Skateboarding in Singapore: Youth, Masculinity and Urban Sports Culture

Abstract

Singapore is a highly urbanized city-state, so arguably all sports assume an urban nature and constitute an urban sports culture. Using skateboarding as a lens, this article examines how its history in Singapore reflects the Singaporean state’s governmentality and general attitudes towards youth in the country. More specifically, the article suggests that Singaporean statesmen and policymakers, in response to greater challenges from an increasingly educated and liberal-minded populace that demands alternative expressions of freedom and personal aspirations, have refashioned and even encouraged skateboarding as a productive sport that can channel youth energies away from delinquency and endear the state to young skateboarders, who are generally teenage boys. Skateboarding thus forms an integral part of Singapore’s urban sports culture, as evidenced by the creation of skateparks in both the downtown and heartlands and the popularity of skate videos on the internet. Skateboarding, once a symbol of an undesirable masculinity displayed by supposedly idle and boisterous young boys, now presents an alternative masculinity of active and energetic youth that coexists with the hegemonic masculinities of male technocrats and academically successful students.

Keywords:

• Masculinity
• skateboarding
• Singapore
• urban sports culture
• youth

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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7 Matthew Atencio, Becky Beal, E. Missy Wright, and ZaNean McClain (eds.), Moving Boarders: Skateboarding and the Changing Landscape of Urban Youth Sports (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2018); Brian Glenney, ‘Skateboarding and the Ecology of Urban Space’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 42, no. 6 (2018): 437–53; Lorne Platt, ‘Bodies, Boards, and Wheels in Urban Public Space: Skateboarding the Ledges, Rails, and Steps of the City’, Built Environment 47, no. 4 (2021): 461–79; Asa Backstrom, ‘Skateboarding: From Urban Spaces to Subcultural Olympians’, Young 30, no. 2 (2022): 121–31.

8 Jeremy Nemeth, ‘Conflict, Exclusion, Relocation: Skateboarding and Public Space’, Journal of Urban Design 11, no. 3 (2006): 297–318; Indigo Willing, ‘The “Boy Scouts” and “Bad Boys” of Skateboarding: A Thematic Analysis of The Bones Brigade’, Sport in Society 23, no. 5 (2020): 832–46.

9 Christopher Giamarino, ‘The Impacts of Hostile Designs on Skateboarding as a Form of Active Transportation and Recreation: Comparing Perspectives from Public University Spaces in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States’, Cities & Health 7, no. 3 (2023): 416–32. A few notable exceptions to the conventional focus on Western societies include Paul O’Connor, ‘Hong Kong Skateboarding and Network Capital’, Journal of Sport and Social Issues 42, no. 6 (2018): 419–36; Sander Holsgens, Skateboarding in Seoul: A Sensory Ethnography (Groningen: University of Groningen Press, 2021).

10 Olympics.com, ‘Skateboarding’, https://olympics.com/en/sports/skateboarding/(accessed September 6, 2023).

11 Ibid.

12 Iain Borden, Skateboarding and the City: A Complete History (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 9.

13 Ibid., 6–23.

14 Lukasz Stanek, Henri Lefebvre on Space (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 145.

15 Borden, Skateboarding and the City, 98.

16 ‘Skateboards: Riders, Importers Seek Review of Govt Ban’, The Straits Times, June 17, 1978, 10.

17 ‘Enthusiasts Want a Place to Go Skateboarding’, The Straits Times, May 30, 1978, 13.

18 Ibid.

19 ‘End of the Road for Skate Board Riders?’ The Straits Times, June 13, 1978, 7. (italics mine).

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

22 ‘Youngsters Need Some Sort of Outlet’, The Straits Times, June 13, 1978, 13.

23 Ibid.

24 ‘Skateboards’, 10.

25 ‘Skateboard Riding: Ministry on Those Curbs’, The Straits Times, June 23, 1978, 13.

26 ‘Skateboards’, 10.

