ABSTRACT
For a sociologist studying the Singapore state, perfectly innocent social outings can turn very quickly into ethnographic explorations. Friends, acquaintances, and virtual strangers, hearing about my project, launched into stories about receiving letters from the SDU, tales of their dealings with HDB officials, what their husbands said about such and such a policy, and conspiracy theories about television series and their “brainwashing” effects. 1 Singaporeans, it seems, think like sociologists in at least one fundamental way: they understand that their lives are constrained and shaped by forces larger than themselves. And one force is apparent to every Singaporean: the state.
