In comparison to social service practitioners, Malay leaders were more optimistic about the effectiveness of welfare policies in combating poverty:
In Singapore, there are a lot of opportunities for you to get out of that [poverty]. It‘s all up to you because there is enough support system.
Basically in America, there‘s hardly any. You‘re on your own… Over here, even if you fall through the cracks, there‘s a social system that oversees and helps you to get out. The onus lies on the working poor, whether they want to get out of it, first from their desire. I think the issue is whether you are prepared to be helped... (CL1)
By framing inequality within the context of a comprehensive welfare system in Singapore, the inability to escape poverty is interpreted as the individual‘s lack of
―desire… to be helped‖ (CL1). From the habitus of social actors who are actively involved in policy decisions, the onus now lies on poor Malays to escape poverty.
In contrast, several Malay social service practitioners voiced their skepticism about the effectiveness of the Malay leadership in combating the community‘s underdevelopment:
I don‘t know why National Day Rallies must problematize the Malay community. There‘s always a negative stereotype about the Malay
community. I think there‘s an agenda for us to be distracted. It‘s distracting us from advancement. Every time our community resources have to be channeled to solve the problem. There is this problem, the state defines it, we [the Malays] must solve it. There was a drug problem in the 1980s and 1970s, community resources [went] there; education problem, resources [went] there; family problem, resources [went]
there... (SSP7)
In fact, there is a contradictory message in the papers. They encourage the Malays to save through Program Bijak Belanja [Smart Spending Programme] and they also blame the Malays for not being able to manage their finances properly. But in Berita Harian, when the stalls in bazaar Geylang are empty, they actually advertise that the Malays are not taking up the opportunities to make money. Yes, it‘s really contradictory.
I mean on one hand, you‘re told to save... And the next minute, you‘re told to spend and be a consumer. I mean how do you make sense of that?
(shakes head) (SSP12)
Some criticized Malay leaders for failing to question the state‘s racialization of in- work poverty and social dysfunctionality as a ‗Malay problem‘ (SSP7). Others problematized Program Bijak Belanja for degrading the dignity of poor Malays (SSP12). Many Malay social service practitioners also felt excluded from community engagement platforms, arguing that the policy recommendations were eventually monopolized by Malay leaders:
Yes, they have sharing sessions like the CLF [Community Leaders Forum], but usually they already have their agenda. So called, it‘s a sharing session but actually it‘s not... Sometimes, I question the objective of these sessions. What’s the use of going when they don’t really hear you? [italics added] (SSP6)
Their decisions to withdraw from ‗public‘ platforms have the consequence of creating a wave of defeatism about the community‘s mobility outcomes (ironically even amongst middle-class upwardly mobile Malays). In response, Malay leaders were frustrated with such criticisms:
Assuming ‗that‘ [that welfare programmes are patronizing towards the poor] is true, [then] we don‘t need any programme at all... Because they are intelligent, smart and resourceful enough to seek help from their families, and own support networks. They realize what their challenges
are, and they can take action on their own... Make sure their children don‘t loiter at night, play guitar at void-deck... or courting girls and boys.
But that‘s not the situation. Assuming all these criticisms are correct, then the same argument can be applied to all other programs... That is my response to that criticism... I‘m willing to counter argue, but no, we are not debating. It‘s easy to belittle an effort... At best, it is an effort. It is not a cure, it is not meant to belittle. I hope it doesn‘t sound belittling.
I spoke of the need to help people to manage their resources. As far as low-income [persons] are concerned, they need budgeting help. (CL2)
Taken together, the data illuminated the peculiar set of socio-structural relations underlying ‗self-help‘ assistance within the Malay community. First, it mirrored the longstanding ‗sandwiched‘ positions of Malay leaders, who continued to juggle national goals with community demands since independence. Second, the emerging group of middle-class social service practitioners, is generally demanding for greater inclusion and engagement in the community‘s ‗self-help‘
efforts.
For working poor Malays however, although they valued any help given, their economic hardship, in certain instances, is at odds with the aims of welfare programmes:
For Program Bijak Belanja, at times we can use the system. At other times, I think it is not… (hesitates) that relevant. For instance, they say:
―If you get your pay, don‘t spend first. Save immediately.‖ Now, maybe that‘s applicable to people with high pay, like $1000 plus or $2000 plus.
