Lived experience in a neighbourhood wet market culture and social memories of a disappearing space 2

Crafting a meaning-centred approach to Bedok Market My thesis lies at the intersection of economic and cultural sociology; I tap on concepts from cultural sociology such as sociality, re

Chapter 1 Framing the lived experiences and memories of the marketplace

1.1 Orienting the view: Presenting Bedok Market

This thesis is an ethnography of a neighbourhood wet market in Singapore – Bedok Market – in which I hope to relate some sense of the varied peoples, activities, and logics that characterize this space I deploy a meaning-centred framework

(Wherry, 2012) to shed light on the micro-level culture of Bedok Market: the various socialities, and performance ingredients that make up what I call the drama of buying and selling In this manner, I endeavour to capture the lived qualities of everyday life for two groups – hawkers and customers

Many neighbourhood marketplaces have vanished from the Singapore

landscape in the recent years A torrent of memories has welled up in light of this disappearance To gain a feel of the stories that have circulated, I extract the memories

of four categories of people – hawkers, customers, the National Heritage Board (NHB) staff and their collaborators, and heritage bloggers.1 To some degree, the tales of some groups conjure up the multifaceted dynamics of the marketplace Others do not Thus,

I marry my ethnography with a narrative slant that draws from and builds upon the micro-level culture of the marketplace

1.2 Crafting a meaning-centred approach to Bedok Market

My thesis lies at the intersection of economic and cultural sociology; I tap on concepts from cultural sociology such as sociality, relational work, dramaturgy or performance, nostalgia, and heritage, to understand economic phenomena and social memories In particular, I align myself with Wherry‟s (2012) meaning-centred stance

to marketplaces – a framework that fits well with culturally inflected studies in

economic sociology Hence, I situate my ethnography of the micro-level culture of

1 „Heritage bloggers‟ refer to people who „share their passion for Singapore‟s past and present‟ by blogging about issues that relate to Singapore‟s past and „heritage‟ (NHB, 2012a)

Bedok Market within the sociology of culture realm in the field of economic

sociology, and within studies in social memory

A meaning-centred approach operates along several logics It comprehends marketplaces as „cultural intentions‟, meaning that „people…share loose

understandings about how they should survive…[and] exchange, and what is

appropriate for exchange‟ (ibid.:3) Marketplaces are „cultural intentions that are inculcated and enacted, and intentions that their audiences must absorb‟ (ibid.)

Contrary to what neoclassical economists believe, marketplaces are not technical, efficient responses to a natural environment driven by principles of scarcity, demand, and supply (ibid.)

A cultural understanding of marketplace logics and more broadly, economic action, facilitates an exploration of marketplaces that looks at „what people actually do‟ in them – the meanings or cultural intentions that actors affix to their behaviours These meanings are inseparable from people‟s actions, relationships, negotiations, and struggles (ibid.:121) Therefore, a meaning-centred approach concerns itself with „the meanings of economic action [and] money, dramaturgical performances within market encounters, and categories that order economic behaviour‟ (ibid.:126)

Because I don this lens, I am interested in meaningful socialities and relational work (Chapter 3), performances (Chapter 4), and narratives (Chapter 5) in and of Bedok Market

In addition, a meaning-centred stance views economic actors as pragmatic, emotional, and habitual creatures (ibid.:130) Unlike what neoclassical economists hold, rationality and utility are but two of the many cultural orientations that

individuals exhibit (ibid.) Actors in Bedok Market have multiple goals behind their (economic) actions Some are material and economically oriented; others are symbolic

and ideational Actors may disavow some goals to fulfil others (ibid.:131) To achieve their many goals, individuals employ meaningful strategies that are substantive, temporally ordered, and meaningfully instrumental (ibid.); goals are accomplished in ways that make sense to people Furthermore, a meaning-centred approach sees the marketplace as a social space and a dramaturgical stage on which actors adopt roles, perform, and interact with audiences I probe into these conceptions of the space in Chapter 3 and 4 respectively

Since I engage a meaning-centred framework to explore the micro-level culture of Bedok Market, a definition of „culture‟ and „marketplace‟ is imperative By

„micro-level culture‟, I refer to the lived, subjective and multifarious qualities, logics

or rhythms that compose the milieu of Bedok Market Marketplace socialities and the theatre of buying and selling are two aspects of these realities These ethnographic characteristics are socially constituted A sense of „social cognition‟ (DiMaggio, 1990:113) is embedded in marketplace culture There exists a shared sense of how the social world is ordered, even before individuals enter the space (Wherry, 2012:7) Moreover, actors experience this world through categories of what can be grouped together, and what must be separated In the marketplace, culture demarcates

boundaries which are often taken-for-granted (ibid.:8) More vitally, when I speak about the „micro-level culture of Bedok Market‟, I invoke an interpretative lens through which actors perceive their social world and their place in it Culture

embodies a set of principles about how individuals should behave, and the meanings

of these behaviours in a particular space (ibid.:9) People act explicitly or implicitly within a pre-established structure of cultural norms They often use their agency to selectively draw from these norms to gain power in negotiating their own positions or

altering the norms In this manner, cultural norms in the marketplace frame but do not dictate ways of acting

Neoclassical economists use the term „market‟ to refer abstractly to exchange that revolves around the laws of price, demand, and supply (Bestor, 2001:9227)

„Markets‟ are „networks of economic processes and transactions…which occur

without specific locations or spatial boundaries for the transactional universe‟ (ibid.) I

do not view Bedok Market as a „market‟ in this sense Rather, Bedok Market is a

„marketplace‟ – a space that encapsulates „a localized set of social institutions, social actors, property rights, products, transactional relationships, trade practices, and cultural meanings framed by a wide variety of factors including, but not limited to,

“purely economic” or “market” forces‟ (ibid.) „Marketplaces‟ are ethnographic sites

or

Specific locations and social frameworks characterized not only by economic exchanges in and among them, but also by their equally vital roles as arenas for cultural activity and political expression, nodes in flows of information, landmarks of historical and ritual significance, and centres of civic

participation where diverse social, economic, ethnic, and cultural groups combine, collide, cooperate, collude, compete, and clash (ibid.)

In short, a meaning-centred angle underscores that marketplaces are embedded

in ongoing patterns of social organization and cultural meaning (Polanyi et al., 1957; Granovetter, 1985), since economic behaviour is interwoven with a myriad of social and cultural behaviours, institutions, and beliefs (Bestor, 2001:9227)

There are many marketplaces that fit Bestor‟s (2001) definition Tangires (2008) and Spitzer et al (1995) utilize the term „public market‟ to encompass the numerous marketplaces possible: open-air markets, street markets, market sheds, wholesale markets and so on In Singapore, wet markets are „public markets‟ in three ways They are spaces where diverse peoples buy and sell products under the purview

of a common authority – the National Environment Agency (NEA)2 or private

enterprises There are public goals or purposes to marketplace activities – the

provision of affordable retailing opportunities to small businesses, and shopping facilities in the neighbourhood precinct Wet markets are located in public spaces in the community, and are supposed to serve as places where people mingle (Spitzer et al., 1995:2-3)

The term „wet market‟ stems from the wet floors in the space These are

caused by melting ice that is used to keep foods fresh, and hawkers who wash their stalls to rid them of the blood, waste, and dirt that come with slaughtering and

cleaning live or fresh animals and foods In Singapore, marketplaces are segmented into a wet section where fresh foods – pork, chicken, beef, (roast) duck, seafood, and live animals – are retailed, and a dry section of spices, rice, dried noodles and seafood, eggs, fruits, and clothes Marketplaces are thought to be noisy and smelly They are open everyday except Mondays, from the wee hours of the morning to noon

1.3 Why an ethnography of a neighbourhood marketplace?

Venkatesh et al (2006:252) bemoan that the terms „market‟, „consumption‟, and „culture‟ are „everywhere but nowhere in our literature‟ on marketplaces, where this literature runs the gamut from economics, business and marketing, political science, sociology to anthropology Geiger et al (2012:134-136) underline that

market(place)s are amenable to cross-disciplinary and cross-area investigation They make a commendable effort to consolidate the various approaches, and craft a cross-disciplinary vocabulary that enables discussion without flattening the differences

2 The National Environment Agency (NEA) is „the leading public organization responsible for

improving and sustaining a clean and green environment in Singapore‟

( http://app2.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/about-nea/overview ) NEA develops environmental

initiatives and programmes through its partnership with the public and private sectors (ibid.) NEA has several key programmes, and the management of hawker centres and wet markets constitutes one of these programmes (ibid.)

