Between wonder and anxiety: a socio-cultural history of snakes in Singapore
This thesis focuses on the changes of public attitudes towards snakes in a colonial and postcolonial Singapore. While this thesis is not a biological sketch, it uses snakes as a lens to interrogate how changing ideas of nature, race, and modernity were in constant competition for dominance in Singap...
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| Format: | Final Year Project |
| Language: | English |
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Nanyang Technological University
2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/165385 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | This thesis focuses on the changes of public attitudes towards snakes in a colonial and postcolonial Singapore. While this thesis is not a biological sketch, it uses snakes as a lens to interrogate how changing ideas of nature, race, and modernity were in constant competition for dominance in Singapore. This thesis serves two purposes. Firstly, it presents the first detailed study of the social and cultural history of snakes in Singapore’s colonial and post-independence history. Although a majority of the thesis centres on developments in Singapore, the island-state’s connection to the colonial and scientific networks in the metropole of Britain and Asian communities within East, South and Southeast Asia, necessitates an examination on the sources and networks related to these regions. Secondly, this thesis argues that knowledge and popular cultural attitudes toward snakes were persistently varied and have often competed for attention at different points in Singapore’s history. These developments cannot be examined in isolation from shifts in Singapore's position in the international economy, along with competing ontologies and epistemologies of the slithery reptile from 1819 to 1989. |
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