The Postcolonial Ambiguities of Eurasian pan-ethnicity in Singapore

There is a need to critically address the latent conceptual ambiguities in the pan-ethnic Eurasian label, and how it functions within the Singapore nation state’s ethno-racial regimes of representation. In response, this paper provides conceptual clarity by discussing the reaches and limits of this term as a floating signifier, as well as how it can be better operationalized as a modality of research. As a prelude to calling for a departure from understanding subjectivities within the city-state’s containment categories of ethnicity that have been legally institutionalized as ‘races,’ it is argued that the monolithic racial label ‘Eurasian,’ as well as the variegated cultural identities it is assumed to represent, need to be critically interrogated.