across academic traditions Their conceptual map evinces many theoretical

perspectives on market(place)s Three of these perspectives – neoclassical economics, the substantivist school of thought, and social networks theory – have dominated the field of economic sociology I will here assess the features, strengths and weaknesses

of these paradigms, and communicate the importance of a meaning-centred

framework

Neoclassical economists erect a dichotomy between the market and civic life; economic life and action are antagonistic to social life (Cook, 2008:1) In fact, culture and the economy are taken to be macro entities that operate as separate externalities (ibid.:2) Economic life is captured in Bestor‟s (2001) aforementioned definition of the „market‟; the market delinks buyers, sellers and products from one another, and extracts exchange processes from a sense of place (Cook, 2008:2) Therefore,

neoclassical economists endorse an ideal model of the market that is divorced from material and social constraints; they claim to be „culture-free‟ They celebrate a powerful figure of the rational economic man who is isolated and anonymous –

epitomic of homo economicus and methodological individualism (Shepherd, 2008) –

rational and capitalist

In the neoclassical economic perspective, the market is a price mechanism for price formation involving utilitarian, atomistic buyers and sellers with stable

preferences and perfect information, and tends towards equilibrium (Geiger et al., 2012:137) Finally, the model reeks of economic imperialism or colonialism;

neoclassical economists purport to be able to explain all social relations and matters via the work of an all-powerful market system Their model of „The Market‟ is not only abstract, but normative and hegemonic

Recent developments in the field reveal that neoclassical economists have embraced new ideas and debates The concepts of „social capital‟, „social trust‟ as a foundation for cooperation among firms, and „cultural economy‟, have become key themes in the study of economic life Nonetheless, criticisms of neoclassical

economics abound Frank (2000) warns that the market arises as a sort of

„supra-intelligence‟ or „deity‟ that systematically structures economic and social life

according to „an unbending…[and] unerring calculus of value‟ (cited in Cook, 2008:1) The division between the economy and culture leaves no room wherein culture,

meaning, sentiment, and everyday practice bear upon social life (Cook, 2008:2)

Furthermore, Shepherd (2008:13) highlights that neoclassical economics is a model occupied with aggregates and not individuals, and thus projects how people should behave, not what they actually do (ibid.) Consequently, the „real‟ is simply assumed

to conform to the „normative‟ (ibid.)

Market exchange is detached from social, cultural, and historical contexts, and

is assumed to operate uniformly everywhere The removal of place and history from specific contexts deprives neoclassical economists of any ability to speak of social realities in the lived here and now (ibid.:14-15) Neoclassical economists also forget that market exchange is a social tie of a certain kind Exchange that transpires between impersonal partners is a social relationship because „the neutralization of actors‟

identities is the properly social condition for market exchange‟ (La Pradelle, 2006:6) Certainly, methodological individualism is a culturally produced way of being

(Shepherd, 2008:17)

The most trenchant critique of neoclassical economics springs from the

substantivist tradition in economic sociology The substantive meaning of economic has come to be associated with the works of Karl Polanyi and his followers (George

Dalton and Marshall Sahlins, for example), and is a creation of Polanyi himself

(Polanyi et al., 1957) It designates a perspective that Polanyi formulated in The great

transformation: The political and economic origin of our times (1944), and Trade and market in the early empires: Economies in history and theory (1957) In these seminal

texts, Polanyi challenges the formal meaning of economic that runs on the logic of rational decision-making and choice in the allocation of scarce resources to alternative ends (Polanyi et al., 1957:243) He advocates a substantive understanding of economic that interrogates the material acts of making of a living, and the ways through which humans adapt to the social and natural environment (ibid.)

Polanyi proceeds to investigate the place of the substantive economy in

different kinds of societies How is the economy „instituted‟ or integrated into wider society and stabilized (Prattis, 1987:16)? What are the processes that bind the social and economic in various societies (Wilk, 1996:7)? Polanyi et al (1957:148) assert that economic action and institutions are embedded and enmeshed in institutions, both economic and noneconomic In this sense, substantivists lean towards social

economics (Wilk, 1996:8) They are interested in economic institutions, social groups that produce, exchange and consume goods, and they assume that such groups abide

by the rules of these institutions (ibid.)

In addition, Polanyi takes a historical and comparative approach to the analysis

of „the economy as an instituted process‟ (Lie, 1991:221) In his comparative analysis, Polanyi (1977:35) develops a typology of exchange relations or „forms of

integration‟ – patterns of integration that bring out the institutionalized movements through which elements of the economic process (material resources and labour, transportation, storage, and the distribution of goods) are connected

There are three kinds of exchange relations Reciprocal exchanges occur because the values and norms of a social group or society prescribe that individuals have reciprocal obligations to one another by virtue of their statuses Thus, families, clans, tribes, friends or communities give and receive goods in traditionally patterned manners (Barber, 1995:396) Redistributive exchanges are propelled by norms that require members of a collective to contribute taxes, goods or services to a central authority This agency either allocates these contributions to some common enterprise

of the collective, or returns them in different proportions to the original donors

(ibid.:398) Market exchanges are the very transactions that neoclassical economists and formalists study They exist where norms dictate that economic actors behave like

homo economius (ibid.) Polanyi (1944:46) states that reciprocity and redistribution

are inextricably embedded in social relations, and are present in pre-market and substantive economies On the contrary, market exchange and societies are

disembedded from social relations (Polanyi et al., 1957)

Renowned social network theorist, Mark Granovetter, builds on Polanyi‟s

(1944; 1957) concept of „embeddedness‟ His highly influential piece, Economic

action and social structure: The problem of embeddnedness (1985), critiques the

„undersocialized‟ actor of neoclassical economics and the „oversocialized‟ actor of classical structural sociology (ibid.:482-483) Granovetter (1985) argues that these approaches see actions and decisions as executed by atomized individuals who are disembedded from social contexts (ibid.:484), glossing over the „historical and

structural embeddedness of relations‟ (ibid.:485) Swedberg and Granovetter (2001) throw light on the limitations of apprehending economic phenomena through

methodological individualism: individuals are never solitary but are frequently in contact with other individuals and groups (ibid.:11) Born into a pre-ordered social

world, a complex social structure has always been in existence, and has evolved

through history (ibid.) Most significantly, individual motives cannot account

adequately for social facts and structures; these can only be explained through wider social forces (ibid.)

In the 1980s, in response to Granovetter‟s (1985) critique, a cultural approach

in economic sociology gained strength with the new economic sociology of Richard Swedberg, Mark Granovetter, Neil Smelser, Harrison White, and Viviana Zelizer, broadening the academic debate about the economy to incorporate a social perspective, and account for the interactions of real people (Swedberg and Granovetter, 2001:1) Network theorists propose that structural economic sociology is grounded in three interrelated principles: 1) economic action is a form of social action; 2) economic action is socially situated or embedded; and 3) economic institutions are social

constructions (Swedberg and Granovetter, 2001:8)

Economic action is social behaviour that is steered by a desire for utility (ibid.), and meaning structures – the viewpoints and definitions that actors have of a

situation – are central in understanding economic action as a category of social action This preposition of economic sociology considers the social context, structures, and institutions in which economic action transpires (ibid.:9-10)

Economic life is not merely the product of individual self-interest, and

economic systems are not simply the aggregation of self-interest into an optimal

condition of collective rationality that maximizes individual advantages (Bestor,

2004:14) Alternatively, network theorists purport that economic action is embedded

in ongoing networks, structures, and organizations of personal relationships, where networks comprise regular social contacts or connections among people or groups (ibid.:11) Moreover, Granovetter (1985:486-487) proposes that networks can produce

trust and prevent malfeasance in economic life Social relationships can generate fraud and conflict as well (ibid.:488-489), where the extent of disorder depends on how the networks of relationships are structured (ibid.:489;497) The strength – or weakness –

of personal ties influences economic phenomena, and network theorists differentiate between embedded and arm‟s-length or disembedded ties3

(Zelizer, 2012:148)

The notion that economic institutions are socially constructed suggests that institutions which generate economic activity are not solely the outcome of economic processes (Bestor, 2004:14) Rather, individual actors and institutions create economic systems out of gradual accumulations of social knowledge and practice that, over time, appear natural and powerful in how they organize people‟s actions and attitudes (La Pradelle, 1995 cited in Bestor, 2004:14)

Bestor‟s (2004) delightful book, Tsukiji: The fish market at the centre of the

world, utilizes a cultural perspective to understand social and economic institutions,

processes, and life in Tsukiji – the world‟s largest marketplace for seafood that is based in Japan Bestor‟s (2004) work demonstrates Swedberg and Granovetter‟s (2001) three propositions splendidly It is an ethnography of trade and economic institutions

as they are embedded in and moulded by social and cultural currents in Japanese life (Bestor, 2004:xvi); the book explores how complex institutional structures are affixed

to and influenced by specific cultural meanings (ibid.:xvii) Because Tsukiji

exemplifies the institutional frameworks of Japanese economic behaviour and

organization (ibid.:12), Bestor (2004:xviii) also delves into the social networks and structures that organize the marketplace These include the structure of auctions in Tsukiji, and the roles of auction houses, auctioneers and traders; the dynamics of family firms; and the social structures and relations that drive traders‟ activities (ibid.)

