Disciplined Nation - Youth as Subjects and Citizens in Singapore, 1942-1970s

The dissertation contributes to Southeast Asian studies, the history of childhood and youth, decolonization, and the Cold War in Asia, by arguing and showing that the cultural politics and management of youth was central to the making of the post-1945 Singapore nation-state. The successive Singapore governments that governed Singapore between 1942 and the 1970s saw youth as the solution to the integration of a mostly youthful population from different ethnic, cultural, linguistic backgrounds into a new country and society. These governments expanded and created a wide array of numerous policies, programs, institutions and networks to socialize, discipline, mobilize, and police young people. This led to the emergence of a youth-centered Singapore disciplinary state – a state that employs an extensive apparatus and assemblage of disciplinary institutions, programs, and agents to shape individual subjectivities, regularize conduct, and regulate bodies.