School of Creative
Industries
BA(Hons) Arts Management
The need for cultural discussion spaces in Singapore
This paper discusses the need for cultural discussion spaces in Singapore, specifically for Malay Singaporeans. Despite Singapore's multicultural diversity, cultural education is limited to activities like Racial Harmony Day and civics classes, which tend to homogenise cultures into broad categories of Chinese, Malay and Indian. This erases the differences within ethnic groups and perpetuates stereotypes, demonstrating a lack of deep cultural exploration and education in Singapore, which in turn impacts the understanding of one's cultural identity. Through interviews with people who are part of the creation of institutional and grassroots initiatives pertaining to the Malay community and analysing the state of cultural discussion spaces in Singapore, the paper identifies the factors that point towards the need for cultural discussion initiatives in Singapore.
cultural discussion spaces, cultural identity, Singaporean Malay identity, institutional initiatives, grassroots initiatives
Malay-Muslim identity, Singapore multiculturalism