3

Granovetter (1990; 1992) distinguishes between the immediate social connections that an actor has with others, and more distant associations He uses the notion of „relational embeddedness‟ to refer to strong and embedded networks, and „structural embeddedness‟ to invoke weak ties

Most crucially, Tsukiji acts as a broader case study of institutional structures and the social and cultural embeddedness of economic life (ibid.:12) This is in line with Bestor‟s (2004:12) desire to engage in an anthropological analysis of institutions; the documentation of Tsukiji is also an examination of the operations of institutions that shape complex, urban societies To execute such an analysis, Bestor (2004)

borrows from Swedberg and Granovetter‟s (2001) third preposition He starts with the premise that organizational patterns, institutional arrangements, and the cultural principles that such patterns reproduce, set up frameworks for marketplace activity (Bestor, 2004:12) The marketplace is cast both as a particular set of bounded

interactions among actors, and as economic process per se (ibid.:15) In short, the economic life of Tsukiji is embedded in an institutional structure which is in turn, influenced by historical and cultural meanings that marketplace participants hold (ibid.:16)

However, social network research has come under fire in recent years

According to critics, a theory that distinguishes degrees of (dis)embeddedness

reproduces the neoclassical economics dichotomy of a „social‟ and an „asocial‟,

representing an economic sphere that runs solely on economic logic (Block, 2012:139; Zelizer, 2012:148; Bandelj, 2012:191) Krippner (2001:800) accuses embeddedness theorists of „residual economism‟, abandoning hard core market transactions, and thus seeing the marketplace as existing apart from society, even as they labour to

deconstruct this boundary (Zelizer, 2012:148; Bandelj, 2012:192) Because

embeddedness invokes a social container within which economic processes – not fully thought of as being socially constituted – pan out, social relationships influence the economy from the outside (Krippner and Alvarez, 2007:232) Embeddedness research veers towards meso-level organizational phenomena and an „anti-categorical

imperative‟ (Emirbayer and Goodwin, 1994:1414), since it focuses on the structure of relationships – the strength of ties, degree of centrality and autonomy of the actors‟ network positions, or density of the actors‟ networks

By stressing meso-level phenomena and the structure of ties, embeddedness theorists slight, therefore, the contents of these relationships What exactly composes the economic activity described as „embedded‟ in social bonds and structures (Zelizer, 2012:147)? Can relationality only be comprehended as a „system of social relations congealed into networks‟ (Bandelj, 2012:177)? Zelizer, through her concept of

„relational work‟ (2005), attempts to apprehend relationality in economic life as a process rather than a structure, and thus valuing the attributes and motives that induce social action at the micro-level.4

Zelizer (2005) develops the notion of „relational work‟ as an alternative to the

„hostile worlds‟ perspective, which asserts that economic activity and intimate ties belong to distinct arenas (ibid.:20), and have rigid moral boundaries (ibid.:22) Zelizer (2005) problematizes this perspective by arguing that a real separation between the economy and culture does not exist The two arenas are „connected worlds‟ or involve

„connected lives‟, since intimate and economic realms commingle and coexist

„Relational work‟ is about working across „different boundaries that distinguish categories of relations and designate certain sorts of economic transactions as

appropriate for that relation, bar other transactions as inappropriate, and adopt certain media for reckoning and facilitating economic transactions within that relation‟ (ibid.:35) During relational work, individuals form viable matches among a particular set of distinctive social ties, economic transactions (e.g compensation, loans, bribes, theft, gifts), exchange media (e.g concrete objects, time, favours), and negotiated

4

The notion of relational work was created by Charles Tilly and Viviana Zelizer, and is most

extensively elaborated in Zelizer‟s (2005) The purchase of intimacy, and a special issue of Politics & Society (Block, 2012)

meanings (participants‟ negotiated or contested understandings and moral evaluations) (Zelizer, 2012:151)

Relational work theorists take meaningful, negotiated, and dynamic

interpersonal transactions as the starting point for social processes, focussing on the content of social ties and foregrounding the messiness, ambiguity, and contradictions

of relational work (ibid.:149) Cultural content is located in economic transactions themselves; „culture‟ is not treated as an external force or constraint that works on exchanges from the outside (Zelizer, 2005:44) Relational work is not only about meaning-making, but is conjoined with practice; it has a behavioural or symbolic cultural dimension (Bandelj, 2012:182) Hence, relational work or relationality in economic life is a process between actors that is yet to be accomplished; it is relational

work rather than systems of social ties structured into networks In this way, the

relational work concept resuscitates people‟s agency, strategies, and self-interest, as actors incessantly struggle and negotiate the matching of relations, transactions, media, and meanings

I draw on the notion of relational work to ponder over the relationships in Bedok Market, and to bring out the contributions that an ethnography can bestow on economic sociology I reject neoclassical economic assumptions of the marketplace and its actors Economic and social-cultural life do not belong to „hostile worlds‟, but are intrinsically intertwined I also reject the aforementioned assumptions of

embeddedness theorists Rather, a meaning-centred take on Bedok Market views economic relationships as being socially constituted, and inquires into the contents and idiosyncrasies of these bonds I explore the particularities of socialities in Bedok Market in Chapter 3, elucidating the micro-level process through which relationships are forged and sustained My ethnography also conjoins meaning-making with

practice and behaviour In Chapter 3 and 4, I tease out what people really do in the marketplace, and what these actions mean to them In sum, I muse over the micro-level culture of Bedok Market – how experiences and practices in and of Bedok Market generate sociality and drama Throughout the thesis, I proffer descriptions that demonstrate how individuals are pragmatic actors who have a keen sense of agency and strategy; they constantly work out, enact, and (re)shape marketplace culture and memories Multiple logics of these components flourish; a spectrum of socialities, performances, and stories result from the meaning-making and behavioural processes that actors undertake

In Chapter 5, I take a narrative angle to the memories of the vanishing

marketplace To be concise, I juxtapose the stories related by the hawkers and

customers and those articulated by NHB personnel and heritage bloggers This

comparison supplies methods of producing and assessing knowledge about

marketplaces that shun top-down and armchair data analysis, policy formulation and promulgation In other words, it problematizes the master narrative about

marketplaces that descends from the above Furthermore, I stake a claim on the

importance of the continuity of marketplaces Marketplaces harbour immense social value, and their disappearance is compelling to my informants and society in general Therefore, I point to the need for comparative research in order to better identify measures that enable marketplaces to become more resilient, enduring, and socially meaningful

1.4 On sociality, performance, and social memory

1.4.1 Sociality

Watson and Studdert (2006:3) lament that the sparse literature on marketplaces privileges the economic dimension of these spaces and rarely explores the role of

marketplaces as sites of sociality, despite the fact that since antiquity, marketplaces have been lauded to be focal points for local communities and hubs of connection, interconnections, and social interaction Nevertheless, some recent work has

recognized the social relevance of marketplaces Sherry (1990a) investigates buyer and seller behaviour, marketplace ambience, the social embeddedness and experience

of consumption in a flea market in Midwest America, while Stillerman (2006a; 2006b) ruminates how the street markets of Santiago convey the place of grocery shopping in fostering and maintaining relations among vendors and customers

Lui (2008) engages in an ethnographic comparison of the meanings attached to shopping behaviours in wet and supermarkets in Hong Kong, and shows how these meanings incorporate the social relationships that are present among various

categories of people – buyers and sellers, family members, friends and neighbours, employers and employees In wet markets, trust and closeness sprout and mature among buyers and sellers from the daily conversations, and sharing of knowledge about foods (ibid.:6-9) In supermarkets, a sense of distance and professionalism

characterizes the relationship between supermarket patrons and employees (ibid.:7)

