Late colonial women in a welfare world

ABSTRACT

I sketch a case study of late colonial, welfare-engaged women in Singapore, in a world of imperial privilege, welfare exceptionalism and late colonial fragmentation. They participated in the shaping of their colonial world, but had neither the pre-war sense of belonging, nor the post-colonial clarity of being in another world. The article draws from an archival study of social welfare in Singapore, in the late colonial period from 1945 to 1965. If we are to reclaim the colonial heritage, their lives should neither be ignored nor assigned to a past that has irretrievably been left behind.

KEYWORDS:

• Late colonialism
• war
• women
• social welfare
• Singapore

Disclosure statement

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

Archives

The main sources are series of interviews held in the National Library Board Archives of Singapore at http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/. The materials I have drawn on are included in the following interview projects: Women through the years: economic and family lives; Education in Singapore; Social Sector; and Political History of Singapore 1965-1985. I also have drawn on collections of documents registered under SWD 702/51.

I have drawn to a lesser degree on the archives of the Singapore Children’s Society and acknowledge their kind co-operation.

Notes

1. This book was brought to my attention by Ann Wee shortly before her death in 2019.

2. I have a paper under review with another journal which is a detailed critique of social work writing on the colonial.

3. I explore the development of a professionalising agenda in late colonial Singapore in Shaw (Forthcoming).

4. A general source, albeit wholly honorific, can be consulted in the ‘Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame’ HOME – Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame (swhf.sg) and Davis (2015).

5. The significance of warfare for the emergence and nature of welfare is almost wholly absent from social work scholarship. I have a paper under review with another journal which begins to set out the scope of such study.

6. I do not wish to be voyeuristic, and intentionally have omitted accounts that these women gave of the experience of imprisonment and abuse under Japanese occupation.

7. I explore late colonial social work practice in Shaw (Forthcoming).

8. Her approach mapped on to a mainstream practice in Singapore at the time. The Children’s Aid Society, established in 1902, was, this woman says, ‘started by the Europeans for children of European blood – Eurasians generally. And there were very many cases of course where men produced offspring. It was a problem. The child was not accepted very well in either community … ’ ‘It started off as a home for the wild oats of the Brits living in Singapore.’ There is passing reference to this in Koh and Singapore Children’s Society (2012). The Children’s Aid Society continues to the present, although these origins are not mentioned on their website. Our Story – Children’s Aid Society (childrensaidsociety.org.sg).