Ministry of moral panic : Singapore's independent literary scene and its leanings towards a libertarian Singapore narrative.

Abstract

Despite National Art Council’s new initiative to support unconventional and unfamiliar artworks in 2012, the independent art scene of Singapore is ambivalent towards receiving the support. This study of the independent literary scene in Singapore investigates how state appropriation is perceived and responded to. An inversion of Cohen’s theory of moral panic, this study uncovers how the independent literary scene perceived a condition of cultural decadence caused by the single-stranded statist developmental metanarrative as a threat, escalating it into a moral panic by erecting moral barricades: a move towards

institutionalising the independent scene, as accredited members of the scene pronounce diagnoses that can resolve the condition. The institutionalisation process had works from the scene converge towards protracting a libertarian narrative, rather than its intention to encourage more resonating stores of everyday

life in Singapore.