Moralising racial regimes: surveillance and control after Singapore's 'Little India riots'. (July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Greener, Joe
• Is Part Of: Race & class. Volume 64:Number 1(2022)
• Page Start: 46
• Page End: 62
• Publication Date: 2022-07
• Subjects: alcohol regulation -- Geylang -- Liquor Control Zones -- Little India -- moral economy -- racial regimes -- riots -- Singapore -- work permit system; Race relations -- Periodicals; Social classes -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; 305.8
• DOI: 10.1177/03063968221095733
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0306-3968

Abstract

This article examines the moral politics of state organised social control in bolstering racialisation in Singapore after the 2013 disturbances in 'Little India', when agencies mobilised morally charged discourses regarding alcohol consumption amongst low-income South Asian migrants. Appealing to moral constructions of the 'riots' discredited socio-political analyses of the events, after which the state developed a mass architecture of alcohol-related 'governing through crime', placing migrant lives under permanent and constant surveillance. The piece contributes to debates about moral economy approaches by connecting the strategic deployment and justification of crime control underpinning racial regimes and reveals inadequacies in critical thinking around 'race' in Singapore, most notably a preoccupation with interactional accounts of racism rather than institutional state power.