next segment places these women in the context of secondary cues where the body is actively engaged in performing biraciality.The Body SpeakingThe women code-switched with choice of language, mother tongue, and manner of accents and vocal inflexions to contest initial readings of their racial status. Atiqah shares: “People always think I’m Chinese, until I open my mouth and speak Malay to ‘shock’ them. After that, they just ‘get’ that I am Malay.”Atiqah’s raised vocal inflexions and increasingly enthusiastic body language – she was clenching her fist as if to symbolically convey her victory at this point of the interview – seemed to imply that she relished in the ‘shock value’ of her big racial ‘reveal’. In a setting where her racial status was misidentified, she responded by asserting her racial legitimacy by displaying her competency of the Malay language.However, this has not always had a lasting impact in her interactions. She adds that within familiar social groups where she has long asserted her racial identity, she does not always feel acknowledged. Atiqah then attempts to ‘fit in’ by quietly deciphering her peers’ verbal exchanges: “… sometimes my Chinese friends forget that I’m ‘different’ because I’m so fair. They always talk in Mandarin… and I’ll try to figure out what they are saying from facial expressions and gestures.”Given her fair skin tone, Atiqah finds herself hypervisiblising her Malayness by utilizing the Malay language among Malay friends, even though they often converse in English themselves. In contrast, among Chinese friends where she feels her phenotypic Chinese features are visually dominant, she appears to under-visibilise this same Malayness by not speaking up about her language barrier. Language’s potential to demarcate social boundaries thus becomes a negotiative tool for Malay-Chinese women, while they simultaneously “shift their involvement and alliances” (Choudhry 119) to exercise choice over their identity.In another instance, Wahida is a fair skinned, tudung-clad, officially documented Chinese woman who identifies more as Malay. Her apparent ‘incongruence’ is of particular concern because Wahida had been attending a Madrasah up till the age of 18. Madrasahs are Islamic learning schools which also provide full-time education from Kindergarten to Junior College level, as an alternative to the mainstream track offered by the Ministry of Education in Singapore; a vast majority of Madrasah students self-identify as Malay Muslims. The desire for a sense of belonging encouraged Wahida to undervisibilise her Chineseness when she was younger:There was once my father came to pick me up from Madrasah… I forgot why but he scolded me so loudly in Mandarin! Everybody stared at me… I was so embarrassed! I already tried so hard to hide my Chinese-ness, he ruined it.Although Wahida never spoke Mandarin in school to underplay her Chineseness, ‘passing’ as a Malay necessitated intimate Others to sustain the racial construct. In this instance, her father had broken the ‘Malay’ persona she had deliberately crafted by conversing fluently in Malay in the Madrasah.Butler’s work on ‘gender as performed’ may be applied here in that what she describes as the “sustained set of acts” or a “stylization of the body” (xv) is also necessary to enact a sustained visual signifier of one’s racial identity. Although portrayed as a natural, innate, or unquestioned heritage in CMIO media portrays for Singapore, race is in fact an intentional construction. It is the practice of a certain regime of actions that contributes to the establishment of one’s raced personality. One is not naturally ‘Malay’ or ‘Chinese’ for these identities have to be carefully rehearsed and performed in order to translate one’s hereditary race into an outward expression of visible-race as practiced. As evidenced, this constant performance of Wahida’s racial self is fragile and dialectic, especially when other actors (such as her father) do not respond favourably to her intended presentation of self.Within a supposedly neutral third language such as English, the women also demonstrated their manipulation of accents emphasising or underplaying what they deem to be Malay or Chinese intonations and syllabic stresses. Sara explains:When I’m with my Malay friends, I speak with the mat [shortened from the local colloquial term matrep which loosely stands for the Malay version of a chav or a redneck] accent. Sometimes it’s subconscious… but sometimes it’s on purpose... they all speak like that… when I speak my ‘proper’ English, I feel out of place.Sara then demonstrates that Malay-accented English nasally accentuates the ‘N’ consonant, where words such ‘morning’ and ‘action’ have weighted pronunciations as ‘mornang’ and ‘actione’. Words that begin with a ‘C’ consonant are also developed into a voiced plosive ‘K’ sound, where words such as ‘corner’ and ‘concept’ are articulated as ‘korner’ and ‘koncept’, similar to the Malay language. Claire, who demonstrated similar Malay-accented utterances, supported this.Claire also noted that within Singlish – the colloquial spoken Singaporean English – Malay-accented English also tends towards end-sentence