<論文>シンガポールにおける団地研究史の再検討

Abstract

This paper reviews the sociological studies of public housing estates in Singapore. Public housing in Singapore is of great sociological interest but is seldom taken up outside the country. This paper focuses on the issue of ethnicity in the context of public housing because, as a cornerstone of government policy, "Multiracialism" exerts great influences on the life of Singaporeans. This review shows that the multiple views in the earlier studies on housing have been replaced by a single, dominant view that, while praising racial "diversity", precludes diversity in itself. This paper divides the secondary literature into three periods. In the first period, from 1960s to 1970s, the literature is dominated by two positions. The first position is that life in the public housing estates is generally good while the other position stresses the woes of the residents. With regard to ethnicity, the first position regards ethnic integration in the housing estates as successful whereas the other position finds ethnicity problematic. In the second period, from 1970s to 1980s, the predominant view is a favorable one. Moreover, the issue of ethnicity disappears from the literature even though it was one of the most debated issues in the first period. In the third period, from the end of 1980s till now, the issue of ethnicity reappears but is almost always treated positively. Ethnic diversity in the housing estates is seen as the most important achievement of the public housing policy. However, this exclusive focus on ethnicity means that other aspects of public housing have been overlooked. This is, I argue, a major weakness in the recent studies of public housing estates in Singapore. To overcome this preoccupation of ethnicity, it is necessary to recover the kind of multiplicity in views characteristic of the first period. Not only is it necessary to reconsider the woes faced by the residents of public housings, but also to approach their problems from different angles. In this way, just like the diverse ethnic composition of the housing estates, the literature on housing estates will also become more diversified in term of topics chosen and positions taken.