In Singapore, Chia (2010/2011:5) has researched the ways that wet markets, as everyday spaces of consumption, nurture a sense of neighbourhood community,

querying the link between everyday consumption practices in wet markets and the establishment of neighbourhood communities She draws on consumption studies in geography to explore „how socialities and spatialities of consumption…[are] deeply intertwined by looking at everyday spaces of consumption and consumption practices‟

in wet markets (ibid.:11) Hence, Chia (2010/2011:16) dons a spatial and geographical lens to sketch out the ways through which wet markets build neighbourhood

communities via place-making; she pushes for a positive relationship between

mundane sites of consumption and community building

Watson and Studdert (2006), in an extensive study, consider the social role of eight marketplaces in the United Kingdom They discover some degree of social

interaction, although there are variations in the strength of social ties, level of social inclusion and exclusion, and use of the spaces by different groups (ibid.:vii) They conclude that marketplaces require four features to function well as social sites:

features which attract visitors, opportunities to linger, good access to the marketplaces, and an active and engaged community of traders (ibid.:viii)

Watson (2009) further develops the 2006 study, digging deeper into the

multiple types of socialities present in marketplaces People can „rub along‟

(ibid.:1581); they enter limited encounters where they acknowledge one another

through a passing glance, see and are seen, and share embodied spaces (ibid.:1581) These cursory experiences hinder the withdrawal into the self or private space (ibid.) The care of marginalized and excluded individuals, such as the elderly and disabled, is performed in marketplaces too; marketplaces produce „inclusive sociality‟ (ibid.:1584-1585) Marketplace „theatre and performance‟ denote the ways traders use banter, playful speech, and pitching to portray themselves as amusing performers, and lure customers in (ibid.:1584-1585) Marketplaces are also sites of cross cultural

relationships and associations that mediate difference (ibid.:1585-1589) Diverse categories of people come into contact in marketplaces; marketplaces are spaces of commingling and meeting of strangers, and of mediating ethnic, class, and gender differences among heterogeneous groups (ibid.)

In this thesis, I expand this research on marketplace socialities by investigating how the rhythms of Bedok Market affect the customer-customer, hawker-customer,

and hawker-hawker relationships there Like Watson (2009), I contend that the

marketplace is a site of multiple socialities; a range of ties thrive, and I delineate the meanings and behaviours that animate it I deviate from Chia (2010/2011) because I

am not interested in a spatial and geographical perspective on the relationship between consumption practices and neighbourhood socialities, or in the notion of place-making Furthermore, Lui (2008) and Chia (2010/2011) are overwhelmingly positive and uncritical when they explicate how the qualities of the marketplace influence the kinds

of relationships found there The bonds among several groups of people in the

marketplace – buyers, sellers, friends, neighbours, and employees – are portrayed as being affirmative and unproblematic The reverse is true for the ties forged in the supermarket

In contrast, I turn a discerning eye to the range of socialities in Bedok Market

I tease out the politics and contradictions that go into the creation, negotiation, and annulment of ties I allow for the possibility that bonds are not always cordial or

harmonious, and that they may not build (neighbourhood) communities Moreover, I employ Zelizer‟s (2005; 2012) relational work concept to make sense of how

ambiguous relationships are relationally worked out, marked by boundaries, and

matched with relevant economic transactions, exchange media, and negotiated

meanings In this sense, these relationships are not merely forms of sociality, but interweave economics and sociability

1.4.2 Performance

In Chapter 4, I seek to add to the cultural and economic sociology literature by comprehending transactions in Bedok Market through Goffman‟s dramaturgical

terminology Some research on buying and selling transactions in marketplaces

apprehend these exchanges through the performative paradigm of Goffman and other

theorists who have expounded on his ideas In Shepherd‟s (2008) ethnography of Eastern Market in the United States, he deploys a dramaturgical pentad to understand the performative action that happens there Using Burke‟s (1945) terminology,

The scene (the Sunday flea market) is the site for acts (of not just selling and

buying but…strolling, looking, chatting, browsing, setting up goods, assigning

space, negotiating and gossiping) carried out by various agents (vendors, customers, market staff, merchants, farmers and observers) The agency (how acts are done) of these agents varies, as does the purpose (the why of these

actions) (Shepherd, 2008:16; emphasis his)

Discussing the many reasons why different agents participate in the drama of

„this particular market‟ (ibid.; emphasis his), and the manners in which they do so –

„who does what, how they do this, and why they do this‟ – unearths the complexity of human action and the place of ambiguity in the performance of everyday life (ibid.) Framing marketplaces as social processes, scenes of performance, play, and economic exchange (Kapchan, 1993:308-309 cited in Shepherd, 2008:15) also delineates how economic exchange is embedded in cultural practice

Cook (2008) and his contributors also capitalize on a dramaturgical framework

in their inquiries into a variety of marketplaces They engage „the materiality and sociality of marketplaces – i.e of public exchanges spatially situated‟ (ibid.:2) They adopt the experiences and practices of marketplaces as their leap off point, because

„something irreducible occurs in the public, face-to-face encounters of buyers and sellers, of observers and participants, in the terrestrial market‟ (ibid.)

According to Cook (2008), the performance of value in economic life is one such „irreducible‟ entity It is identified via individuals who occupy specific positions and sport identities vis-à-vis others In marketplaces, „to encounter value is to

encounter and interact with things and…others – to smell and feel the goods…observe those others milling about buying, looking, selling, dickering, joking – that is, to be

seen in public‟ (ibid.:7) In Goffmanian (1959; 1967; 1979) terms, individuals enter ritual practices or take on postures of typified identities when they interact face-to-face These representations are inseparable from exchange values and relations (Cook, 2008:7) In light of the age-old association between marketplaces and theatre (Agnew, 1986), it is pertinent to flesh out how exchanges are co-productions that rope in sellers, buyers, and the stage – all integral to the meaning and interpretation of economic performances (Cook, 2008:7)

dissatisfaction towards the present on a new population of asylum seekers (ibid.)

Davis (1979) would categorize the aforementioned form of nostalgia – the search for remembrances of past persons and places to give meaning to present and future ones (ibid.:vii) – as „simple nostalgia‟ (ibid.:16) Simple nostalgia positively evokes a lived past in relation to some negative feeling towards the present (ibid.:18) Harbouring affections for the past, individuals feel a sense of loss now that their

personal past is annihilated Although they yearn to return to the past, they

acknowledge that this is impossible In simple nostalgia, a picture of „The Beautiful

Past and Unattractive Present‟ does not deny the inconveniences of the past, but opts

to play them down (ibid.:18) In Chapter 5, I probe into the notion of nostalgia among four groups of individuals I also raise Davis‟ (1979) notion of „private nostalgia‟ – symbolic images from the past that stem from people‟s biography (ibid.:123) – where this is contextualized in „collective nostalgia‟ – situations where symbolic objects have a public, shared, and familiar character, such that they trigger waves of nostalgia

in larger populations (ibid.:122)

1.5 Exploring the culture and social memories of the marketplace

In Chapter 1, I have set up the conceptual framework of my thesis I embark

on a meaning-centred study of the micro-level culture of Bedok Market, and

memories of the declining marketplace I have emphasized the significance of an ethnography of a neighbourhood marketplace for the cultural and economic sociology, and social memory literature, and reviewed some concepts that I will use in the

proceeding chapters

In Chapter 2, I lay out my methodological framework, one that entails method and multi-sited research, and ruminations about my work with an interpreter I also narrate the history of marketplaces in Singapore, and walk the reader through Bedok and my fieldsite

multi-The story of Bedok Market commences in Chapter 3 I ponder over the types

of socialities that the marketplace precipitates – customer-customer, hawker-customer, and hawker-hawker relationships – and the dynamics and nuances of each tie I concur with Watson (2009:1579) that the „social‟ is a myriad of lived encounters and overlaps

In Bedok Market, a range of socialities proliferates because the „social‟ is conceived

in „many different ways across a continuum of limited engagement…to “thick”

engagement…with many possibilities in between‟ (ibid.:1581)

In Chapter 4, buying and selling interactions between hawkers and customers are understood in Goffman‟s (1959) performative terms I analyse four dramaturgical ingredients that constitute the „front stage‟ (ibid.) of this theatre: the front stage set up; what hawkers call „the ability to talk‟; the differentiation of customers; and the

negotiation of price There are several ways of enacting these components; a range of dramaturgical techniques is exhibited When this spectrum is kept to, transactions are devoid of tension However, degrees of inclusion, exclusion, and asymmetry can drive transactions, and these exchanges then become rife with conflict Thus, Chapter 3 and

