How to be Singaporean: Becoming global national citizens and the national dimension in cosmopolitan openness

• Main Author: THIAN, Wen Li
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Cosmopolitanism; Education; Foreign others; Globalisation; Nationalism; Singapore; Asian Studies; Leadership Studies; Political Science; Public Affairs
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2851; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4108/viewcontent/How_to_be_Singaporean_2019_av.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper looks at how cosmopolitanism is practised amongst Singaporeans who have experienced Singapore’s education reform in the 1990s. Cosmopolitanism in Singapore is tied to state-intervention with a national orientation. To complement Singapore’s push towards cosmopolitanism, the education reform in the 1990s promoted the idea of a national citizen with a global orientation. I looked at 40 Singaporeans born after the year 1990 to investigate cosmopolitan attitudes that have emerged from the tensions between cosmopolitanism and nationalism. To meet the state’s ideals of cosmopolitanism, these Singaporeans employed strategies to practice a particular form of cosmopolitan openness which prioritise national interests. Nationalism and cosmopolitanism co-exist in Singapore and share a dialectic relationship as I argue that these Singaporeans are global national citizens.