Zhi Qing Denise Lim

Behaving badly: ‘European deviance’ in colonial Singapore, c. 1890-​​1940

This doctoral project examines how ‘deviance’ amongst Europeans in colonial Singapore was conceptualised in the period c. 1890 to 1940. It looks at the ways in which such constructions were simultaneously informed by and shaped ‘Europeanness.’ The chosen time period saw increased anxieties surrounding ‘European deviance’ in Singapore, against a backdrop of contested power relations between the colonial authorities and Asian populations. Shifts in metropolitan discourses surrounding the white European body in this period shaped how European deviance was conceptualised in Singapore. In this proposed study, I contend that the boundaries of European deviance—contingent on notions of race, class, gender, and space—was delineated against ideals of respectability. Considering that ‘deviance’ and ‘respectability’ as relational rather than dichotomous categories, I argue that the designation of a behaviour as deviant was not least contingent on who was showing this behaviour and where it took place.

Using the analytical lens of race, class, gender, and space, the study will examine newspapers, colonial records, letters, and travelogues. Four aspects of perceived deviance are examined in this doctoral project—vagrancy; intoxication; illicit sex; crime and madness. As these aspects of deviance overlap with what were commonly perceived as Asian ‘social ills,’ I compare the Asian discourses and measures taken to address ‘social ills’ to those against European deviance. Considering colonial anxieties surrounding the visibility of European deviance to Asian populations, I seek to examine how Asians perceived European deviance. This doctoral project maps a topography of sites in which European deviance was said to occur in consideration of Singapore’s colonial port city characteristics, zooming into specific localities to see how inter-​​ethnic interactions within these spaces shaped the perception of deviance. The project also examines how discourses surrounding ‘European deviance’ were informed by news, knowledge and ideas that traveled within and beyond British imperial space.

The proposed study seeks to contribute to several fields of inquiry, namely to the field of colonial studies, critical whiteness studies and the history of Singapore, by investigating the politics of Europeanness and marginality through the lens of deviance and their transimperial connections.