inflexions such as “seh”, “sia”, and “siol” in place of the more Mandarin-accented English that employs the end-sentence inflexions “ba”, and “ma”.Racialising spoken English is a symbolic interaction that interracial bodies may utilise to gain recognition and acceptance into a racial group that has not yet acknowledged their ‘legitimate’ membership. This is a manifestation of Cooley’s ‘looking glass self’ where an individual’s presentation of the body is based how they think other actors’ perceive them. In doing so, biracial bodies are able to exaggerate or obscure some corporeal traits to convey their preferred racial master status.The Body DoingPhysical gestures that constitute a ‘racial code’ are mirrored and socialised among children during their upbringing, since these designate one’s bodily boundaries and limits of exchange. Thus, while unseen by outsiders, insiders of the racial group may appropriate subtle gesticulations to demarcate and legitimate each other’s membership. Atiqah contends: “We [the Malays] always salaam each other when we first meet, it’s like a signal to show that we are ‘the same’ you know, so as long as I ‘act’ Malay, then my [colour] doesn’t really matter.”The salaam is a salutation of Islamic origin, signifying ‘peace to you’. It usually involves taking the back of the hand of a senior and bringing it to one’s forehead, heart, or lips. It is commonly practiced among Malays and Muslims. However, when a body’s phenotypic markers do not adequately signify racial identity, insiders may not extend such affective body language to them. As Nadia laments:When I first came to uni, the Malay kampong [literally translates into ‘village’, but figuratively stands for a social group in which reciprocal Malay cultural relationality is attached] couldn’t tell I was one of them… when I tried to salaam one of [the boys], he asked me why I was shaking his hand!Butler illuminated the notion of bodily signifiers (skin tone) marking access and limitations of corporeal exchange (salaam). Visual signifiers on biracial bodies must thus be significant enough to signpost one’s racial master status, in order to be positively assessed, acknowledged, and legitimated by Others.Among the women, only Wahida had committed to wearing a tudung at the time of the interview. Although a religious Islamic practice (as opposed to a culturally Malay one), such ethnic dress as ethnic signifier takes precedence over one’s ambivalent bodily markers. Wahida expressed that dressing in her jubah hyper-visualised her Malayness, especially when she was schooling in a Madrasah where fellow students dressed similarly.Omar’s concept of Masuk Melayu – literally ‘to enter Malayness’ – describes non-ethnic Malays who ‘become’ Malay through converting into Islam and practising the religion. Despite Wahida’s ambivalent fair skin tone, donning a tudung publically signifies her religious inclination and signals to Other Malays her racial master status. This thus earns her legitimacy in the social group more so than other ambivalent Malay-Chinese women without such religious symbolism.Agentic IllegitimacyIn negotiating their biraciality within the setting of educational institutions, these five Malay-Chinese women expressed the body ‘being’, ‘speaking’, and ‘doing’ strategies in which selected traits more commonly associated with Malayness or Chineseness were hyper-visibilised or under-visibilised, depending on the setting in which they find themselves (Wilson), and social group in which they want to gain membership and favour. Sara recalls having to choose an ethnic dress to wear to her Primary School’s Racial Harmony Day. Her father suggested “a mix” such as “a red baju kurung” or a “green cheong sum” (in Singapore, red is associated with the festivities of Chinese New Year and green with Hari Raya) where she could express her biraciality. Owing to this childhood memory, she says she still attempts to convey her racial hybridity by dressing strategically at festive family gatherings. Atiqah similarly peppers conversations with Chinese friends with the few Mandarin phrases she knows, partly to solicit an affective response when they tease her for “trying”, and also to subtly remind them of her desire for acknowledgement and inclusivity. Despite expressing similar frustrations over their exclusion and ‘illegitimate’ status in homoethnic settings, the women reacted agentically by continuously asserting emic readings of their corporeal ambivalence, and entering into spaces that give them the opportunity to reframe Others’ readings of their visual markers through microactions. However, enacting this agentic ethnic repertoire necessitates an intimate understanding of both Malay and Chinese social markers (Choudhry 120).None of the women suggested completely dissociating themselves from either Malayness or Chineseness, although they may selectively hyper-visibilise one over the other to legitimate their group membership. Instead, they engage in a continuously dialectic repositioning that requires reflexivity, self-awareness, and an attentiveness to how they are perceived from the etic. By inculcating Malay and Chinese social cues into their repertoire, these biracial women can strategically enact their desired racial master status fluently, treating ethnic identity as fluid and in flux (Choudhry 120). In transgressing popular perceptions of CMIO imagery, Malay-Chinese women use their bodies as a sustained site for contesting visual racial stereotypes and reframe their everyday ‘illegitimacy’ into agentic ambivalence, albeit only selectively in spaces where their racial membership would be favourable.ReferencesAhmed, Sara. “Racialized Bodies.” Real Bodies: A Sociological Introduction. Ed. Mary Evans, and Ellie Lee. New York: Palgrave, 2002. 