Research Interest: Organized Crime, Deviance, Trust, Gender, Singapore, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Pedagogy

Thesis / Research Topic:

Rachyl's doctoral research examines the notion of trust within youth gangs in Singapore, focusing on how gang members navigate cooperation, collaboration, and betrayal in contexts marked by heightened uncertainty, suspicion, and violence. It builds on her previous work in crime and deviance, seeking to unravel the complexities of trust as a central, yet precarious, component of criminal collaboration and co-offending.

Rachyl Lim is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at NUS, where she is supported by both the President’s Graduate Fellowship and the Dean’s PhD Fellowship. She holds a MSc in Sociology from the University of Oxford and a BSocSci (Highest Distinction) in Sociology from NUS.

Her research explores themes of deviance, organized crime, and social trust, particularly in Singapore and Asia, with a broader interest in how local narratives and lived experiences complicate dominant sociological frameworks. Her work seeks to unsettle the everyday and rethink how it is shaped by taken-for-granted assumptions and conventional ways of knowing. Prior to her Ph.D., Rachyl also taught as a teaching assistant at Oxford and NUS.