Loh Soon How

Mills recognized that as the power elite becomes increasingly degenerate, it is increasingly difficult for their intellectual acolytes to formulate reasonable ideological justifications for their corrupt and irresponsible actions. In these circumstances, the power elite resorts to intellectual repression against those who call attention to their declining political capacities; that is, the intelligentsia who work in universities, museums, the arts, scientific institutes, entertainment, and the mass media.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago.

jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

What We Wore and Who We Were: A Short History of School Uniforms in Singapore School uniforms have been a staple through our daily lives for generations. Lam Ying Xuen finds out more about the iconic outfits.

An interesting piece by Lam Ying Xuen on the history of school uniforms in Singapore:
medium.com/the-national...

If you want to understand the background to the current conflict in Iran, check out our @EmpirePodUK
series on the history of Iran.
share.google/Slao77k6JKSf...

Letters

OMG!! The crowning achievement of All British Intellectuals 😊 - my letter has actually been published in the @lrb.co.uk (*and* features references to nonmonogamy and collective childcare). Friends, Revolution is near! www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

NEW Publication featuring a great lineup of citizenship scholars!! :)

“The Archipelago Capitalism of Citizenship-By-Investment”, Comparative Political Studies, lnkd.in/dQPG4Q7J

@maartenpvink.bsky.social @globalcit.bsky.social
@eui-ggp.bsky.social

🏴 untitled The world sees a ferocious fire spreading across a Hong Kong high rise apartment block for 43 hours. I invite you to see Hong Kong as Hongkongers do, without the colonial bullshit.  In my humble and ...

Latest Essay: This is the Hong Kong story that the Hong Kong Government doesn't want you to read

konggirlsocialist.ghost.io/untitled/

The indefatigable James Francis Warren, at the Asian Civilisation Museum, sharing about his life's work on Southeast Asia. His historical methodological emphasis on understanding the "little" people is a reminder for historians to go beyond archives and to engage people through social history.

The trees at NIE, NTU look and feel different in the evening. Can almost hear their singing... urging me to send my drafts to my supervisor as soon as possible... oh wait, that is my Meadian Me talking my Meadian I back to work...

Interculturalism

And here is my other recently published encyclopedia entry, also in the Encyclopedia of Diversity, on interculturalism:

doi.org/10.1007/978-...

Transcultural Identity

One of my recently published encyclopedia entries, in the Encyclopedia of Diversity, on transcultural identity:

doi.org/10.1007/978-...

Wildlife advocate, primate expert Jane Goodall dies at 91 She upended scientific norms of the time, giving chimpanzees names instead of numbers, observing their distinct personalities, and incorporating their family relationships and emotions into her work.

www.channelnewsasia.com/world/jane-g...

What's effectively happening here (in the British media at large, too) is the construction of "anti-racism" as somehow a "political alternative" to racism, rather than as a minimal civilisational standard, which in turn (further) vindicates racism as *also* an acceptable political position.

1/At Macquarie Uni we are losing 50% of our units in my faculty. This is on top of cuts in 2020. We estimate by next year my faculty will be teaching 80% fewer subjects than pre Covid. Disciplines being cut do not have declining enrolments. @jennaprice.bsky.social @michaelwestbiz.bsky.social

Some unexpected but exciting news: after eight years away from the field, I am returning to nationalism studies. The first stop in what will be a three-book marathon is the fourth edition of Theories of Nationalism, forthcoming with
@bloomsburyacad.bsky.social

1️⃣

A poster that reads: Understanding Global Racisms: Beyond Euro-Americancentricity Speaker: Prof Tariq Modood Discussant: Dr Morgane Reina Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship at the University of Bristol and the co-founder of the international journal, Ethnicities. He has held over 40 grants and consultancies, has over 35 (co-)authored and (co-)edited books and reports and over 350 articles and chapters. He was awarded an MBE for services to social sciences and ethnic relations in 2001, was made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) in 2004, elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017 and was awarded the Senior Scholar Award by Rice University, Houston in 2025. In 2022 he was ranked in the top 20 UK cited scholars in Politics, Law, Sociology and Social Policy. He served on the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, the National Equality Panel, and the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life. His latest books include Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019), Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (2nd ed; 2013); and as Special Issues co-editor, with T. Sealy, Beyond Euro-Americancentric Forms of Racism and Anti-racism (Political Quarterly, 2022) and Global comparative analysis of the governance of religious diversity (Religion, State and Society, 2022). His latest book, with Thomas Sealy, is The New Governance of Religious Diversity (2024) He has a You Tube Channel and his website is tariqmodood.com. Morgane Reina has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Brasília (2021). She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po – 2013) and a Master’s degree in Political Sociology from the Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris. Zoom link:  https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81748930237?pwd=rtO2V5XNyndlFnfCe63v1wBHJWMZ1o.1 Access code: 546157

We are delighted to announce our upcoming seminar with @tariqmodood.bsky.social on global racisms and euro-americentricity.

