‘IT’S A SERIES OF FAILS AND RE-STARTS’: TOWARDS A THIRDSPACE OF FATHERING IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

The emergence of dual-income families and increasing awareness of gender equality in workplaces and homes are increasingly displacing fathers’ traditional roles as breadwinners and guardians of the family. Yet, these socio-economic and cultural shifts have not yet led to a renunciation of archaic gender roles, engendering considerable fields of conflict for fathers wishing to deepen their relationship with their children. Concomitantly, despite nascent scholarly interest in masculinities and place, there has been a discernible dearth of research studying the lived experiences of fathers in relation to the formation of fathering identities and spaces. I respond to these paucities by adopting a visual-verbal narrative approach to examine the spatio-temporal organisation of fathering care practices in Singapore. I endeavour to elucidate a plurality of fathering spatialities and (co-existing) trajectories that are neither beholden to a unitary patriarchy, nor restricted to stark binaries of masculinity/femininity, public/private, and fathering/mothering. At the same time, I tap on Soja’s Thirdspace to explore how the doings of fathering and normative idea(l)s about fatherhood come together, and are transcended to (re)imagine new spatio-temporalities of fathering that are geographically and temporally contingent. In examining participants’ day-to-day routines, this thesis argues that fathering practices are relationally constituted with their everyday geographies within and without the home, enabling them to perform alternative caring masculinities that unsettle gendered assumptions sedimented in such carescapes. Spatialities of fathering are hence nuanced, processual, and continually negotiated in different localised settings. Next, it charts participants’ individual fathering journeys, contending that their spatialities and caring dispositions here-and-now are mediated by their childhood experiences of patriarchy, as well as aspirations from multiple ‘elsewheres’. In so doing, this thesis seeks to accomplish two objectives. First, it illuminates the potential of fathering identities and spatialities in contributing to the geographical literature on masculinities and place. Second, it advocates for the conceptual and methodological utility of Thirdspace in examining the spatio-temporalities present in feminist geographical research.