NEW OLD WORLDS: THE CHANGING FACES OF ASIA
1ST ANNUAL ASIAN CULTURAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION (ACSA) CONFERENCE

A. Kraipol Jayanetra's Presentation
Re-Imaging: Understanding the New Social Propaganda

As an attempt to become part of elite metropolis cities in this new century, Singapore has tried to reimage the country's identity from a service-based developing country to a creative production-based developed country. In recent years, with support from the goverment, Singapore has tried to export their own local cultural creative products such as movies, music, product designs, architecture, etc., to be part with the global scene. However, with the notion that Singapore has held the second highest GDP for the past few years, I am struggling with the question why this country has to change itself when it seems to doing fine at the moment. In this paper, I will try to explore the history of urbanism in Singapore since its liberation from the United Kingdom in the 1960s until the present in order to understand the country's current standpoint and its strategy for the future.