Desiring ‘foreign talent’: lack and Lacan in anti-immigrant sentiments in Singapore

ABSTRACT

In recent years, the Singapore government’s pro-immigration policy – specifically, its recruitment of so-called foreign talent – has caused a palpable rise in anti-immigrant sentiments and discourses amongst natives of the city-state. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, a perspective so far marginal in migration research, this article offers a provocative reading of Singapore’s desire for foreign talent and the local society’s reception of these subjects. The article focuses on the ways in which frustrated Singaporeans seem to find foreign talent immigrants, especially those from mainland China, to be lacking and undesirable. Lacan’s theories enable the bold interpretations that: (1) foreign talent is not meant to fill a lack but precisely to produce it and (2) foreign talent stands for Singapore’s and Singaporeans’ unobtainable object of desire, which ultimately signifies the gaps and inconsistencies in the symbolic order confronting them. Moving away from existing conceptual frameworks and theoretical approaches, the article illustrates what a psychoanalytic lens of desire can contribute to migration and mobility research.

KEYWORDS:

• Singapore
• foreign talent
• immigration
• psychoanalysis
• Lacan
• xenophobia

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Following Svašek, I use ‘affect’ and ‘emotion’ interchangeably, although I acknowledge that in other contexts the distinction between the two is crucial (see Pile 2009).

2 It is worth recalling that psychoanalytic thinkers such as Freud and Lacan regarded themselves primarily as clinical practitioners.

3 In Singapore, the state retains strong influence, arguably ultimate control, over the press and media through state-owned holding companies.

4 Various examples could be found on prominent websites carrying dissenting opinions in Singapore, such as The Real Singapore (now defunct), All Singapore Stuff (http://www.allsingaporestuff.com) and States Times Review (http://statestimesreview.com).

5 Millionaire Chinese national Ma Chi’s reckless driving (of a red Ferrari) cost him his own life and those of a Singaporean taxi driver and a Japanese visitor. The Singaporean public’s reactions to this accident, however, seemed notably inflected by Ma’s wealth and nationality (see Yeoh and Lin 2013).

6 In 2014, wealthy British businessman Anton Casey ridiculed the less well-to-do in Singapore, causing a public furore (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/anton-casey-fired-and-flees-singapore-in-economy-class-over-poor-people-comments-9088199.html).

7 Sun Xu, a student from China on a Singapore government-funded tertiary scholarship, offended the local public by making a statement of ill judgement and poor taste, saying that ‘there are more dogs than human in Singapore’ (see Yang 2016, p. 1).

8 In 2011, Singaporean netizens initiated a Facebook event called ‘Cook a pot of curry’ to protest the fact that a migrant family from China had requested their local Indian neighbour limit the cooking of curry and obtained favourable mediation from the housing estate council.

9 http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/prc-women-who-spit-and-hit-sg-man-aremenace-society (last accessed 9 May, 2015).

10 http://www.allsingaporestuff.com/article/7-reasons-why-prc-women-are-bettersg-women (last accessed 9 May, 2015).

11 For instance, Western and/or white foreign talent in the Singaporean schema of desire is often taken to signify creativity, entrepreneurship and individualism, which is in some ways the obverse of Confucian and Asian values but still highly desired.