For us with pay of $700, how to save eh? They say must save 10%, so we keep $70. If $10, maybe I can save. Not that I don‘t want to… But for $70, I can use that money to pay my bills. Our budget is so tight, how else to tighten? Money still have to go out! (2G, F8)
As working poor families are structurally incapacitated to save, the middle-class
‗practical‘ tactic of deferring consumption to prioritize savings becomes obsolete.
Struggling to meet their basic needs, my working poor Malay informants hardly deliberated on the efficiency of Malay leadership (At times, they were not aware
of their names!). Within the social service field, they were mere recipients of financial aid. Structurally, they exerted negligible influence on welfare policies and programmes, which were ironically meant to help them in the first place. As middle-class social actors are entrusted with the mandate to enact or devise policies, coupled with the simultaneous lack of engagement with the needy population, this matrix of socio-structural relations, in itself, inadvertently (re)engenders poverty.
5.5 CONCLUSION
To summarize, this chapter has detailed how working poor Malays, social service practitioners and Malay leaders, have responded and contributed to discourses of in-work poverty and Malay underdevelopment in Singapore. The ethnographic insights gained, are relevant for refining our understanding of the mechanisms of cultural reproduction, and the discursive uses of ‗structure‘ and
‗culture.‘
With regard to cultural reproduction, the disparities in the habitus and structural locations of working poor Malays, social service practitioners and Malay leaders are evident. Whereas poor Malays directly faced the prejudice of some social service practitioners, social service practitioners indirectly evaluated their clients‘ practices against their middle-class values. There are also concurrent social and class tensions within the Malay community. Whilst several Malay social service practitioners appealed for greater inclusivity in self-help efforts, Malay leaders lamented about successful Malays who have ‗disassociated‘ from
the community. Working poor Malays on the other hand, were inclined to first consult Malay social service practitioners and organizations for assistance, before approaching mainstream platforms. The fact that non-Malay social service practitioners shied away from discussing issues pertaining to Malay leadership, partly reinforced the community self-help discourse and practice. Jointly, these intricate processes ended up affecting the field of social service — the formulation, administering and access to welfare schemes. By illuminating the tensions that transpired when the habitus of social actors encounter, or are translated into, institutionalized standards of evaluation, I have addressed an oversight of the cultural reproduction theory, which concentrated on either the upper-class or lower-class stratums. Contrary to culturalist theories of poverty which solely faulted the poor, I have demonstrated that middle-class actors — social service practitioners and Malay leaders — are implicitly involved in the reproduction of inequality.
With regard to the interrelationships between ‗structure‘ and ‗culture,‘ I have revealed that my informants oscillated between individualist, culturalist and structuralist explications of poverty. Employing (and conflating) three definitions of ‗culture‘ — (i) culture as ‗race‘ (ii) culture as religious orientation (iii) culture as the habit of welfare dependency, many of my informants echoed culturalist theories of poverty. I have also shown that social service practitioners and Malay leaders were inclined to view their middle-class ‗culture‘ as the ‗ideal‘ for working poor Malays to aspire towards. With the exception of working poor Malays, the other two groups of informants primarily understood ‗structure‘ as
neutral and objective instruments for assessing merit or welfare eligibility. In extrapolating, within everyday discourses of in-work poverty and Malay underdevelopment, the concept ‗culture‘ denoted random individual choices or independent values, whilst the notion ‗structure‘ referred to disembodied entities.
Running parallel to the other, these two discourses indirectly shaped the habitus of middle-class actors, such that they frequently failed to recognize their implicit roles in preserving the status quo.
CHAPTER SIX: THE INTERPLAY OF CULTURE AND STRUCTURE IN IN- WORK POVERTY AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT STUDIES
6.1 INTRODUCTION
In this concluding chapter, I will summarize the arguments made in preceding chapters, and critically appraise them in relation to the literature and theories reviewed in Chapters One and Two respectively. I will conclude with a conceptual model which categorizes the multifarious, but interrelated ways in which ‗culture‘ and ‗structure‘ link to each other, to influence intergenerational poverty. Beyond writing about ‘structure’ as political and economic processes (structural dynamism) and ‘culture’ as habitus (cultural milieu), I propose that
‗culture‘ and ‗structure‘ are also interrelated as discursive distortions of reality (everyday ideologies), and a matrix of unequal socio-structural positions (relational matrix), which jointly contribute to the reproduction of underdevelopment.
6.2 REVISITING KEY THEORIES