THE NATION, THE HOME & THE STRANGER : CONTESTATION OF THE DOMESTIC SPACE IN PRESENT DAY SINGAPORE

Abstract

The concept of the domestic encompasses the ideas of privacy and ownership and how it is sometimes contested. The private domestic realm usually resonates with the family, is innocently assumed to be a private space, which should conceal and veil its inhabitants from the outside while providing a space of refuge, comfort and security; the house also forms the interface between the inside and the outside, becoming the agency of the relationship between the inhabitants and the strangers outside. Singapore is known as the apotheosis of urban renewal and modernity; so unlike the past, when the home was conceptualized as the private sphere of the individual, modernity and nation-building has altered the state of the home. This paper will deal with the metaphors of the home and the difficulties of the domestic in a Nanny-state. The Housing Development Board (HDB) flats which have evolved beyond the dwelling and seamlessly flows between the private and public domains and how the image of the HDB flat becomes a representation of the nation instead of the nation taking on the allegory of the home. Through this paper, I hope to unravel who is this “stranger” standing at the window. How far has his/her gaze penetrated the private space? Has the stranger displaced the family or the inhabitants of house? Is this stranger who we think s/he is?