46-63.Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.Choudhry, Sultana. Multifaceted Identity of Interethnic Young People: Chameleon Identities. Farnham, England: Ashgate, 2010.Cooley, Charles. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner's, 1902. Katz, Ilan. The Construction of Racial Identity in Children of Mixed Parentage – Mixed Metaphors. London: J. Kingsley Publishers, 1996.Malbon, Ben. “The Club. Clubbing: Consumption, Identity and the Spatial Practices of Every-Night Life.” Cool Places: Geographies of Youth Cultures, Ed. Tracey Skelton, Gill Valentine. Routledge: London, 1997. 266-288.Mohanty, Satya P. “Epilogue. Colonial Legacies, Multicultural Futures: Relativism, Objectivity, and the Challenge of Otherness.” PMLA 110.1 (1995). 14 Sep 2014 ‹http://www.jstor.org/stable/463198›.Omar, Ariffin. Bangsa Melayu: Malay Concepts of Democracy and Community, 1945-1950. Oxford: Oxford University, 1993.Rockquemore, Kerry Ann, and Tracy A. Laszloffy. Raising Biracial Children. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2005.Wilson, Anne. Mixed Race Children – A Study of Identity. London: Allen & Unwin, 1987.

goes viral after the September 11 tragedy, this book adds another scholarly work on how Muslims fared in the twentieth century Europe. The buzz word indicating anti-Islam rhetoric has become contagious particularly after the Runnymede Trust Report (1997) which resulted in many Muslims fearing for their lives. Post September 11 popularises such rhetoric. For various reasons, religion and race have indeed been the targets in this challenging civilised world. The book is timely given the current scenario where one will encounter readings which tend to portray a rather bias perspective on Muslims; Muslims as the group to be avoided, or the group with extreme religious fundamentalism. The stigmatised Muslim—to borrow Goffman’s term—has become a narrative of today’s world, in particular, the social media where the public is frequently exposed to such (negative) debates about Muslims and on being Muslims. As the editors rightly point out, “[a]cross Western Europe, public discourse has been suffused by claims about Muslims and Islam. These claims are negative” (p. 1). Comprising eleven chapters, this book is a result of thorough research on how Muslims and non-Muslims in the European states embrace their daily lives in various institutions including schools, courts, hospitals, the military, electoral politics, and the labour market. Through a blend of practical schemas of others, the narrative unfolds stories of diverse people in their chosen realms. Readers are also exposed to comparative views of civic education courses in France and Germany. Multiculturalism in Europe and elsewhere is indeed challenging. The book content speaks volumes. The (in)tolerance of religious beliefs and practices might escalate into endless debates which either favour the state or the believers; for instance, in the case of wearing headscarves among female Muslims. The editors acknowledge this in the very first line of the preface that the book “...responds to the often loud debates about the place of Muslims in Western Europe” (p. i), and in the second paragraph on the 2004 ban wearing the veil in public schools in France. In so doing, the chapters skillfully embrace the discourse of practical schemas of those who are labelled as Muslims in a fast-changing Europe. The four book editors come from diverse backgrounds; for sure, two of the editors specialise in Islam and have done rather extensive research on Muslims. Bowen is Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis where he studies Islam and society in Indonesia and Europe. Bertossi is director of the Centre for Migration and Citizenship at the French Institute for International Relations in Paris. Of the other two editors, Duyvendak focuses on urban sociology and nativism, whilst Krook is Associate Professor of Political Science. She studies electoral gender quotas in cross-national perspective. Through their collaborative effort,and insights based on fieldwork and policy analysis, the discourse on perceptions and boundaries by the actors, Muslims and non-Muslims alike, are unfolded. The book is divided into two parts, with the first part exposing readers to the practical schemas in everyday institutional life. The second part discusses institutions and national political ideologies. In the first part, contributors presents practical schemas of people in various institutions including hospitals in France and Germany, as sites of cultural