IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v52y2015i12p2203-2218.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rainbow belt: Singapore’s gay Chinatown as a Lefebvrian space

Author

Listed:
  • Chris KK Tan

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, Singapore’s Chinatown has been serving as the country’s de facto gay district. Gay businesses thrive in one of Singapore’s most socially conservative neighbourhoods, because the state allows relative free rein on the usage of preserved buildings after conserving the ethnic enclave as a bastion of Chineseness. Invoking Lefebvrian spatial concepts, I argue that the uneasy interface between moral conservatism and economic neoliberalism opened up intersticial spaces of business opportunities. Gay entrepreneurs took advantage of these spaces and their thriving businesses became the cluster today. I further maintain that as spaces of social interactions for gay men and lesbians, these enterprises help develop Singaporean queer identities. Yet, they simultaneously retard the country’s nascent LGBT rights movement by remaining largely closeted. By granting access to privatised consumption without challenging the heteronormative status quo of Singaporean society, gay Chinatown buttresses homonationalism (Kulick, 2009; Puar, 2007).

Suggested Citation

  • Chris KK Tan, 2015. "Rainbow belt: Singapore’s gay Chinatown as a Lefebvrian space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(12), pages 2203-2218, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:12:p:2203-2218
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098014544761
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0042098014544761
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0042098014544761?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan Collins, 2004. "Sexual Dissidence, Enterprise and Assimilation: Bedfellows in Urban Regeneration," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 41(9), pages 1789-1806, August.
    2. Steven C. Bourassa, 1990. "Land Value Taxation and Housing Development," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 101-111, January.
    3. Natalie Oswin, 2012. "The Queer Time of Creative Urbanism: Family, Futurity, and Global City Singapore," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(7), pages 1624-1640, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nathaniel M Lewis, 2017. "Canaries in the mine? Gay community, consumption and aspiration in neoliberal Washington, DC," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 695-712, February.
    2. Alison L Bain & Julie A Podmore, 2021. "Linguistic ambivalence amidst suburban diversity: LGBTQ2S municipal ‘social inclusions’ on Vancouver’s periphery," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(7), pages 1644-1672, November.
    3. Johan Andersson, 2011. "Vauxhall’s Post-industrial Pleasure Gardens: ‘Death Wish’ and Hedonism in 21st-century London," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(1), pages 85-100, January.
    4. Yang, Zhou, 2018. "Differential effects of land value taxation," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 33-39.
    5. Megan Sharp & David Farrugia & Julia Coffey & Steven Threadgold & Lisa Adkins & Rosalind Gill, 2022. "Queer subjectivities in hospitality labor," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1511-1525, September.
    6. Cho, Seong-Hoon & Kim, Seung Gyu & Roberts, Roland K., 2009. "Measuring the Effects of a Land Value Tax on Land Development," 2009 Annual Meeting, January 31-February 3, 2009, Atlanta, Georgia 46760, Southern Agricultural Economics Association.
    7. Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab & Wallace E. Oates & Robert M. Schwab, 2004. "The Impact of Urban Land Taxation: The Pittsburgh Experience," Chapters, in: Environmental Policy and Fiscal Federalism, chapter 16, pages 273-293, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Goodnature, Mia & Neto, Amir Borges Ferreira, 2021. "Same-Sex Unmarried Partners in the Census," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 51(1), April.
    9. Joseph G L Lee & Thomas Wimark & Kasim S Ortiz & Kerry B Sewell, 2018. "Health-related regional and neighborhood correlates of sexual minority concentration: A systematic review," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, June.
    10. Andrew Gorman-Murray & Catherine Nash, 2017. "Transformations in LGBT consumer landscapes and leisure spaces in the neoliberal city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 786-805, February.
    11. Phil Hubbard & Alan Collins & Andrew Gorman-Murray, 2017. "Introduction: Sex, consumption and commerce in the contemporary city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 567-581, February.
    12. Michael J Smart & Andrew H Whittemore, 2017. "There goes the gaybourhood? Dispersion and clustering in a gay and lesbian real estate market in Dallas TX, 1986–2012," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 600-615, February.
    13. Plassmann, Florenz & Tideman, T. Nicolaus, 2000. "A Markov Chain Monte Carlo Analysis of the Effect of Two-Rate Property Taxes on Construction," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 216-247, March.
    14. Amy Spring & Kayla Charleston, 2021. "Gentrification and the Shifting Geography of Male Same-Sex Couples," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1163-1194, December.
    15. Catherine J. Nash & Andrew Gorman-Murray, 2014. "LGBT Neighbourhoods and ‘New Mobilities’: Towards Understanding Transformations in Sexual and Gendered Urban Landscapes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(3), pages 756-772, May.
    16. Christopher Harker & Lauren L Martin, 2012. "Familial Relations: Spaces, Subjects, and Politics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(4), pages 768-775, April.
    17. Amin Ghaziani, 2015. "‘Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being PassÉ': How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 756-771, July.
    18. N/A, 2012. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 44(7), pages 1529-1535, July.
    19. Audrey Yue & Helen Hok-Sze Leung, 2017. "Notes towards the queer Asian city: Singapore and Hong Kong," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(3), pages 747-764, February.
    20. Seong-Hoon Cho & Dayton M. Lambert & Roland K. Roberts, 2010. "Forecasting Open Space with a Two-Rate Property Tax," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 86(2), pages 263-280.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:52:y:2015:i:12:p:2203-2218. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.