CENTRING ON EVERYDAY HAWKERPRENEURSHIP: UNRAVELLING ENTREPRENEURIAL AND AGE DISCOURSES, LIVED EXPERIENCES AND SPATIALITIES OF HAWKERPRENEURSHIP IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This thesis seeks to contribute to growing academic interests in everyday entrepreneurship by exploring hawkerpreneurship – a rising phenomenon initiated by the state and media which celebrates the enterprising spirit of Singaporean hawkers. Given the paucity of research that examines the socio-spatial embeddedness of entrepreneurial activities, and dearth of literature on the everyday lived experiences in Singapore’s hawker scene, there is impetus for a geographical analysis on hawkerpreneurship. Adopting a post-structural framework that informs the literature on everyday geographies, this thesis seeks to deconstruct top-down discourses and unravel the everyday practices, narratives and spatialities of hawkerpreneurship. Here, I argue that in a bid to cast positive light on the long-stigmatised hawker trade to entice more people to become hawkers, top-down discourses produced by dominant social agents (state, media, private enterprises) have romanticised the hawker industry and portrayed hawkerpreneurship in an age-graded manner. Such biased representations of hawkerpreneurship may be challenged by diverse sentiments from the ground, which in turn destabilise these top-down discourses. Using ideas from the age and life-course literature as an analytical lens, I explore how variation in these everyday narratives can be attributed to varying influences from structural forces, socio-spatial characteristics of hawker centres, intergenerational interactions, and individual experiences. These diverse perspectives are revealed through enacting qualitative methods such as discourse analysis of texts produced by dominant social agents, emplaced semi-structured interviews with 30 hawkers from various age groups and conducting landscape interpretation in four traditional and new-generation hawker centres. In all, this thesis provides a more nuanced and inclusive understanding of hawkerpreneurship in Singapore, highlighting that it is not a static and one-sided phenomenon as portrayed in top-down discourses. Rather, it is dynamic and constantly in flux due to the simultaneous influence of and interactions between top-down and bottom-up actors.