4 picture Bedok Market as both an inclusive and exclusive playing field for hawkers and customers The marketplace invites the expression of agency and creativity in negotiating sociality and buying and selling exchanges It also provides a sense of liminality in navigating power relations that draw from cultural norms In this sense, I posit that social organizations and meanings are not merely salient in Bedok Market, but are also created and realized in this space

In Chapter 5, I adopt a narrative stance to the tales that four categories of people verbalize vis-à-vis the disappearing marketplace I postulate that multiple and heterogeneous narratives emerge, illustrating that the four groups (dis)engage

marketplace culture, and notions of nostalgia and heritage to varying extents These narratives also spell out the different positions and investments from which various groups of actors appropriate the marketplace

Chapter 2 Methodological issues and a saunter through Bedok Market

2.1 Erecting a multi-method framework

Bestor (2001) holds that a wide array of marketplaces has been documented ethnographically, and a trawl through the literature testifies to this Maisel (1974) and Sherry (1990a; 1990b) pave the way for a rigorous naturalistic investigation of flea markets, and Belk et al.‟s (1988) interrogation of Red Mesa Swap Meet positions itself as a pilot study that spawned subsequent projects which delve into second order marketing systems MacGrath et al (1993) capture the dynamics of buying and selling interactions, and the role of retailers and accompanying institutions in a farmers‟ market Causey (2003) and Wherry (2006) add to the burgeoning literature with their ethnographies of buying and selling encounters between artisans and tourists in tourist marketplaces The marketplaces which Shepherd (2008) and La Pradelle (2006) enter resist being reduced to a singular form – La Pradelle notes that Carpentras is a

wholesale-truffle-street market Depicting these as theatrical spaces, they employ dramaturgical and phenomenological angles to elicit the ways through which the drama – the scene, acts, agents, agency, and purpose (Burke, 1945) – of these

marketplaces take shape

The aforementioned studies recruit a multi-method approach that uses

qualitative methods – participant observation, interviews, photographs, and videos –

to construct „thick descriptions‟ (Geertz, 1973) of the action that choreographs

marketplaces All, save for MacGrath et al (1993) and Sherry (1990a; 1990b), confine their ethnographies to one marketplace; these other ethnographers conduct on- and off-site research, and venture into a number of spaces

Borrowing from the above authors, I adopted a multi-method framework that utilized these methods: 1) various types of participant observation; 2) „conversations

with a purpose‟ (Burgess, 1982); 3) semi-structured interviews with four groups (hawkers, customers, a member of the National Heritage Board (NHB) and a teacher who led a National Education Learning Journey5 to a marketplace, and heritage

bloggers); and 4) written and pictorial materials from blogs, the local press, and NHB that were published from 2009 to 2013 In line with Bestor‟s (2004) method of touring Tsukiji Fish Market with different parties, I went on tours of Bedok Market, other wet and supermarkets, accompanied at times by an interpreter or what Edwards (1998) calls a „key informant‟, and reflected on the role of an interpreter as a co-constructer

of data In other words, my approach found a home among multi-sited studies

Transiting several spaces was imperative because, as Chapter 4 will bear out, the drama of buying and selling extends into these sites, and they are often the places where the knowledge of foods becomes embodied, is acquired and exercised

2.2 Participant observation, tours, and ruminations on the role of an interpreter

In January 2012, I conducted exploratory research, once a week, in Bedok Market to garner a sense of the buying and selling interactions that transpired between the hawkers and customers, identified potential key informants upon gauging the personalities of certain hawkers and the location of their stalls (stalls located next to a walkway were more spacious and amenable to observation), and built rapport with the hawkers and customers If one reflects on my „intellectual autobiography‟ (Temple, 1997),6 one will comprehend why the cacophony of dialects, the rapid flow of

interactions, and the dizzying variety of foods were a rude assault on my senses and

5 According to the Ministry of Education, Learning Journeys are „all trips out of schools which teachers and students embark on together to extend and enrich the educational experience Besides helping to make real and concrete what has been learnt in schools, Learning Journeys will broaden the mental horizons of students and contribute to their total development.‟ Learning Journeys need to fulfil four criteria They should instill pride in Singapore‟s achievements; help their participants understand the constraints, challenges and opportunities that Singapore faces; build confidence in Singapore‟s future; and highlight the point that Singapore is our home ( http://www.ne.edu.sg/index.htm )

6 I lay out my „intellectual autobiography‟ (Temple, 1997) in relation to my research and the

marketplace later in this section

anthropological imagination As an outsider to the marketplace, how was I to make sense of this „chaos‟?

To alleviate this, I got my aunt, Jennifer, to bring me on tours of Bedok Market She did, for a short period of time – from December 2011 to January 2012 Jennifer patronizes both wet and supermarkets, has a comprehensive stock of knowledge about foods, and could double up as an interpreter Quickly, I was socialized into the „body cues‟ (Figuie and Bricas, 2010:179) or the „direct qualification procedures…which stimulate the sensory capacities of the subject to evaluate the physical characteristics

of the product‟ when purchasing food Phrased in another manner, my interpreter taught me how to „see, touch and smell fish, chicken and vegetables‟ in order to assess their freshness During the tours, I sketched a mental map of Bedok Market in terms

of the physical layout of the stalls and foods sold, the hawkers‟ personalities, and the flows of people and activity throughout the day A map of the stalls is affixed to Appendix 2

I laboured to create a space and role for myself in which I could listen to conversations between the hawkers and customers However, not only was it difficult

to observe the hawkers without buying from them, but lingering at their stalls after purchasing invited curious stares from them and their neighbours The hawkers

monitored my actions closely, and I would learn repeatedly that the visibility of

exchanges in the marketplace – a public and open space – meant that participants were attuned to one another‟s actions

Once, Jennifer was teaching me how to „see fish‟ at Lim‟s stall, and this

aroused Lim‟s curiosity: „Girl, what are you doing? Learning how to see fish? Why?‟7Jennifer revealed that I was a Masters student who was studying the wet market „for

7 Pseudonyms were used at the earliest point of the research – the transcription stage – and are still used throughout this thesis

my project‟ Lim replied teasingly, „Your project? Come work for me during the weekends I‟ll teach you how to see and sell fish.‟ We burst out in laughter, but in the next few days, I seriously considered his offer and decided to take it up

When I commenced „work‟ at Lim‟s, he decided that I should not be his

assistant – „You‟re too educated to sell fish!‟ – but „stand in one corner and watch me

do business‟ When neighbouring hawkers and customers asked why I was there, he informed them I was „learning how to do business and how to talk‟ – the tricks of the trade He introduced me to his regulars, fellow hawkers and friends who sometimes chatted with him at his stall Quite swiftly, Lim cast the role I would play – an

observer and apprentice Thus, an extensive period of observation began I hung

around his stall from February to September 2012, twice or thrice a week, from 4am

to 12pm I watched the buying and selling interactions and conversations between him, Ping (Lim‟s assistant) and their customers, and among the hawkers, and how they set

up and closed their stall

I too discovered that I could occupy the role of a friend, regular or stroller – someone who walks through the marketplace, talking to and observing hawkers, but not always shopping Jotted fieldnotes were recorded at the stalls or the adjacent

hawker centre, and written up fully at home Exchanges largely assumed an eclectic of languages – Hokkien, Teochew, Mandarin, Malay, and sputtering English I entirely understood the interactions that occurred in Mandarin and English, but not those in the other mother tongues Hence, whenever it was possible, I requested that the hawkers explain what just took place My mother, Florence, joined me as an interpreter from June onwards, because Jennifer could no longer accompany me on my field trips

Soon, a few fishmongers wondered why I was at Lim‟s, and inquired about my mixed ethnic background They presumed, based on my tanned skin, that I was Malay

but could not reconcile that with my ability to speak Mandarin.8 This presented me a point of entry to brief them about my research, share my biography, and obtain

information about theirs I was fortunate not to have to employ the snowballing

method to recruit informants, as some hawkers were very eager to introduce

themselves! Then, I developed my mental map of the marketplace into a chart of economic alliances and other socialities among the hawkers

