RESOURCES
ACADEMIC
Image: Citing Plug in City, by Archigram; original drawing by Peter Cook
2022 | Siti Mazidah Mohamad Creative Production of ‘COVID-19 Social Distancing’ Narratives on Social Media “This paper offers an insight into the role of young people in shifting risk perception of the current global pandemic, COVID-19, via social distancing narratives on social media. Young people are creatively and affectively supporting the social distancing initiatives in Brunei Darussalam through the use of social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok. Using qualitative content analysis (QCA) data of social media content by Bruneian youth, this paper reveals the localised and contextualised creative production of five ‘social distancing’ narratives as a response to the national and global concerns in times of a global pandemic: narrative of fear; narrative of responsibility; narrative of annoyance; narrative of fun; and narrative of resistance. This paper reflects on three key socio-cultural reconfigurations that have broader implications beyond the COVID-19 crisis: new youth spatialities and social engagements; youth leadership in development; and consideration of social participation and reach in risk communication.” Image source: @naninazria.
January 2022 | Zenkteler et al. Home-based work in cities: In search of an appropriate urban planning response "In many cities, particularly those planned and developed with intentional separation of land uses, the return of economic activities to residential neighbourhoods brings along both lifestyle opportunities and spatial challenges. Attempts to formulate appropriate urban planning responses are hindered by the limited understanding of home-based workers’ needs and aspirations, as well as their impacts on the built environment. Responding to this knowledge gap, this paper presents the results of a survey focused on urban planning implications of home-based work within the City of Gold Coast (Queensland, Australia). The findings provide strong evidence of home-based workers’ preferences for neighbourhoods that integrate residential amenities with place-making initiatives to enhance economic performance, networking and collaboration. Several urban planning recommendations are provided in three separate scenarios to facilitate the formulation of strategies prompting a gradual evolution of residential neighbourhoods towards live/work urban environments.”
2022 | Institute of Policy Studies | Mathews et al. Attitudes Towards Work and Workplace Arrangements Amidst COVID-19 in Singapore "This paper presents the attitudes and perceptions of Singaporeans towards work and workplace arrangements amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic. It also examines their work experiences, beliefs and aspirations, as well as their well-being during this period.”
January 2021 | Ho and Maddrell Intolerable intersectional burdens: a COVID-19 research agenda for social and cultural geographies “This commentary outlines key social and cultural geographies highlighted by the current Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which evidence important opportunities for geographers to contribute to i) understandings of life and death during the pandemic; ii) associated policy developments; and iii) new theoretical insights. The pandemic has surfaced previously obscured or ignored deathscapes and geographical inequalities. Social and cultural geographical research can make a difference to society by capitalising on the increased attention given to issues of social justice, health, mobilities, housing, employment practices and digital access engendered by the pandemic, as well as the value of mutual aid, and the role of the arts in society, to name but some. We underline a particularly urgent need for research on social groups that are experiencing the impacts of the pandemic acutely, especially those with multiple intersectional burdens.”
2022 | Wong Cassandra The Impacts of COVID-19 on Singapore's Kueh Culture "Kueh culture is the bridging of familial, neighbourly, and community networks through shared understanding and practices in relation to kueh. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, while physical kueh stores were affected by socio-economic disruptions, the extent of the pandemic’s impact on kueh culture remains largely uncertain. Yet, Singaporeans have painted a bleak outlook for the continuity of kueh thus, neglecting possible opportunities that arose from the pandemic and existing efforts to preserve and nurture kueh culture.” This thesis aims to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on kueh culture. Beyond pre-pandemic trends, knowledge gaps, low perceived value, and lack of governmental support were highlighted as three main contributing factors to the decline in the cultural heritage of kueh. With these findings in mind, this thesis proposes a campaign - called Word of Kueh - consisting of an Instagram page and a physical event organised to promote kueh culture among our target audience who are young adults (18 to 25 years old).” Image source: @wordofkueh on Instagram.
2022 | Taara Muthu Kumar A Codebook for the Content Analysis of Home-Based Business in Singapore “Over the course of COVID-19, countless home-based businesses (HBBs) have risen to prominence. The many social changes that have happened as a result of COVID-19 such as working from home and massive unemployment have led to people adopting new lifestyles. In Singapore, many have reported having more time for their family and hobbies due to the pandemic. Coupled with the prevalence of infrastructure to use the Internet and the ease of access to business management tools such as personalised websites, online ordering platforms, and brand tools on social media, the rise in HBBs comes at no surprise. These HBBs range from food and beverage shops to handmade crafts, turning hobbies into small-scale private businesses.” “This paper is interested in how Singaporean HBBs utilise social media for their operations, focusing on Instagram as the main social media platform for publicising, advertising, reaching potential and returning customers, and for brand building. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of one HBB’s Instagram account, this paper presents a codebook for analysing how HBBs have used Instagram for their small business, and suggests ways to improve their social media engagement.” Image source: Taara Muthu Kumar.
June 2021 | Kerman et al Work and home boundary violations during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of segmentation preferences and unfinished tasks “During the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented number of employees faced the challenges of telework. However, the current literature has a limited understanding of the implications of employees' obligated home-based telework and their satisfaction with the work and home domains. Specifically, work and home boundary violations relate to an increase in unfinished tasks in both domains. Finally, the indirect effects suggest that home-related unfinished tasks may be detrimental to satisfaction in both domains, while work-related unfinished tasks may be detrimental for work-related, but not home-related, satisfaction.”
April 2021 | Sevgi Çoban Gender and telework: Work and family experiences of teleworking professional, middle-class, married women with children during the Covid-19 pandemic in Turkey "Covid-19 pandemic has shown that traditional domestic roles of women have become centralized, the current pandemic and teleworking conditions have unsettled professional work rhythm of women and have detached them from their work environment, the presence of the husband at home has increased the burden than decreasing it, and as a result of these factors, teleworking in the current circumstances is not viable for women. Now the mediating mechanisms which hold family and work in balance such as granny care for children, nanny and house cleaning services are unavailable are not functioning as before. Findings indicate that women's invisible labor replaced them.”
February 2017 | Garrett et al Co-constructing a Sense of Community at Work: The Emergence of Community in Coworking Spaces "As more individuals are working remotely, many feel increasingly isolated and socially adrift. To address this challenge, many independent workers are choosing to work in coworking spaces – shared spaces where individuals do their own work but in the presence of others with the express purpose of being part of a community. In this qualitative, single case study, we analyze how members of a coworking space work together to co-construct a sense of community through their day-to-day interactions in the space. We apply a relational constructionist lens to unpack the processes of ‘community work’ as an interactive, agentic process. We identify three types of collective actions, or interacts, that contribute to a sense of community: endorsing, encountering, and engaging. These interacts represent different forms of community work that members interactively accomplish to maintain a desired community experience. The rapidly growing coworking movement offers insights, as uncovered in this study, on how to integrate a sense of community into the world of work."
2019 | Lilian Chee Domestic digressions: Interrogating Singaporean public housing through its literary forms "This chapter argues that Singaporean literature raises new architectural readings and figures, emerging patterns of spatial relationships and embedded desires or biases. It brings these aspects to bear upon public housing's architectural effects, forms and surfaces. The chapter argues that literary vitality is important for any architectural critique because it offers an imaginative dimension, an aspect eluded by an architectural pragmatism that dominates a developmentalist economy like Singapore. It attempts to trace how Singaporean literature critically enacts the abstract and impersonal architecture of public housing through a peripheral constellation of domestic objects, household practices and embodied occupancies. Embedded in a network of fiscal, social, political, architectural, ideological and legal threads, public housing architecture is commissioned and administered by the Housing and Development Board (HDB), a state-regulated body which has managed public housing on the island since its inception in 1960.” Image source: Lin Derong.
February 2014 | Cairns et al. Singapore's Void Decks ““Void decks” are the open spaces on the ground floor of Housing Development Board housing blocks in Singapore. Architecturally speaking, they are defined by the structural columns that support the housing block above, the largely unadorned walls of the lift and stair core, the smooth concrete or tiled surface of the floor, and the grooves, lips and gutters that run around its perimeter guiding away the rain water run-off from surrounding landscape or car parking areas.” “The institution of void decks represented an aspiration on the part of the Housing Development Board (HDB) — Singapore’s state housing authority — for a locally scaled accessible space that could be used by residents. Through the provision of the void deck the HDB hoped to encourage a sense of locality and community identity. In this sense, the void deck occupies quite a distinctive place in the wider planning machinery and New Town planning enterprise in Singapore. The embracing of the void space represented the most radical embrace of functional indeterminacy. And, in this embrace, as we will suggest below, the institution of void decks was a gamble.” Image source: Cairns et al.
Nov 2012 | Fonner and Stache All in a day's work, at home: teleworkers’ management of micro role transitions and the work–home boundary "Based on boundary theory, this study analysed the cues and rituals home-based teleworkers use to facilitate transitions between work and home roles. Teleworkers used time, space, technology and communication as cues to aid role transitions and manage the work–home boundary. Overall, teleworkers appeared to grapple with the tension between the desire for flexibility and the need for structure, and use cues and rites of passage in order to facilitate this balance. Female teleworkers were more likely to use segmenting cues relative to male teleworkers. Teleworkers with children living in the home were less likely to integrate work and home roles. Extensive teleworkers used space more frequently than less extensive teleworkers, but otherwise, both groups reported similar use of cues."
March 2008 | Cairns and Jacobs The Modern Touch: Interior Design and Modernisation in Post-Independence Singapore "The authors take as their focus the advice on interior design and decoration that Singapore's Housing Development Board (HDB) distributed to residents as part of its programme of universal housing provision. Through a series of regular articles appearing in the HDB publication Our Home (1972–1989), readers were presented with stories that showed how selected HDB residents decorated their newly acquired highrise flats. The authors detail the relationship between this design advice and the commitment to modernist design principles, the self-conscious pragmatism of the HDB, and the reliance on a limited market logic (‘homeownership’). The HDB's vision of the benefit of its highrise housing programme was, from the outset, complexly entangled with cultivating individual investments in the home by way of interior design and decoration practices. The paper contributes not only to the specific story of Singaporean housing, but also to wider scholarship on modernism, the everyday practices of interior design, and housing consumption.” Image source: Housing and Development Board.