Europeans behaving badly : European 'misbehaviour' in colonial Singapore c. 1890-1940

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand the ways in which internal boundaries within the European population in colonial Singapore were delineated by means of proscribing behaviours that were perceived as problematic by both official and non-official Europeans in the early twentieth century. It examines three behaviours—non-conjugal sexual relations, drunkenness, and vagrancy—which were deemed problematic depending on the spaces in which these behaviours took place and the degree of their visibility to the Asian population. Whether these practices were considered undesirable and problematic was also contingent on contemporary notions of race, class, and gender. Colonial and non-official European anxieties were acute surrounding spaces in which inter-ethnic interactions took place. Europeans who were present in such spaces were especially likely to be designated as a ‘problem,’ even if accessing racially exclusive spaces was dependent on professional status and required substantial financial means. The perceived undesirability and regulation of these behaviours were illustrative of the colonial imperatives to maintain European respectability as a way of sustaining colonial control. Consequently, these behaviours marked the ‘right’ sort of Europeans that the colonial authorities desired to be present in the colony.