During the period of participation observation, many customers and hawkers enquired about the relationship I shared with my key informants (Lim and Ping; Hakim, and his wife, Nina; Mei, her sister-in-law, Lian, and assistant, Wei; Lee; Hui, and her assistant, Tan; and Liao) I received numerous titles in jest.9 These

communicated some sense of the parties that constituted the marketplace; what the hawkers made of my research; and the manners in which the relationships between the hawkers, customers, and I were forged

Besides observing how my key informants operated their businesses, I realized that I needed to grasp some of the hawkers‟ selling strategies to attain a richer

8

In Singapore, the state has categorized its citizenry into four ethnic groups – Chinese, Malays, Indians, and Eurasians or Others (CMIO) The people from each ethnic group are thought to speak a particular mother language The Chinese speak Mandarin; the Malays speak Malay; and the Indians speak Tamil Also, the people from each ethnic group are thought to have a particular skin tone The Chinese are supposed to be fair; the Malays are supposed to be tanned; and the Indians are supposed to be dark I have a mixed ethnic background, and am categorized as a Eurasian However, I speak Mandarin quite fluently, and am tanned This is why the hawkers initially thought I was Malay, but could not reconcile that with my ability to speak Mandarin

9 During my observations, many hawkers and customers wondered, in a bemused fashion, if I was the daughter of my key informants; a secretary, because I was always seated at my key informants‟ stalls with my notebook and pencil; a tax collector who was secretly recording everything in her notebook so that she could give the information to the government, and this would translate into a jump in my key informants‟ personal income tax; a government official or health inspector who was there to check on the hawkers; a Straits Times reporter; a professor who „only knows how to study but cannot cook‟, inferred from my inability to differentiate vegetables (I could not differentiate small bitter gourds from avocadoes) when Hakim tested me on the names of his vegetables; an illicit girlfriend or lover; a secret agent sent by the hawkers‟ wives to spy on them; and a „poly[technic] student doing [a] project‟ – what they gleaned from my introduction of myself as a Masters student who was writing a thesis Most of the time, I was (fondly) known as „that little sister‟ or „that NUS [National University of Singapore] student [who is] studying the market‟ The hawkers often used my identity as a conversation starter, and the titles they put forward pointed to a deepening friendship between the researcher and themselves I progressed from the formal role of a student to participating in their jokes and being given diverse informal identities

understanding of buying and selling dynamics Hui, a fishmonger, frequently came over to Lim‟s to ask me how much his prawns and fish cost, their names, and the methods of cooking them I was stumped and utterly clueless When I visited her at her stall, she trained me to inform her customers of the prices of her fish After she weighed the fish and named the price, I would pack the food, collect money and thank the customers

By June 2012, most of the hawkers knew that I was doing research They asked one another what I was doing in the marketplace and saw me there quite

frequently, scribbling in my notebook, even in the wee hours of the morning I desired

to observe at stalls other than Lim‟s, but felt tentative – what if he did not like me doing that? As much as I longed to move around the marketplace uninhibitedly, did

my loyalty lie with this gatekeeper? To tread around this obstacle, I told Lim that I would like to „learn vegetables and chicken‟ but was most keen on „learning and buying fish‟ from him

In June 2012, Hakim (a vegetable seller) and Mei (a chicken seller) let me observe at their stalls In July, I stationed myself at Liao‟s, a fishmonger, and

occasionally went to Ting‟s, a vegetable seller, and Aziz‟s, a chicken seller Lim and Liao are business partners, and Mei and Aziz are friends I elected to observe the business partners and friends of my key informants because of the abovementioned issues of the researcher‟s loyalty, and an awareness that I was constantly being

surveyed My key informants could view the happenings at other stalls because of the open layout of the place, and the fact that they often wandered around and exchanged news with one another Even as I watched the hawkers, I was too observed

Sometimes, I fretted that any mistake in the field could jeopardize my relationship with a particular key informant

To briskly cultivate a sound body of knowledge about foods, in July 2012, I sought the assistance of another aunt, Lynnette, to bring me on tours of other wet and supermarkets During these leisurely trips, Lynnette – an experienced shopper – imparted her knowledge of foods to me at my own pace She also addressed questions about how she, a wet and supermarket patron, participated in the theatre of buying and selling in the wet market Supermarket tours, furthermore, facilitated a juxtaposition

of the sensory environments of the wet and supermarket: differences in the physical layout; the kinds of products sold and presentation of these; and the manners in which participants navigated the two spaces were thrown into sharp relief From these, I compiled a glossy of the foods that my key informants sell, and this is attached to Appendix 7 In Appendix 8, the reader should find photographs of some scenes in Bedok Market

Despite Temple‟s (1997; 2002) lament that there exists a paucity of studies that flesh out the place of the interpreter in cross-cultural research, a few academics have contemplated the ways through which interpreters can be made visible (see Edwards, 1998; Neufeld et al., 2002; Riessman, 2000) Temple (1997) urges

researchers who engage interpreters to ponder over the latter‟s role as co-constructors

of data in the „empirical unfolding‟ (McHoul, 1982 cited in Temple, 1997:609) of techniques – reproduced practices that depend on a standardization of rules

Acknowledging that both the researcher‟s and interpreter‟s orientations are

inseparable from data generation, researchers are encouraged to debate concepts, issues and differences with their counterparts, and lay out the perspectives from which they create texts (ibid.) Data construction, in this sense, is rooted not only in „double subjectivities‟ (Temple and Edwards, 2002), but in particular ontological,

epistemological and knowledge positions (Temple, 1997)

To render explicit my mother‟s – Florence – part as an interpreter and constructer, and conduct observations „with‟ rather than „through‟ her (Edwards, 1998), I considered our „intellectual auto/biographies‟ (Temple, 1997).10

Prior to my research, I was outsider to the marketplace in various ways I was middle-class (a postgraduate who spoke only English and Mandarin, and not dialect); young (most hawkers and customers were middle-aged or older); and sorely deficient in the

knowledge of foods (ways of „seeing, smelling and touching‟ foods eluded me) and the knowledge of how to navigate this milieu, because I seldom shopped there

Luckily, Florence straddled two worlds – mine and the marketplace Her

intellectual biography positioned her as middle-class (she was well-educated but could speak dialect and Malay); middle-aged; and having been a housewife for decades, she was blessed with encyclopedic knowledge about foods, and the know-how of moving around the marketplace To paraphrase Overing (1987:76, cited in Temple,

1997:610),11 she was familiar with the „“alien” framework of thought‟ which was grounded in an „“alien” set of principles‟ in the marketplace

From June to September 2012, Florence and I observed at the stalls and jotted our own fieldnotes Every 30 minutes, we adjoined to a quiet corner to discuss our findings Together, we laid out our lines of enquiry, clarified our ideas and sketched out possible issues to attend to before we resumed our observations Indeed, Florence

10 Clark (1994:xi) would agree that it is paramount to flesh out the researcher‟s autobiography:

„[because] interpreting any book depends heavily on knowledge or assumptions about its condition of production and the author‟s background, [Clark, 1994] narrates something of the diverse persons and agendas that first set [her] feet on the path to Kumasi Central Market Theoretical discussions of

“situated knowledge”, pioneered by Donna Haraway and Sandra Harding, now give high priority to [the] specifics of the author‟s positionality and location as key aspects of…intellectual work Patricia Hill Collins further encourages writers to “use their own concrete positions as situated knower” (1990:17)

by validating concrete experience and connection as the basis for knowledge claims in Black feminist thought.‟

11 Overing (1987:76 cited in Temple, 1997:610) asserts that when accounts are translated into different languages, „it is not the “word”…[that] we should be anxious [about]; we should be concerned, instead, about an “alien” framework of thought which is based upon an “alien” set of universal principles in the particular social world that the speakers live in‟

aided with my research design and data generation; she was a „key informant‟ who directed me to matters she deemed to be important in the research process (Edwards, 1998) Bringing my mother to the marketplace also allowed hawkers to assign me an identity other than that of a researcher and friend I was someone‟s daughter, and getting acquainted with my family over time, hopefully, developed our ties beyond my notion of transitory hawker-customer relationships.12

In February 2013, I gained a firsthand experience of selling fish in Bedok Market for a week Hui hired me to pack and sell fish the week before Chinese New Year – a period in which business was brisk and Hui was shorthanded – while she and Tan descaled and sliced their stock Compelling me to perform the tricks of the trade subsequently enabled me to better understand the hawkers‟ explanations behind these tricks, and the ways that a stall was manned In this way, the modes of research that I deployed in this ethnography were forms of action research too My informants were not simply polled about their preferences and aspirations, but were also observed and interviewed while they engaged in real world decision making that impacted their lives and material welfare Thus, participant observation and tours of wet and

supermarkets permitted me to link theory to daily practices as they unfolded in Bedok Market

