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Abstract
This paper interrogates the exclusionary politics of casino urbanism in Singapore, especially in terms of how this particular brand of urbanism reproduces disciplinary regimes through the uneven consumption of fun and leisure. Singapore's vision of becoming a world-class "state of fun" is accompanied by increasingly sophisticated measures of boundary making between global leisure citizens and the excluded others, often comprised of the working class and those deemed to be at risk or lacking self-control and responsibility. The evolving biopolitical borders coincide with the multiple borders set up around Singapore's casino spaces, ensuring the exclusive consumption of Singapore's casino urbanism by the wealthy few. The fun regimes help to normalize social exclusion, moralize disciplinary control, and give legitimacy to the new class of global consumers under the operations of the state-capital apparatus. This paper argues that exclusive casino urbanism has broader social and political implications on issues of equality, accessibility, and urban participation.
Keywords: casinos, fun, discipline, urbanism, biopolitical borders, Singapore, integrated resorts, tourism, gambling
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5509/2017904701
Introduction
In June 2014, Singapore's Tourism Board and the island's best-known tourist attraction Sentosa Island launched the new "State of Fun" campaign to boost tourist dollars and to promote Singapore as a worldclass entertainment destination. The "State of Fun" campaign featured a promotional video, showcasing how Sentosa Island (and by extension Singapore) could now be imagined as "the Neverland, the dreamland, the wonderland," where "the borders are open to everyone."1 As part of the new campaign, the Sentosa Development Corporation also released a short video featuring "a hardworking father" having a "deserved day of fun." Mr. Hui, a taxi driver and single father of two sons, was filmed cruising the island on a Segway, feasting with friends in one of the food courts, and trying out indoor skydiving. As a taxi driver, Mr. Hui ferried tourists and visitors to Sentosa every day, but he was never really part of this "Neverland." The promotional campaign offered him a rare opportunity to experience the "state of fun" with packaged activities, though the more expensive attractions, such as Universal Studios Singapore, were not included in the deal. This "state of fun" campaign thus reveals how fun is to be had in Singapore: the fun-seeker has to be a deserving individual;...