Re: Breaking News: WP new candidate Daniel Goh Pei Siong did a Yaw Shun Leong! Expose
Cheong Shuying Sheela
1) Name / Self introduction
Cheong Shuying Sheela, 2nd year Masters student expecting to graduate in July 2008 and going on to a PhD in Sociology.
As an undergraduate, the very first Sociology course I took was ‘Sociology of Deviance’ and since then my research interests have centered on discipline, morality, violence and social control.
2) Email address
Email 1
3) Thesis research
Conventional approaches into BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism) analyze it as individual pathology. This falls into the trap of psychological determinism in attributing pathology to the ‘sick’ mind of the individual and does not consider the socio-historical factors that discursively produce BDSM. Furthermore, virtually all the literature on BDSM is Western-centric and neglects the phenomenon as it is practiced in the East; any interpretation of the discourse surrounding BDSM necessarily involves situating it within a particular socio-historical milieu. In my study, I take a Foucauldian position, in which power and positionality are produced and articulated in/through discourses. It is my contention that the BDSM body in Singapore is gendered, classed and racially marked: the BDSM experience in Singapore cannot be experienced outside of any of these categories. While we would assume that the Singapore middle-class Chinese male (SCM) is the hegemonic ideal in all spheres, he is in fact at the bottom of the local BDSM hierarchy. Why is this so? In my analysis, I pin this down to the social/economic/gendered position of the SCM which undoubtedly resonates with his larger milieu. In moving between discussion of the citizen and the state, my study on BDSM in Singapore sheds light on the modern city-state and the implications of my findings for her future.
4) Research interests
Discipline, morality, violence, social control and education
5) Publications/International Conferences
‘Consuming Cultures: Change, Tradition and Choice in Asia and the Pacific’ United Nations University Global Seminar at University of Hawai’i at Manoa (May 2005)
‘Sado-masochism in Singapore’ at Asia Research Institute’s 2nd Singapore Graduate Forum on Southeast Asia Studies (July 2007)
‘Morality in BDSM’ at the University of Presov, Slovakia at ‘Moralities at the Turn of Centuries and Millenniums’ (Sept 2007)
‘A Critical Contribution to BDSM Theory: The Singaporean Story’ at Antalya University, Turkey at ‘Exploring Cultural Perspectives’ (June 2008)
6) Modules taught in the department
SSA1201 Singapore Studies (2 semesters), SC2220 Gender Studies
7) Related work experience
Internship at Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore (Dec 2004 and Nov 2007 – June 2008)
(Correct as at 10 January 2008)
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Sauce:
http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/soc/grad/s...rs/sheela.html
