MADELEINE CLARE SHUTLER

M.Soc.Sci. Student

Research Title: ‘Performing Race’: Negotiating Race and Ethnicity Online and Offline in Singapore
Research Group: Social and Cultural Geographies (SCG)
Thesis Advisor: Professor Brenda Yeoh

‘What are you?’, is the question that many racially mixed individuals have encountered at some point in their lives, and it is a question that my dissertation would like to explore further both physically and metaphorically by looking at the body, as well as virtual platforms as spaces of negotiation. The body, containing numerous interpretations of spaces and encounters, has long been recognised as a field for negotiation of racial and ethnic identity. As virtual platforms evolve, social media is also fast becoming a more prominent and important avenue for representation and negotiation of identity. In a setting such as Singapore, I would like to explore how racial identity is shaped and performed both online and offline, particularly by looking at the ‘negotiation strategies’ that racially mixed individuals may adopt in order to carve out a sense of belonging in their everyday life and the digital sphere.