SENTINELS OVER PROGRESS : SINGAPORE'S COLONIAL ENGINEERS AND OTHER ARBITERS OF TECHNOLOGICAL ASYMMETRY IN THE LATE 1930S

Abstract

This thesis explores an episode in Singapore in the late 1930s where a first-ever institution of higher technical education was proposed. A prospective engineering department at Raffles College drew out two sets of contrasting viewpoints - that of "proponents" who supported the idea, and of "opponents" who were less eager for such an endeavor. An analysis of these views contributes to two main genres of scholarship. Firstly for the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in Asia, this thesis overall situates Singapore as one case study of what I refer to as "technological asymmetry". This phrase is based on arguments forwarded by Daniel Headrick, a historian of technology. I define it as the geographical movement and import of technological hardware and experts without the accompanying skills and knowledge being transferred to the native population. The Raffles College Engineering Department amounted to an early opportunity in the colonial era for such an inequality to be mitigated. Analysis of the contesting views surrounding the department secondly contributes to an understanding of Singapore's socio-cultural and intellectual milieu in the 1930s. This thesis discusses attitudes towards technology and race in the era, building upon socio-cultural arguments developed by the historian Michael Adas. My overall analysis is that the 1930s was a period where these attitudes were more fluid than in the pre-World War I era. There was a climate of overall improving attitudes towards giving Asians engineering education. However, in the final analysis, real changes on the ground were impeded by the entrenched nature of colonial engineering technocrats. Finally, this thesis questions the supposedly binary nature of the "proponents" and "opponents," since both groups shared similar concerns about the regulation of any system of technical education. It concludes that European voices discursively shared control over such a system rather than Asian voices, overall perpetuating the colonial status quo.