ETHNICIZING WELFARE : THE COPORATIST STATE AND SELF-HELP GROUPS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of ethnic community self-help groups in Singapore. At the macro level, this study is concerned with the examination of the relationship between ethnicity and the state. In employing a corporatist characterization of the state, we can see the central role of the state in the management of ethnicity. As the establishment of the self-help groups in Singapore is based on the criterion of ethnicity, I want to uncover why this aspect of the welfare system is ethnicized. Consistent with the state's discourse on welfare, the primordialist position is utilized by the state as the rationale for the self-help groups. However, this primordialist argument is assumed rather than proven. This thesis takes on a more agency-based approach towards the issue by taking the micro-empirical world of volunteers into consideration. Since the notion of self-help rests on the tenet that one is more willing to help another of the same ethnicity, I want to examine whether this contention is true with regards to the volunteers of the self-help groups. This study found that there are in fact different sources of motivation which led the volunteers to render their services to the self-help groups. Thus there is a discrepancy between the state's premise for the self-help organizations and the actual motivations of the volunteers. In spite of this, there is an interesting situation where the volunteers accept the corporatist structures. These findings reveal the complex interactions between the state and the volunteers. This thesis concludes by drawing the implications for the state in utilizing an ethnic approach in this aspect of welfare.