Cluttering up colonial space: the emergence of ‘clutter’ in Straits Settlements English language newspapers (1908-1942)

• In Event: Histories of Racial Governance and Resistance

Abstract

The emergence of the concept of ‘clutter’ in English language Straits Settlements newspapers from first mention in 1908 to the Japanese Occupation in 1942. Based on analysis of 48 digitised articles from the National Archives of Singapore NewspaperSG database that mention ‘clutter’, thematically coded the diverse referents of the term and contexts of its use. I found that ‘clutter’ almost as often referred to people as to objects, evidencing the links between this taken-for- granted classification and the racialised and evaluative logics of eugenics. This contributes to: (1) understandings of the colonial and eugenic roots of ‘clutter’ as a concept and (2) knowledge of Straits Settlements hygiene history by historicising the pathologisation of ‘clutter’ present in the imagination of ‘hoarding disorder’, which is high on the public health agenda in Singapore today. This paper provides an analysis that centres the relationship between ‘clutter’ as a product of modernity, and colonialism, eugenics, war, and racial capitalism.

Author

• Tiger Chan, University of Cambridge