confrontation and integration that is illustrated in Chapter Two. The following chapter discusses how schools in France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany fared and blended in with the Muslims, and poses the readers with a challenging question, “how the school should reflect society” (p. 59). Meanwhile, the Military in France is explored in Chapter Four; the title is rather throught-provoking given that it is framed as a question: French “Muslim” Soldiers? The military, being the military as argued by the contributor (Bertossi himself), “de-emphasizes any ethno-cultural, racial, or religious identities of civilians” when they become soldiers (p. 73). French schools, hospitals, and the relevant practical schemas are revisited in Chapter Five. In the second part, the courtroom scenario leads us to the juridical framings of Muslims and Islam in France and Germany (Chapter 6). Embedded elements include how judges enact their daily roles in decision making through the acts of marriage and adaptation to religious freedom. Chapter Seven exposes readers to the comparative analysis of the civic education course content in France and Germany whilst Chapter Eight examines minorities in electoral politics in Sweden, France and Britain. Chapter Nine deals with the Scandinavian headscarf debates in public and private institutions in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The exclusion of Muslims in the Netherlands is explored in Chapter Ten. It is interesting to observe how the contributors guide us to the discourse of “neoculturalism”, which they argue, is “to identify a form of cultural protectionism, representing the world as divided into different, inimical cultures, and to distinguish this way of thinking from forms of cultural relativism” (p. 235). Here, we are exposed to the complicated scenario of “multiculturalism” in the country as I posited earlier. The binary perspective adopted by the Netherlands, between the “Dutch values” and the “Islamic values”, can escalate the tension caused by multiculturalism. One might have to further fine-tune the meaning of such a word in the current world where social media can help to propagate both good and bad intentions. I find this book an eye-opener to the discourse on perceptions and boundaries where Muslims in particular are involved, which are delicate and complicated to understand for any person who is not exposed to, or experience racism, and Islamophobia. Such acts of racism and Islamophobia are embedded in institutions as existing contexts of enactments and national ideologies as claimed by the editors in Chapter One and later reinforced in Chapter Five. They posit that in such non-homogeneous institutions, “actors develop practical schemas about Muslims and Islam”. The practical schemas, in turn, are constantly being reshaped and re-weighted by the events. In this sense, how we should embrace diversity in the name of multiculturalism, voiced often by many countries, for example, Malaysia, Singapore, and Britain; in particular, the United States, need further deliberation. It seems to me that in the deliberation, both parties, the authority and the people affected (Muslims), must partake in easing the tension and constraints. As the editors clearly articulate in the concluding chapter, institutions differ by token, by functions and by the contexts they are in. Obviously, there is no easy answer to comprehend the complex situations faced by the countries cited in the book; this is clearly made known by Bowen and associates. They have argued that “it is through the public institutions that citizens experience the state” (p. 266). Sensitivities weave in among the people (citizens) they spoke with, between duties to the states and to religion. This, in turn, brings us to the question of nation-building which seems to be an endless debate. In this regard, Mustafa Ishak’s book entitled, The Politics of Bangsa Malaysia: Nation-Building in a Multiethnic Society (2014) is worth reading for those who want to know more about Malaysian politics given the multicultural setting and Islam as the official religion. How do we tolerate diversity in the name of multiculturalism with people confessing different religious beliefs and ways of practising such beliefs while at the same time conform to the national ideologies and idea of being complete citizens? I find that in this context, the editors have managed to highlight the so-called tensions or tug-of-war between such competing needs. Arguably, it is fairly evident in the title with the use of “European States” and the possessive pronoun “their Muslim Citizens”, as it also suggests a sense of belonging for both sides though the book title is a bit wordy. The book contributors are rather courageous to discuss the issues given the depth of understanding and sensitivity required of the subject matter. Perhaps, more is needed in deliberating the idea which calls for a concerted effort from all parties involved. To be sure, those discussing the Muslims must have sufficient knowledge about Islam and its practices.