2.3 Interviews and popular literature on the marketplace

Throughout the period of observation, I struck up „conversations with a

purpose‟ (Burgess, 1982), posing the hawkers simple but focused questions Since such chats proceeded exchanges and activities, they evoked responses that were

contextual and sometimes, vivid in detail Still, endeavours to schedule in-depth, semi-structured interviews were greeted coldly Two hawkers demanded to know

12 Refer to Chapter 3 for my definition of „transitory relationships‟, and for the ways in which many hawker-customer ties take the form of transitory bonds

what exactly about their trade I was interested in My answer, „How you do business and make friends,‟ was either confronted with caution („Why do you want to study my business? Do you want to set up a stall here? What if you take away my business?‟) or carelessly dismissed („There‟s nothing to learn in the marketplace Doing business is just like that You just sell There‟re no tricks‟) Others claimed that they had no time

to spare, and instructed me to ask a few questions everyday, while they went about their businesses I did that with four hawkers and conversed with Mei‟s daughter, since Mei was not forthcoming and her daughter could speak on her behalf, having assisted at the stall during the weekend for many years Of these five hawkers, two were my key informants

In November 2012, I executed in-depth, semi-structured interviews with four customers who patronize Bedok Market They were middle-class, and boasted of a sophisticated corpus of knowledge about foods Three were regulars of some hawkers, while one was not They represented a segment of customers who are seasoned actors

in the drama of buying and selling, and are reflexive about the different marketplace socialities; they were embedded in marketplace culture In contrast, one interviewee, was not a regular to the wet market, had a scant body of knowledge about foods, and limited insights into the dramaturgical techniques of transactions She expressed horror at shopping in the marketplace Her account communicated the exclusionary nature of exchanges if one lacked the know-how of navigating the marketplace

In recent years, two groups have been articulate in voicing their views on the marketplace, even if they are not inhabitants of this space In late November and December 2012, I interviewed five heritage bloggers for their memories of the

marketplace as a vanishing entity The bloggers had written about their experiences of the space, and I contacted them for an interview after reading their blog entries I

conversed face-to-face with four bloggers, and conducted an e-mail interview with another I collated their blog entries about the marketplace too I also spoke with an NHB staff (Evan) who spearheaded the travelling exhibitions of the marketplace – a component of NHB‟s Community Heritage Project – as well as a teacher who

facilitated a Learning Journey to a marketplace, as part of NHB‟s scheme of roping schools into this project

I reviewed an ebook about the marketplace that NHB staff released –

Community Heritage Series II: Wet markets (NHB, 2012e) – along with materials

pertaining to the project, and some newspaper articles that dated from 2009 to 2013.13

In my interview with Evan and Community Heritage Series II: Wet markets, NHB

staff framed the wet market and other everyday, „traditional‟ and disappearing spaces like the provision shop and void deck, as „social‟, „heartland‟ or „communal heritage‟

I will unpack these terms in Chapter 5 These materials, fieldnotes, and interview data were subject to open coding and thematic analysis (Mason, 2002) as I read them several times to narrow my codes to a few umbrella notions that bridged the more specific codes I double-fitted cases and concepts (Ragin and Amoroso, 2010) too, transiting back and forth between a review of the academic literature, data generation and interpretation

2.4 A history of hawking and wet markets in Singapore

The evolution of wet markets in Singapore overlaps with the historical

regulation of hawking, and I segment this trajectory into three phases: mid nineteenth century to 1931; 1948 to the 1960s; and the period after the 1960s A substantial portion of the burgeoning immigrant population in mid nineteenth century Singapore were street or itinerant peddlers (Yeo, 1989) Dialect clans and secret societies exerted

13 Refer to section 2.4 for an explanation of why I restricted the review of newspaper articles on the wet market to the stipulated time frame

control over these peddlers (ibid.) The colonial government strove to secure control over the peddlers, but this culminated in a series of riots between the police and peddlers – the 1888 Verandah Riots are a shining example (Yeoh, 1996).14 Peddlers were construed as obstructions to traffic, sanitation, health and the law, and the early twentieth century witnessed a deluge of measures that sought to register, license, and discipline itinerant peddlers

Lim (2006) notes that the estranged relationship between the authorities and street hawkers (as these peddlers came to be officially labelled by the colonial

government) was tenacious From 1948 to 1959, street hawking was constructed as a problem The 1948 and 1950 Annual Report by the Town Cleansing and Hawkers Department (TCHD) held hawking to be the „biggest single retarding factor‟ in their

„unremitting efforts‟ to keep Singapore clean (Municipality of Singapore, TCHD, 1948:24) Hawkers had „no respect for law or order…obstruct[ing] the streets with their paraphernalia and stock-in-trade…causing serious difficulties to street cleansing and obstruction to pedestrian and wheeled traffic…litter[ing] the streets with

decomposed foodstuff and refuse‟ (Report of the Hawkers Inquiry Commission, 1950:Appendix A(ii)) Moreover, hawkers prevented government officials from carrying out their duties (Lim, 2006) and incurred „extra public expense…for the removal of refuse on the streets, back lanes and from roadside drains when the money could [have] be[en] applied to a much better social purpose‟ (Report of the Hawkers Inquiry Commission, 1950:Appendix A(ii)) In turn, the general population were

14 A verandah or „five-foot-way‟, is „an open arcade or light-roofed gallery extending along the front of shophouses and tenement dwellings as a continuous walkway‟ (Yeoh, 1996:245) Verandahs were subject to clashing understandings of public and private space The colonial government rendered them

as public space, but the hawkers formulated creative purposes for them, using them as storage and hawking areas, social and entertainment spaces, and dumping grounds (ibid.:247-248) The colonial government passed the Municipal Ordinance IX of 1887, which empowered the authorities to remove

„obstructions‟ that hindered public access to the verandahs (ibid.:250) Hawkers resisted this Act, and the Verandah Riots broke out from 20 to 22 February 1888 (ibid.)

portrayed as victims who, as a result of the activities of hawkers, suffered from smell and noise pollution, ill health, and poor sanitation in the city (Lim, 2006) Eventually, the 1950 Report culminated in an administrative framework that instilled „a more comprehensive licensing system; stricter control over hawkers; the deployment of a force of Hawker Inspectors; and [the] provision of proper hawker shelters‟ (ibid.:60-61)

In the late 1960s, the People‟s Action Party (PAP) government laboured to depict the city as modernized and developed (ibid.) The Hawker Centres

Development Unit was set up in 1971 to relocate licensed hawkers into hawker

centres and wet markets that were equipped with facilities for food preparation, cooking, and drainage (ibid.) In short, the streets were cleared in order to eliminate the problems that hawking yielded – pollution, street congestion, and poor sanitation (ibid.)

At present, Singapore has approximately 101 markets/hawker centres, and these fall under the ownership of the National Environment Agency (NEA) as well as private managements (Ang, 2009) (Wet markets began to be privatized in 1990.) Wet markets are dispersed throughout the island, and I divide them into two categories according to their locations First, marketplaces are located in „ethnic enclaves‟; they are „ethnic‟ marketplaces Tekka Market is in Little India; Kreta Ayer Market is in Chinatown; and Geylang Serai Market is in Geylang

„Ethnic‟ marketplaces are framed as a component of the ethnic enclaves that they are found in, and are portrayed as tourist and heritage sites Singapore Tourism Board (2012) deems Geylang Serai Market to be „a heritage marketplace‟ which „lies

in the heart of the Singapore Malay community and has been recently remodeled to

embrace the rustic quality of the old Malay kampong 15 houses‟ Sarna (2009), author

of tourist guide book, Frommer’s Singapore day by day, implores tourists to explore

Tekka Market as a part of the „Little India experience‟ Tour agencies such as

Journeys organize tours of Tekka Market for tourists „who want a feel, if not taste, of the real Singapore‟ and „whole experience of being Singaporean‟ (Yong et al., 2009) City Discovery‟s „Good morning, ni hao Chinatown walking tour‟16 ushers tourists into Chinatown Complex, where they can „move their senses with the sights and sounds of a wet market and watch how locals hunt for the freshest bargain‟, as part of the „Chinatown adventure‟ (http://www.city-

discovery.com/singapore/tour.php?id=172)

