Homeownership, a Singaporean aspiration? The role of race, gender, and age in shaping public rental flat dwellers' aspirations – a governmentality-intersectionality perspective

• Main Author: Safiee, Sakinah
• Other Authors: Ye Junjia
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Social Sciences; Governmentality; Intersectionality; Social class inequalities; Public rental flat; Aspirations
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/175768
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this paper, I explore the key connections between aspirations and public rental flat dwellers’ lived experiences. Contributing to existing literature on ‘raising aspirations’ discourse and the uniquely Singaporean aspiration of homeownership, I assert that homeownership is a Singaporean governmentality project that elucidates a particular code of everyday conduct that is incompatible with the realities of public rental flat dwellers. The findings of this research have shown that rental flat dwellers’ articulations of their aspirations are centred around barriers that hinder their ability to actualise their aspirations. Notably, through the attribution of failures to individual family units, the findings exemplify the efficacy of the governmentality project. Consequently, the governmentality project normalises the perpetuation of social class inequalities in a society that renders structural interventions unnecessary.