Introduction This year, 2008, marks the tenth anniversary of the portable MP3 player. MPMan F10, the first such device to utilise the MP3-encoding format, was launched in March 1998 (Smith). However it was not until April 2003 when Apple Inc launched the iPod that the market began the massive growth that has made the devices almost ubiquitous in everyday life. In 2006 iPods were rated as more popular than beer amongst college students in the United States, according to Student Monitor. Beer had only previously surpassed in popularity once before, in 1997, by the Internet (Zeff). This year will also see the launch in Australia of the latest offering in this line of products – the iPhone – which incorporates the popular MP3 player in an advanced mobile phone. The iPhone features a touch-sensitive flat screen that serves as the interface for its operating system. While the design is striking, it also generates accessibility problems. There are obvious implications for those with vision impairments when there are no physical markers to point towards the phone’s functions (Crichton). This article critically examines the promise of Internet-based digital technology to open up the world to people with disabilities, and the parallel danger that the social construction of disability in the digital environment will simply come to mirror pre-existing analogue discrimination. This paper explores how technologies and innovations designed to improve access by the disabled actually enhance access for all users. The first part of the paper focuses on ‘Web 2.0’ and digital access for people with disability, particularly those with vision impairment. The online software that drives the iPod and iPhone and exclusively delivers content to these devices is iTunes. While iTunes seems on the surface to provide enormous opportunity for the vision impaired to access a broad selection of audio content, its design actually works to inhibit access to the platform for this group. Apple promotes the use of iTunes in educational settings through the iTunes U channel, and this potentially excludes those who have difficulty with access to the technology. Critically, it is these excluded people who, potentially, could benefit the most from the new technology. We consider the difficulty experienced by users of screen readers and braille tablets in relation to iTunes and highlight the potential problems for universities who seek to utilise iTunes U. In the second part of the paper we reframe disability accessibility as a principle of universal access and design and outline how changes made to assist users with disability can enhance the learning experience of all students using the Lectopia lecture recording and distribution system as an example. The third section of the paper situates these digital developments within the continuum of disability theory deploying Finkelstein’s three stages of disability development. The focus then shifts to the potential of online virtual worlds such as Second Life to act as a place where the promise of technology to mediate for disability might be realised. Goggin and Newell suggest that the Internet will not be fully accessible until disability is considered a cultural identity in the same way that class, gender and sexuality are. This article argues that accessibility must be addressed through the context of design and shared open standards for digital platforms. Web 2.0 and Accessibility The World Wide Web based its successful development on a set of common standards that worked across different software and operating systems. This interoperability held out great opportunity for the implementation of enabling software for those with disability, particularly sight and hearing impairments. The increasing sophistication and diversification of online content has confounded this initial promise. Websites have become more complex, particularly with the rise of ‘Web 2.0’ and the associated trends in coding and website design. This has aggravated attempts to mediate this content for a disabled audience through software (Zajicek). As Wood notes, ‘these days many computers are used principally to access the Internet – and there is no telling what a blind person will encounter there’. As the content requiring translation – either from text into audio or onto a braille tablet, or from audio into text captions – become less standardised and more complex, it becomes both harder for software to act as a translator, and harder to navigate this media once translated. This is particularly the case when links are generated ‘on the fly’ for each view of a website and where images replace words as hyperlinks. These problems can trace their origin to before the development of the World Wide Web. Reihing, addressing another Apple product in 1987 notes: The Apple Macintosh is particularly hard to use because it depends heavily on graphics. Some word processors ‘paint’ pictures of letters on the screen instead of using standard computer codes, and speech or braille devices can’t cope (in Goggin and Newell). Web 2.0 sites loaded with Ajax and other forms of Java scripting present a particular challenge for translation software (Zajicek). iTunes, an iconic Web 2.0 application, is a further step away from easily