Becoming bodies : soldier, civilian, soldier, civilian … civilian-soldier?

• Main Author: Mohammat Faiz Mohammat Apandi.
• Other Authors: Zhou Wubiao
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Social control
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51668
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study seeks to fill the gap within the currently minimal literature on military sociology in Singapore by combining concepts from cultural studies of the body and organizational symbolism in analysing the body of the Soldier. The focus on the body of the soldier itself is critical in bringing the body back into the sociological scholarship in the light of current scholarship focused primarily on institutional change in the military. Drawing on in-depth interview data and content analysis, I argue on the importance of analysing how the body of the soldier is in a constant state of ‘becoming’ and how it serves as a body of reference for the ideal Singaporean. Despite perceptions of the “being” of the soldier being created through elaborate symbolism and metaphor, there appears to have emerged a particularly predominant conception of the body of the soldier that dominates other bodies in state discourse such as the Singaporean soldier and the citizen.