A SOUND SOCIETY: CHANGING SOUNDSCAPES IN SINGAPORE'S HAWKER CENTRES DURING THE COVID-19 CRISIS

Abstract

This thesis examines the importance of sound in understanding people's perceptions of safety, social connectedness, and normalcy during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a public health, economic and social crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic would have shaken up people’s interpretation of safety, social connectedness and normalcy in a time punctuated by a widespread fear of contracting COVID-19, reduced face-to-face interactions and disrupted routines. Utilizing semi-structured interviews and personal observation, the study focuses on selected hawker centres in Singapore where the country's pandemic control measures have dramatically altered people's everyday lives. Hawker centres are an iconic feature of public life in Singapore where the cacophony of sounds (soundscapes) symbolizes the city's vibrancy and dynamism. My paper aims to answer the following questions: What role do sounds play in shaping the embodied hawker centre experience among Singaporeans? How does soundscape shape people's perceptions of what constitutes a “sound” society in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? Using the concept of "a sound society," this paper argues that sound is not only a taken-for-granted aspect of society but also provides an important insight into how people diagnose and navigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. As encapsulated in the pun-intended title of this paper, sounds influence the soundness of a society.