Hierarchies of mixedness: hybridity, mixed-race racisms and belonging for Eurasians in Singapore

Abstract

As a mixed yet bounded racial category, Eurasian identity in Singapore presents a key case in exploring mixed-race racisms and hierarchies based around class, race and migration. Racial categorizations in postcolonial Singapore draw heavily on colonial racial hierarchies, and the shifting boundaries around Eurasianness illustrate the performative nature of mixed identities, and the politics of being recognized/misrecognized as mixed, not-mixed, or “other” within the racialized state framework. Drawing on 30 life-story interviews with individuals who self-identify as Eurasian, this paper examines racialized identities based around mixedness and explores the valuations placed on different heritages and types of mixing in order to draw out experiences of mixed- and intra-race racialization and racisms for the Eurasian community. The limits to the performance of (mixed) race are key, seen in the juxtapositions between race, mixed race and phenotype, as inflected by performed heritage, socio-economic status and state-sanctioned cultural markers.