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Historians of Southeast Asia

@SEAstorian

A public history initiative powered by Imagined Malaysia⚡️Administered by @ratuteragung⚡️Fortnightly curations on Southeast Asia's past!⚡️This week:

 Southeast Asia
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Joined April 2020
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Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)Photo by Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian)
Hello, hello!👋 I just wanted to make a quick introduction about this initiative. I'm @ratuteragung, an MPhil student in @CamWorldHistory and co-founder of @ImaginedMY. I'll be the administrator of this account for the time being (until someone else needs to come along).😌
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After a fantastic series of threads by @saanjhgupta2, its back to the usual program of sporadic posting. We'll be working hard on getting another curator to work on another series soon so worry not!
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It's Saanjh (@saanjhgupta2) here, wrapping up my time on this account! Thank you for being so welcoming and receptive. Here's a recap of what we discussed re: the history and politics of hawker culture in Singapore:
Photograph of a hawker centre, courtesy The Straits Times.

ALT Photograph of a hawker centre, courtesy The Straits Times.

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I'm aware that I've spent a lot of this fortnight exploring a) written and b) colonial sources. I touch on that in this mini-thread of sorts, if you're interested: teapawt.net/SEAstorian/status/1376…
Historians of Southeast Asia (@SEAstorian) profile pictureHistorians of Southeast Asia@SEAstorian29 Mar 2021
Replying to @SEAstorian @ErnestLJH
Hawkers' voices have (ironically) been hard to recover until recently. This is esp. the case during/for colonial Singapore due to scattered documentation, low literacy, racism: e.g. though the 1950 commission collected hawkers' oral testimonies, the report paraphrases them. ~SG
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Finally, do DM me on my personal account (@saanjhgupta2) if you'd like to know more on foodways/empire/Asia, histories of urban Singapore etc. Though I'm a fledgling in this space and owe much to everyone there, I can hopefully set you in a helpful direction. Thank you again! ~SG
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My penultimate thread is more of an epilogue: I'm briefly going to look at situating hawkers and Covid-19 within their historical context. ~SG
Cordoned-off hawker centres during the Covid-19 pandemic (photo from the collections of the National Library Board, Singapore).

ALT Cordoned-off hawker centres during the Covid-19 pandemic (photo from the collections of the National Library Board, Singapore).

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This may even help us reevaluate how we think about hawker culture and its dichotomies of itinerant/stationary and colonial/postcolonial - no longer is itinerancy outdated or unsanitary, now in fact a key feature of hawkers' survival in modern Singapore. ~SG
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That wraps up today's thread and my content for the past two weeks. I'll be back soon with a recap and some reading recommendations; thank you for reading!
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