We Are One: Repositioning the Peranakan within the Asian Civilisations Museum

Title: We Are One: Repositioning the Peranakan within the Asian Civilisations Museum
Creator: Bezzina, Helena
Relation: International Journal of the Inclusive Museum Vol. 14, Issue 2, p. 115-134
Publisher Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.18848/1835-2014/CGP/v14i02/115-134
Publisher: Common Ground Research Networks
Resource Type: journal article
Date: 2021
Description: The Peranakan are a minority group in South-East Asia whose legacy has provided Singapore's Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) with a collection of unique cultural material. This paper argues that the inclusion of the Peranakan within the ACM was an iterative and non-teleological process, evidenced by the fact that the Peranakan were not included in the government’s original cultural strategies to link Singaporean ancestral cultures to contemporary Asian values. This paper further argues that the narratives representing the Peranakan within the ACM have shifted from a focus on their historical and artistic legacy to positioning them as a vibrant, inclusive living culture with the potential to symbolically represent what it means to be a Singaporean, reflecting broader social change in the small island nation.
Subject: Peranakan; national identity; postcolonialism; Singapore; non-teleological; Asian civilisations museum
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1479604
Identifier: uon:50337
Identifier: ISSN:1835-2014
Language: eng
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