The kopitiam in urban diversity : negotiating the performance of ‘local taste’, language and sociality

• Main Author: Tan, Amanda Jia Qian
• Other Authors: Laavanya Kathiravelu
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Sociology::Urban sociology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/78817
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper explores the present day kopitiam as a symbolic space of urban diversity and communal dining in light of globalisation and its aftermath. By adopting an ethnographic approach, this paper studies the negotiation of a collective identity through the performance of taste and the ‘kopitiam lingo’ as well as the sociality, specifically friendship, within the kopitiam and its capacity to provide a sense of communal belonging in Urban Singapore. Using Goffman’s concept of dramaturgy, this paper demonstrates the construction of collective identity by performing the ‘local taste’ and embodying the ‘kopitiam lingo’. Also, in examining existing friendship ties within the kopitiam, this sociality sheds light on a sense of communal belonging that provides Singaporeans with intimacy and trust in urban diversity.