translated content as proprietary software that while operating though the Internet, does not conform to Web standards. Many translation software packages are unable to read the iTunes software at all or are limited and only able to read part of the page, but not enough of it to use the program (Furendal). As websites utilising ‘Web 2.0’ technology increase in popularity they become less attractive to users who are visually impaired, particularly because the dynamic elements can not be accessed using screen readers provided with the operating system (Bigham, Prince and Ladner). While at one level this presents an inability for a user with a disability to engage with the popular software, it also meant that universities seeking to use iTunes U to deliver content were excluding these students. To Apple’s credit they have taken some of these access concerns on board with the recent release of both the Apple operating system and iTunes, to better enable Apple’s own access software to translate the iTunes screen for blind users. However this also illustrates the problems with this type of software operating outside of nominated standards as there are still serious problems with access to iTunes on Microsoft’s dominant Windows operating system (Furendal). While Widows provides its own integrated screen reading software, the company acknowledges that this is not sufficiently powerful for regular use by disabled users who will need to use more specialised programs (Wood). The recent upgrade of the standard Windows operating system from XP to Vista seems to have abandoned the previous stipulation that there was a keyboard shortcut for each operation the system performed – a key requirement for those unable to use a visual interface on the screen to ‘point and click’ with a mouse (Wood). Other factors, such as the push towards iTunes U, explored in the next section, explain the importance of digital accessibility for everyone, not just the disabled as this technology becomes ubiquitous. The use of Lectopia in higher education demonstrates the value of flexibility of delivery to the whole student population, inclusive of the disabled. iPods and Higher Education iTunes is the enabling software supporting the iPod and iPhone. As well as commercial content, iTunes also acts as a distribution medium for other content that is free to use. It allows individuals or organisations to record and publish audio and video files – podcasts and vodcasts – that can be automatically downloaded from the Internet and onto individual computers and iPods as they become available. Significantly this technology has provided opportunities for educational use. iTunes U has been developed by Apple to facilitate the delivery of content from universities through the service. While Apple has acknowledged that this is, in part, a deliberate effort to drive the uptake of iTunes (Udell), there are particular opportunities for the distribution of information through this channel afforded by the technology. Duke University in the United States was an early adopter, distributing iPods to each of its first-year students for educational use as early as 2004 (Dean). A recent study of students at The University of Western Australia (UWA) by Williams and Fardon found that students who listen to lectures through portable media players such as iPods (the ‘Pod’ in iPod stands for ‘portable on demand’) have a higher attendance rate at lectures than those who do not. In 1998, the same year that the first portable MP3 player was being launched, the Lectopia (or iLecture) lecture recording and distribution system was introduced in Australia at UWA to enable students with disabilities better access to lecture materials. While there have been significant criticisms of this platform (Brabazon), the broad uptake and popularity of this technology, both at UWA and at many universities across Australia, demonstrates how changes made to assist disability can potentially help the broader community. This underpins the concept of ‘universal design’ where consideration given to people with disability also improves the lives of people without disability. A report by the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, examined the accessibility of digital technology. Disability issues, such as access to digital content, were reframed as universal design issues: Disability accessibility issues are more accurately perceived in many cases as universal access issues, such that appropriate design for access by people with disabilities will improve accessibility and usability for … the community more generally. The idea of universal access was integral to Tim Berners-Lee’s original conception of the Web – however the platform has developed into a more complex and less ordered environment that can stray from agreed standards (Edwards, "Stop"). iTunes comes with its own accessibility issues. Furendal demonstrated that its design has added utility for some impairments notably dyslexia and colour blindness. However, as noted above, iTunes is highly problematic for those with other vision impairment particularly the blind. It is an example of the condition noted by Regan: There exists