You can join the seminar with this link: us06web.zoom.us/j/8174893023...
, passcode: 546157.

Indeed. And we would need to also continue to question and interpret documented narratives, revisit them with reasonable framing, either to refresh them in sustaining our sense of belonging and identity or sometimes in light of new conversations. After all, identity is a process.

'Music is in my Orang Laut soul': She sings stories passed down through generations to celebrate her heritage Growing up, Asnida Daud listened to many stories about Orang Laut life when she visited relatives in Pulau Sudong and the other southern islands. Today, she pays homage to her heritage by singing abou...

Asnida Daud: “'Music is in my Orang Laut soul, I want people to not just read about Orang Laut in books, but feel our lives and spirit in their souls'”.

cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/women/orang-...

that can encourage us to participate in building our belonging and national identity while we continue to work with new and old challenges as well as refine structural constraints and problems.

hence national identity must always take a back seat. Instead, if a situation demands for it, our national identity should take precedence even when we prioritise our racialised identity in our daily affairs. This would be an optimistic and perhaps more realistic way to understand identity ...

Instead, we should understand that identity while multifaceted is also situational - that it is fluid and context-dependent. For example, when met with heightened race consciousness, what matters is that we do not assume that our racialised identity is most important, ...

SM's appeal to Singaporeans to foster our sense of belonging through participation in society is good advice, though it may encounter plenty of challenges, such as our heightened race consciousness. But we should not think that national identity is not our most important identity as a reality. ...

My concern is that there is an emerging narrowly-defined multiracialised framing of the Singapore national identity. And that it is partly born from Singaporeans' interactions with Singaporean multiracialism that has inculcated a heightened race consciousness. ...

A Multiracialised National Identity: Singaporean Multiracialism and National Identity In the absence of an ethnic ‘origin’ story and due to Singapore’s sociopolitical circumstances upon independence as an immigrant multiracial society, the nation-building project has always been foc...

Raja was worried about ethno-nationalism for good reasons. The issue with a rising variant of ethno-nationalism in Singapore is described in my article "A multiracialised national identity: Singaporean multiracialism and national identity". ...

doi.org/10.1080/0725...

In Irene Ng's biography of Raja, the understanding is that Raja was concerned with the "systematic appeals to citizens to identify, organise and express themselves along ascribed ethnic [racialised] lines" that could raise race consciousness and thwart the cultivating of national identity. ...

But what I wish to point out is that although I think it is fair for SM to see Raja's idea of "forgetting" everything else as an ideal and perhaps a "tall order" indeed if taken in itself, there is also a need to contextualise Raja's stance, on top of LC's clarification. ...

LC followed up by invoking the late S. Rajaratnam's (Raja) understanding of Singaporean as not based on ancestry, and by extension "race" (due to a common assumption of race as biological and conflated with ethnicity), but "choice and conviction". SM and LC's discussion is worth reading in full. ...

In response, moderator A/P Leong Ching (LC) who was SM's discussant asked whether globalisation or internal (within-nation) "fault lines" is a greater challenge to national identity. While stating it is difficult to determine the more salient one, SM also highlighted our racialised inclinations. ...

Senior Minister (SM) Lee Hsien Loong's dialogue at a recent NUS forum reignited quite some interest regarding the Singapore national identity when he said that national identity is not the most important part of many Singaporeans' identity which is multifaceted. ...

www.pmo.gov.sg/Newsroom/SM-...

The Sociological Review Magazine September 2025 Safia Banharally ~ Alice Bloch ~ Raquel Figueira ~ Stephanie Guirand ~ Madhuri Kamtam Leah Joan Kenny ~ Alexa MacDermot ~ Ali Meghji ~ Dale Mineshima-Lowe ~ Sebastian J. Moser Iris Pissaride ~ Ipsita Pradhan ~ Louise Rondel ~ Carin Runciman ~ J.E. Sumerau ~ Jennifer Takhar Leon Taylor ~ Charlotte Waltz ~ Sam Wilkinson ~ Juliette Wilson-Thomas

OUT TODAY: @alimeghji.bsky.social on social struggles & sociological perspectives, research insights on chicken shops & beedi-makers, Alice Bloch on podcasting, Journal editors on peer review, #Alevelsociology resources + much more.

➡️ The Sociological Review magazine Sept issue buff.ly/5crknOP

And Walid's book "Why Palestine?", a passionate and concise primer, though mainly for a Singaporean audience, on the significance of Palestine, highlighting Palestinian resilience as a powerful act of resistance against Israel's systematic dehumanisation.