colonialism to reproduce itself cannot be totally
disentangled, but I argue that the way forward is
not to accept the paralysis of such an impasse but
to take advantage of the ‘shape-shifting instability
of the concept’ (Hau, 2000: 78) and to strategi-
cally and critically mine this variegated field^2
for insights and impulses. It is by encouraging
multiple points of entry into the discourse and
the presence and participation of a wider range of
subjects, scholars and activists that one may hope
to chisel at the edges of this epistemological
empire and carry the ground away from the cur-
rent western-centric loci (both philosophical and
institutional, as Sidaway observes) of its imagin-
ing. This is no easy task, and perhaps the most
difficult questions revolve around how we may
move beyond ‘iconoclastic talk about “domina-
tion” of alien models and theories’ to the
construction of alternative frameworks and
metatheories which reflect ‘indigenous’ world-
views and experiences (Atal, 1981: 195).
Shamsul points out that ‘to have an academic
discourse beyond “orientalism” and “occidental-
ism” is rather a tall order as long as we cannot
break away from and become totally independent
of colonial knowledge’ (1998: 2). Not only did
the colonial project invade and conquer territorial
space, it has systematically colonized indigenous
epistemological spaces, reconstituting and
replacing these using a wide corpus of colonial
knowledge, policies and frameworks. With
decolonization, ex-colonies have regained (some-
times partial) political territory, but seldom the
epistemological space. Yet, surely the more con-
structive response here is not to reject western
discourse as tainted and hence disabling, but to
use ‘its very own tools of critical theory ... not
only to dismantle colonialism’s signifying
system but also to articulate the silences of the
native by liberating the suppressed in discourse’
(Zawiah Yahya, quoted in Alatas, 1995: 131).
I would also argue that these endeavours are
more likely to achieve transformative effect if
postcolonialism is interrogated as part of a serious
and sustained engagement with ‘material prac-
tices, actual spaces and real politics’ (Barnett,
1997: 137). As King notes, ‘postcolonialism (or
postcoloniality) exists as a concept for represent-
ing particular conditions in the contemporary
world, especially (though not only) in regard to
issues of identity, meaning, and consciousness
and, not least, the material forms and spaces in
which they are embodied’ (1999: 101). Yet, many
discussions of ‘the making of postcolonial
subjects as hybrid, contradictory, and ambivalent’
tend to be ‘noticeably unmediated by the mater-
ial properties of space’ (Kusno, 2000: 211). If themain limits of postcolonial theories lie in their
mistaken ‘attempt to transcend in rhetoric what
has not been transcended in substance’ (Ryan,
1994: 82), then an important starting place in
overcoming some of these limitations would be
to dissect postcoloniality as threaded through
real spaces, built forms and the material sub-
stance of everyday biospheres in the postcolonial
world. By overlaying and etching the complex
contours of the postcolonial debate onto a specific
space with both material and imagined dimen-
sions, geographers in particular are well posi-
tioned to grasp the substance along with the
critique and avoid the navel-gazing tendencies of
certain forms of postcolonial studies, which seem
reluctant to go much further beyond theorizing
‘the meaning of the hyphen in post-coloniality’.^3
My purpose then is to begin exploring the
postcolonial terrain on foot, so to speak, not
attempting to cover a lot of ground as expected in
an extensive survey, but recognizing my own
inescapable location in material space. I begin
with postcolonial Singapore before ranging fur-
ther afield where other paths may be discerned.
In these explorations, I will first turn to the way
postcolonial nations search for ‘groundings’ to
locate, define and solidify a sense of identity
before moving on to consider the way these
nations cope with ‘unmoorings’ – fluidities and
mobilities which not only transgress the borders
of the nation, but further trouble the inviolability
of its body.^4POSTCOLONIAL MEMORY AND
THE LOCALIZING OF IDENTITYSingapore, in many ways, is the product of forgettings.
Singapore occurred, and continues to sustain itself, as a
result of recurrent acts of forgettings. Forgetting is the
condition of Singapore. (Devan, 1999: 22)The engagement with memory and identity in
postcolonial nations such as Singapore is fraught
terrain, woven around the politics of inclusion
and exclusion, of ‘remembering’ and ‘forgetting’
where both acts are not just accidental or igno-
rant acts but more often than not ‘structural
necessities’ (1999: 22). For its people, knowing
what to remember (and what to forget) in order to
arrive at a sense of self-identity is a complicated
business involving being able to trace a line of
sight through multiple prisms refracting the
nation’s history in different directions, for
Singaporeans ‘inherit [an] Asian identity through
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