Of classrooms, camps and workplaces: youth experiences in Singapore during the Japanese occupation

Abstract

Scholarship on the Japanese Occupation of Singapore is marked by both a neglect of locals’ lived experiences and the overuse of race as an analytical lens. The present study explores the experiences of youths in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation. It identifies three distinct spaces—classrooms, camps and workplaces—which defined the possible life trajectories that youths in Japanese-occupied Singapore could take. These spaces absorbed and preoccupied distinct subsets of youth with various activities. Analysing how local youths behaved and made decisions under Japanese-prescribed conditions and expectations can thus provide fascinating insights about a segment of the population that would later become decision-makers and integral members of newly-independent Singapore. The present study ultimately argues that Japanese attempts to place youths in classrooms, camps and workplaces impacted the latter insofar as they defined youths’ routines and responsibilities. However, youths did not necessarily engage with these spaces for the reason or in the way that the Japanese expected them to. Instead, youths undertook varying levels of risks to redefine their experiences according to their own aspirations or priorities.