a false perception among designers that accessibility represents a restriction on creativity. There are few examples that exist in the world that can dissuade designers of this notion. While there are no technical reasons for this division between accessibility and design, the notion exists just the same. The invisibility of this issue confirms that while an awareness of differing abilities can assist all users, this blinkered approach to diverse visual acuities is not only blocking social justice imperatives but future marketing opportunities. The iPhone is notable for problems associated with use by people with disabilities, particularly people with hearing (Keizer) and vision impairments (Crichton). In colder climates the fact that the screen would not be activated by a gloved hand has also been a problem, its design reflects bias against not just the physically impaired. Design decisions reflect the socially constructed nature of disability where disability is related to how humans have chosen to construct the world (Finkelstein ,"To Deny"). Disability Theory and Technology Nora Groce conducted an anthropological study of Martha’s Vineyard in the United States. During the nineteenth century the island had an unusually high incidence of deafness. In response to this everyone on the island was able to communicate in sign language, regardless of the hearing capability, as a standard mode of communication. As a result the impairment of deafness did not become a disability in relation to communication. Society on the island was constructed to be inclusive without regard to a person’s hearing ability. Finkelstein (Attitudes) identified three stages of disability ‘creation’ to suggest disability (as it is defined socially) can be eradicated through technology. He is confident that the third phase, which he argues has been occurring in conjunction with the information age, will offset many of the prejudicial attitudes established during the second phase that he characterised as the industrial era. Digital technologies are often presented as a way to eradicate disability as it is socially constructed. Discussions around the Web and the benefits for people with disability usually centre on accessibility and social interaction. Digital documents on the Internet enable people with disability greater access than physical spaces, such as libraries, especially for the visually impaired who are able to make use of screen readers. There are more than 38 million blind people who utilise screen reading technology to access the Web (Bigham, Prince and Ladner). A visually impaired person is able to access digital texts whereas traditional, analogue, books remain inaccessible. The Web also allows people with disability to interact with others in a way that is not usually possible in general society. In a similar fashion to arguments that the Web is both gender and race neutral, people with disability need not identify as disabled in online spaces and can instead be judged on their personality first. In this way disability is not always a factor in the social encounter. These arguments however fail to address several factors integral to the social construction of disability. While the idea that a visually impaired person can access books electronically, in conjunction with a screen reader, sounds like a disability-free utopia, this is not always the case as ‘digital’ does not always mean ‘accessible’. Often digital documents will be in an image format that cannot be read by the user’s screen reader and will need to be converted and corrected by a sighted person. Sapey found that people with disabilities are excluded from informational occupations. Computer programming positions were fourth least likely of the 58 occupations examined to employ disabled people. As Rehing observed in 1987, it is a fantasy to think that accessibility for blind people simply means turning on a computer (Rehing in Goggin and Newell). Although it may sound empowering for people with disability to interact in an environment where they can live out an identity different from the rhythm of their daily patterns, the reality serves to decrease the visibility of disability in society. Further, the Internet may not be accessible for people with disability as a social environment in the first place. AbilityNet’s State of the eNation Web Accessibility Report: Social Networking Sites found a number of social networking sites including the popular MySpace and Facebook are inaccessible to users with a number of different disabilities, particularly those with a visual impairment such as blindness or a cognitive disability like dyslexia. This study noted the use of ‘Captcha’ – ‘Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart’ – technology designed to differentiate between a person signing up for an account and an automated computer process. This system presents an image of a word deliberately blurred and disfigured so that it cannot be readily identified by a computer, which can only be translated by a human user. This presents an obstacle to people with a visual impairment, particularly those relying on transcription software that will, by design, not