Containment versus mobility: Embodying nation building in the city-state of Singapore through urban planning

Feminist geographers have shown how control of territory, borders and mobility at multiple scales are central to inclusionary and exclusionary processes of nation building. This thesis explores how urban planning in the global city-state of Singapore utilizes territory, borders and mobility as tools of marginalization and inclusion, tied to the desirability of different bodies. Whilst planning policies for foreign worker dormitories relegate migrant workers to peripheral areas and attempt to contain them through the provision of in-house facilities, strategies of neoliberal urbanism embodied in the Master Plan 2008 facilitate the mobility of citizens, tourists and skilled talent on multiple scales, for the dual purpose of attracting capital and engendering love for the city. This contrast brings to the forefront questions of social-spatial justice within Singapore's planning framework, as well as the role of the built environment and the state in negotiating the relationship between neoliberalism and nation building.