Singapore and the Headscarf Affair

Abstract

This chapter has two objectives. First, it provides a Singaporean context for the following chapters, outlining the state’s management of diversity through an ideology of multiracialism. Second, this chapter demonstrates the utility of a non-domination-based multiculturalism as an analytical framework that can be applied to citizens. I examine multiculturalism in Singapore, highlighting the unequal treatment of cultural minorities among the citizenry. I draw upon the headscarf affairs in Singapore to further explain how a non-domination-based multiculturalist framework illuminates (a) examples of cultural discrimination; (b) a lack of political belonging; (c) an exclusionary national identity; (d) the state’s role in the management of boundaries that limit the recognition of communities; and (e) discursive control through contestations to the headscarf policy.