The AWARE Saga: Civil Society and Public Morality in Singapore

Contributors

Contributors 175 175 Contributors Azhar Ghani is a risk consultant providing regional political economy and security assessments for businesses. Prior to his foray into risk consultancy, he was a journalist for eight years, including more than two years heading The Straits Times’ Indonesian bureau in Jakarta. In between, he was a Research Fellow with the Institute of Policy Studies for two years before returning to full-time risk consulting. He spent another year as an Adjunct Research Associate with the Institute pursuing his research interests in multicultural and public policy issues in Singapore. He has also practised as an engineer. Terence Chong is a Sociologist and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. His research areas are Singapore society, the sociology of culture, globalization studies and cultural policies in Singapore. He has published in Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Studies Review, Critical Asian Studies, among others. He is author of The Theatre and the State in Singapore: Orthodoxy and Resistance (Routledge, 2011) and editor of Management of Success: Singapore Revisited (ISEAS, 2010). Chua Beng Huat is Provost’s Professor, Faculty of Arts and Social Science. He is concurrently Head, Department of Sociology, Convenor Cultural Studies Programmes and Research Leader, Cultural Studies in Asia Research Cluster, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He has done conceptual ground breaking on Singapore politics, public housing policies and in cultural economy of East Asian pop cultures. He is founding co-executive editor of the journal, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Dominic Chua is a creative consultant focused on strategic and public communications. His interest in civic society and the empowerment of disenfranchised groups has seen him involved with a number of different non-profit organisations, including TWC2, the Singapore 176 Contributors Anti-Death Penalty Group, and People Like Us. An English Language and Literature major, he has previously served as an educator in both public and private sector educational settings over the past decade. Theresa W. Devasahayam is Fellow and Gender Studies Programme Coordinator at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Her research areas include women migrants and HIV/AIDS, labour mobility, women and food security, and gender and ageing. She is co-author of Gender, Emotions and Labour Markets: Asian and Western Perspectives (London: Routledge, in press [with Ann Brooks]). Among her recent edited publications is Singapore Women’s Charter: Roles, Responsibilities and Rights in Marriage (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011), Gender Trends in Southeast Asia: Women Now, Women in the Future (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009), and Working and Mothering in Asia: Images, Ideologies and Identities (Singapore and Copenhagen: NUS Press and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2007) (with Brenda S.A. Yeoh). She has also published journal articles, book chapters, reports for international organizations, and book reviews on various women’s issues. Gillian Koh is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Policy Studies. She contributes to the work in the Institute of Policy Studies’ Politics and Governance cluster. The on-going research interests of the cluster include the nature of state-society relations and the development of civil society in Singapore; electoral politics; and the political values of Singaporeans. One other area the desk explores is the nature of social resilience of Singaporeans in the face of internal and external security threats. She is the Publications Coordinator at the Institute and the convenor of IPS’ occasional Young Singaporeans Conference. James Koh has been working in the education sector for the past nine years, both as a teacher and an administrator in a number of different schools. His research interests include educational programming for high-ability students, and the impact of introducing critical theory to high school students. An English Language and Literature graduate, he currently works in the area of corporate communications. Lai Ah Eng is Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute and instructor at the University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore. She has worked in various research capacities at the Contributors 177 Consumers’ Association of Penang, Housing Development Board (Singapore), the National Archives of Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) and Institute of Policy Studies, and lectured at the Departments of Sociology and Social Work, National University of Singapore. Her research areas include multiculturalism, migration, family and heritage on which she has several major publications. Loh Chee Kong is the News Editor at TODAY newspaper. As a reporter then, he had closely followed...