♡ Rachel Sim

THIS project functions as an inquiry into the possible spatial negotiation of the communitarian ideology of Singapore’s ruling party, PAP (People's Action Party), through the study of Opposition parties’ spatial practices. It first examines how an ideological consensus with the citizenry is produced and reproduced by the state’s built community infrastructure in the “Heartlands” (suburban residential areas in Singapore with subsidized public housing), thus projecting their political identity into these areas. Such a process, combined with the universality of Heartland community infrastructure, allows the ruling party to exert a virtual monopoly over grassroots activities and many other aspects of everyday life, engendering further ideological consensus amongst the governed (Chua 1995: 128). Most of these infrastructures, such as CCs (Community Centres), are also banned from Opposition use.

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Amidst this entrenched hegemony, how then could we possibly conceive of an alternative “Heartland”? Michel de Certeau (1988: 96) offers us a lens, in the form of “strategy” and “tactics”; upon PAP’s fixed infrastructure, Opposition political parties “walk”, using transient tactics to project alternative political identities into the infrastructure. WP (Workers’ Party), in particular, employs everyday practices emblematic of its stance – a defender of blue collared workers and the lesser privileged. While the PAP imposes buildings of permanence upon Heartlanders, WP appropriates HDB flats via transient void deck consultations, setting up time-based systems through which they conduct their weekly welfare events and distributions. In a bid to express their own brand of community outreach, they fluidly traverse multiple flats within their constituencies to reach out to their constituents. It is through such tactics, that WP manipulates space and redefines some of the community rituals imposed upon the citizenry by the incumbent majority. Given a political terrain with marginal spatial allowance for Opposition political outreach, how much more can alternative political voices negotiate dominant ideologies through space? And more importantly, how can the everyday citizen resist and potentially play a role in enriching Singapore’s – or any similar – political landscape?