On another dimension, a 2012 Mediacorp production renders visual

representation to the social networks that span between the hawkers and customers in Tekka Market It traces the production, distribution and selling trajectories of foods, and underscores the different ethnicities and nationalities of the actors to position the marketplace as a cosmopolitan and transnational space

Marketplaces are also snuggly tucked away in residential estates; they form part of the neighbourhood precincts that the Housing Development Board (HDB) has built in major housing estates or new towns There are two kinds of neighbourhood marketplaces in the town centres – standalone markets, and hawker centres-cum-markets The first offers only fresh produce Hawker centres-cum-markets comprise two sections – a hawker centre where cooked foods are sold, and a wet market section where market produce is found

Neighbourhood marketplaces are cast in a dissimilar fashion from „ethnic‟ marketplaces As part of the neighbourhood precinct, neighbourhood marketplaces,

15

Kampong is the Malay word for „village‟

16 To translate, „Good morning, ni hao Chinatown walking tour‟ is „Good morning, how are you[?] Chinatown walking tour‟ in English

void decks, and common corridors are designated to be everyday „social and

functional spaces‟ which effectuate „neighbourly and community interactions‟ and provide amenities (Wong et al., 1985 [1997]) In short, neighbourhood marketplaces are residential marketplaces that are prosaic spaces of everyday life

Neighbourhood marketplaces continue to be subject to interventions from the government and private companies In the past four years, a number of marketplaces have been closed, and there has been much disquiet over a perceived „disappearance‟

of the marketplaces This is fuelled by four forces First, the government has played an active role in (re)constructing wet markets: NEA has (re)opened certain wet markets and closed others Periodically, it subjects selected marketplaces to upgrading and relocation Increases in rent and the possible raising of food prices that ensue, too, have been associated with such top-down, structural actions Second, the commercial food industry has witnessed a deluge of supermarkets and hypermarkets – potential competitors of the wet markets (Lim, 2011; Huang, 2012; Quek, 2011; 2012) Third, younger generations of Singaporeans are reluctant to continue their hawking family business; many older hawkers realize that their family businesses could cease to exist upon their retirement

Perhaps the most pressing force undergirding the vanishing of the

marketplaces is the privatization of wet markets, which is epitomized by the Sheng Siong-HDB saga In 2009, Sheng Siong, a major corporation that runs the Sheng Siong supermarket, took ownership of six wet markets, and planned to convert them into supermarkets Although this scheme did not come to fruition, a public furore was unleashed, and often, this was fought out in the media Hawkers and members of the public debated over what it meant for marketplaces to be assailed by a sudden and abrupt death They were split along three camps: those who wanted to keep the wet

market and enumerated the disadvantages of the supermarket; those who preferred the supermarket to the wet market; and those who desired to let the wet market die out

„naturally‟ over time This incident too sparked off a deliberation over the gradual demise of the marketplace, and a journalist commented that the hawking trade was a

„sunset industry‟ (Teo, 2012) In April 2013, similar concerns about a possible

disappearance of the hawker centre emerged (Ee, 2013) It was these debates,

concerns, and the unrest about the loss of the wet market that set me on my thesis journey I desired to understand these issues better, as well as the everyday

experiences of Singaporeans who still use the wet market

2.5 A saunter through Bedok and the marketplace

The region of Bedok encompasses Bedok, Siglap, Chai Chee, and Changi The urbanization of Bedok began in 1967 (Vaithilingam, 1987:45) Prior to this, Bedok was covered with hills, secondary forests, and sea (ibid.:44) People resided in

kampongs, and many worked on coconut plantations to make a living Along the coast

in Siglap, lived Malay fishermen who were descendants of the early settlers who came from the Indonesian islands (ibid.) Many Chinese farmers lived further inland, and reared chicken and pigs (ibid.) Chai Chee, Siglap, and Changi inhabitants had their own village and marketplace – spaces where people met and traded – but Bedok residents did not; Bedok lacked a central meeting point (ibid.)

Bedok, Chai Chee, and Siglap entered an accelerated phase of development in

1967 Their landscapes were drastically modified as Bedok New Town17 took form

17 All public housing estates are built-in planned new towns that follow a prototype model (Tan et al.,

1985 cited in Chua, 1997:433) Spaces in a new town are planned spaces that are guided by this prototype and a geometrical order (Chua, 1997:433) In other words, these spaces abide by a functional hierarchy which matches the hierarchical distribution of activity nodes (ibid.) The activity hierarchy comprises a town centre, a neighbourhood centre, and a precinct (ibid.) The town centre is

approximately the geographical centre of a new town; the neighbourhood centre is approximately the centre of a neighbourhood site; and the precinct is the centre of HDB blocks that encompass the precinct (Chua and Edwards, 1992:6) The level of goods and facilities in a new town is distributed

The hills were leveled and the sea was reclaimed (ibid.:45) Roads were constructed, and New Upper Changi Road cut through the steep terrain of Bedok (ibid.) The first

high-rise HDB flats towered in the sky, and many kampong dwellers were re-housed

in these buildings (ibid.) In anticipation of the 1976 General Election, the East Coast Group Representation Constituency (GRC)18 was formed, and the GRC boundaries of the Bedok division were drawn (ibid.:46) Bedok South Road marked the southern end

of the constituency, and Bedok North Street 2 marked the northern end (ibid.)

In 1973, Bedok Town Centre was developed and became the fifth new town in Singapore (Loh, 2009) Amenities such as wet and supermarkets, fast food joints, and the Mass Rapid Transportation (MRT) system sprang up Bedok Town Centre

underwent a second facelift in 1979 To serve a population of about 48 000, new cinemas, an indoor recreation system, and supermarkets were built In addition, the Town Centre housed a marketplace with 170 fresh produce stalls, and an adjacent hawker centre with 72 cooked food stalls This hawker centre-cum-wet market was known as Bedok Market

In 2012, Members of Parliament for East Coast GRC announced HDB‟s

„Remarking Our Heartland‟ plans for the East Coast area (Ramesh, 2012) As the

„Gateway to the East Coast‟ (ibid.), Bedok is to undergo major revamping in the next four years, and be transformed into a vibrant and rejuvenated hub (ibid.) The

government conceives of the new Bedok as a well-designed town that will furnish its

according to this functional hierarchy, with the highest order at the town centre (ibid.) Hawker centres and wet markets are usually situated in the neighbourhood centre (Chua, 1997:434)

18 Electoral divisions or constituencies are areas within Singapore that are demarcated by the Prime Minister for the purpose of parliamentary and presidential elections There are two types of electoral divisions: Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) and Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) The GRC is a larger constituency in terms of population size and physical area A group of Members of Parliament (MPs) represents the interests of residents in the electoral division At least one MP in a group representing a GRC must belong to a minority race (Malay, Indian, or Others) The GRC system

is supposed to ensure that minority racial communities are represented in parliament During an

election, the registered electors of a GRC vote for a group of individuals to be their MPs

( http://www.eld.gov.sg/elections_type_electoral.html )

residents with comprehensive facilities, greater convenience, and an enhanced living experience (ibid.) Bedok Town Centre will receive a new hawker centre, multi-storey car park as well as a new bus interchange, town plaza, and heritage corner The new town will also be utilized for mixed development (ibid.) A large shopping centre – Bedok Mall – boasting of 35 000 square metres of commercial space, and a

condominium with 475 private apartments, will be constructed (ibid.) Along Bedok North Street 1, an integrated community and sports centre will be erected, and this will contain a swimming complex, sports hall, tennis centre, and a community club (ibid.)

To pen this ethnography, I sought a neighbourhood marketplace in Bedok Town Centre that did not display the characteristics of „ethnic‟ marketplaces I was intrigued by an exploration of the subjective realities of marketplace inhabitants in a ubiquitous space, especially in terms of the socialities and drama of interactions that occurred there A probe into the micro-level culture of a neighbourhood marketplace

is timely as such spaces are currently (perceived to be) vanishing, and a flurry of narratives about this disappearance has surfaced

As a hawker centre-cum-wet market, Bedok Market embodies the above processes stunningly Built in 1979, Bedok Market was upgraded in 2008, and most stalls operate from 4am to 1pm everyday, except on Mondays (NEA, 2012) As a neighbourhood wet market, Bedok Market is small in size, limited in scope, and involves local community relations It is not a huge ethnic or commercial marketplace Lodged in my neighbourhood, I started to shop in Bedok Market and three

supermarkets nearby in 2011 Having resided in Bedok for 27 years, I frequent the new town daily, and am acquainted with residents-cum-customers who have