be able to read the image, as well as those with dyslexia who may also have trouble translating the image on the screen. Virtual Worlds and New Possibilities The development of complex online virtual worlds such as Second Life presents their own set of challenges for access, for example, the use of Captcha. However they also afford opportunity. With over a million residents, there is a diversity of creativity. People are using Second Life to try on different identities or campaign for causes relevant in the real world. For example, Simon Stevens (Simon Walsh in SL), runs the nightclub Wheelies in the virtual world and continues to use a wheelchair and helmet in SL – similar to his real-life self: I personally changed Second Life’s attitude toward disability when I set up ‘Wheelies’, its first disability nightclub. This was one of those daft ideas which grew and grew and… has remained a central point for disability issues within Second Life. Many new Disabled users make contact with me for advice and wheelies has helped some of them ‘come out’ and use a wheelchair (Carter). Able-bodied people are also becoming involved in raising disability awareness through Second Life, for example Fez Richardson is developing applications for use in Second Life so that the non-disabled can experience the effects of impairment in this virtual realm (Cassidy) Tertiary Institutions are embracing the potential of Second Life, utilising the world as a virtual classroom. Bates argues that Second Life provides a learning environment free of physical barriers that has the potential to provide an enriched learning experience for all students regardless of whether they have a disability. While Second Life might be a good environment for those with mobility impairment there are still potential access problems for the vision and hearing impaired. However, Second Life has recently become open source and is actively making changes to aid accessibility for the visually impaired including an audible system where leaves rustle to denote a tree is nearby, and text to speech software (Sierra). Conclusion Goggin and Newell observe that new technology is a prominent component of social, cultural and political changes with the potential to mitigate for disability. The uneven interface of the virtual and the analogue, as demonstrated by the implementation and operation of iTunes, indicates that this mitigation is far from an inevitable consequence of this development. However James Edwards, author of the Brothercake blog, is optimistic that technology does have an important role in decreasing disability in wider society, in line with Finkelstein’s third phase: Technology is the last, best hope for accessibility. It's not like the physical world, where there are good, tangible reasons why some things can never be accessible. A person who's blind will never be able to drive a car manually; someone in a wheelchair will never be able to climb the steps of an ancient stone cathedral. Technology is not like the physical world – technology can take any shape. Technology is our slave, and we can make it do what we want. With technology there are no good reasons, only excuses (Edwards, "Technology"). Internet-based technologies have the potential to open up the world to people with disabilities, and are often presented as a way to eradicate disability as it is socially constructed. While Finkelstein believes new technologies characteristic of the information age will offset many of the prejudicial attitudes established during the industrial revolution, where technology was established around able-bodied norms, the examples of the iPhone and Captcha illustrate that digital technology is often constructed in the same social world that people with disability are routinely disabled by. The Lectopia system on the other hand enables students with disabilities to access lecture materials and highlights the concept of universal access, the original ideology underpinning design of the Web. Lectopia has been widely utilised by many different types of students, not just the disabled, who are seeking flexibility. While we should be optimistic, we must also be aware as noted by Goggin and Newell the Internet cannot be fully accessible until disability is considered a cultural identity in the same way that class, gender and sexuality are. Accessibility is a universal design issue that potentially benefits both those with a disability and the wider community. References AbilityNet Web Accessibility Team. State of the eNation Web Accessibility Reports: Social Networking Sites. AbilityNet. January 2008. 12 Apr. 2008 ‹http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/docs/enation/2008SocialNetworkingSites.pdf›. Bates, Jacqueline. "Disability and Access in Virtual Worlds." 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Zajicek, Mary. "Web 2.0: Hype or Happiness?" Paper presented at International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, Banff, Canada, 2–9 May 2007. 12 Apr. 2008 ‹http://www.w4a.info/2007/prog/k2-zajicek.pdf›. Zeff, Robbin. "Universal Design across the Curriculum." New Directions for Higher Education 137 (Spring 2007): 27–44.