27 ‘A Slide Backwards’, New Nation, June 18, 1978, 6.

28 ‘Skateboard Riding’, 13.

29 ‘Skateboard Plans’, New Nation, March 28, 1978, 4.

30 ‘Safety Decreed’, The Straits Times, July 12, 1978, 16.

31 Ibid.

32 ‘Skateboarding in Public Places Is Against the Law’, The New Paper, September 27, 1988, 5.

33 ‘Skateboarders Doing Danger Stunts on Roads’, The Straits Times, November 28, 1988, 40.

34 ‘Orchard Road Set for Annual Lunar New Year Bash’, The Straits Times, February 11, 1989, 15.

35 ‘Making Sports a Way of Life’, The Straits Times, February 26, 1989, 23.

36 Ibid.

37 ‘Inspiring Performers of the Past’, The Straits Times, March 1, 1989, 37.

38 ‘Good Sports’, The New Paper, March 3, 1989, 16.

39 ‘Skateboarders’ Woes’, The Straits Times, March 18, 1989, 2.

40 ‘More Take Up Skateboarding but Few Accept Their Presence’, The Straits Times, March 18, 1989, 25.

41 ‘Out for Adventure’, The Straits Times, July 23, 1989, 2.

42 ‘Whiz Kids in the Board Vroom’, The Straits Times (August 1, 1989), 1.

43 ‘Fun at Fitness Fair’, The Straits Times, November 7, 1989, 3.

44 ‘Skateboards for the Enthusiast’, Weekend East, November 16, 1989, 3.

45 ‘Skateboard Whiz’, The Straits Times, January 19, 1990, 35.

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49 ‘Nine Fined for Skateboarding at MRT Stations’, The Straits Times, May 28, 1990, 23.

50 ‘Skateboarders at MRT Stations Can Now Be Fined Up to $500’, The Straits Times, May 22, 1990, 3.

51 ‘Roller-Blading Comes to Singapore’, Weekend East, July 11, 1991, 1.

52 Haemal Nair, ‘Public Space: A Response to the Developmental State’ (Master’s Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2015), 23.

53 Nair, ‘Public Space’, 25.

54 Ibid., 26.

55 Esther Koh, ‘Youth Skating in Singapore: Mobilities, Identities, and Agency’ (Bachelor’s Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2016/2017), 41.

56 Koh, ‘Youth Skating in Singapore’, 42.

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70 Ibid., 3–4.

71 Beng-Huat Chua, Liberalism Disavowed: Communitarianism and State Capitalism in Singapore (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017).

72 Fabio Massimo Lo Verde and Vincenzo Pepe, ‘Urban Sport Population: How the Sporting Habits Have Changed’, in Sport and Quality of Life: Practices, Habits, and Lifestyles, ed. Paolo Corvo and Fabio Massimo Lo Verde (Cham: Springer, 2022), 114.

73 Ibid., 115.

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75 ‘Olympics: Singapore Can Do Well in Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, says Edwin Tong’, The Straits Times, August 9, 2021, https://www.straitstimes.com/sport/olympics-spore-can-do-well-in-skateboarding-sport-climbing-says-mccys-tong (accessed September 8, 2023).

76 ‘“Skateboarding Is Unity”: Meet the Skaters Changing Mindsets about the Sport in Singapore’, Time Out, September 1, 2022, https://www.timeout.com/singapore/things-to-do/skateboarding-is-unity-meet-the-skaters-changing-mindsets-about-the-sport-in-singapore (accessed October 30, 2023).

77 Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics, and Activism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000); Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2008).

78 At present, three registered societies related to skateboarding are operating in Singapore: Skate Kakis (2006), Skateboarding Association (Singapore) (2006) and Asian Skateboarding Federation (2017). Readers may search for them on https://www.ros.mha.gov.sg/egp/eservice/ROSES/FE_SocietySearch.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ying-kit Chan

Ying-kit Chan (PhD, Princeton University) is an assistant professor at the Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore.