Producing a straight nation: postcolonial nationalism and the governance of sexuality

In this talk, I theorize the collusion between the governance of sexuality and postcolonial Singaporean nationalism. Staging the analysis through an interrogation of sexuality writ large, and close reading of various political and archival texts, I show how non-citizens are categorized either as foreign talent or foreign workers. Whereas the former, primarily white Euro-Americans, are encouraged to build a familial life in Singapore and provided with pathways to citizenship, the latter, primarily brown South and Southeast Asians are deemed incompatible with the nation. They are denied any pathway to residency, banned from marrying or having children whilst working in Singapore, and forbidden from establishing a permanent presence in the country. In this way, foreign workers are governed by a set of interdictions that prevent them from expressing the specific form of heterosexuality that nationalism demands, rendering them queer in ways that exceed the language of identity.

I suggest the conferral of queerness here can work to confirm the racialized, classed and gendered incompatibility with the nation. This talk will thus think through how the apparent irredeemability of foreign-ness can be sealed through the production of queerness, the co-constitutive nature of heteronormativity with race and class, and the assaying power of norms and conventions beyond identity categories.

Everyone is warmly welcome.