ABSTRACT
At a final lecture of an undergraduate course on Social Movements, a student of mine commented that if there were social movements in Singapore comparable to the sorts in the U.S., Argentina, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, and other places we had studied, she might better understand what her fellow citizens feel and think, and what their problems and grievances are. This was a striking comment. It forces us to think about what social movements—and more generally, collective political action—might accomplish. Beyond attaining narrow goals and desires, societies characterized by social movements are societies where we are able to identify defined interests, worldviews, and the groups associated with them. Social movements allow us insight into how people in particular structural positions behave, what hopes and desires they have, and what various groups are willing to do to accomplish social change. The comment was also interesting in suggesting that in Singapore, under everyday circumstances, people have little way of knowing how and what Singaporeans are truly concerned about because the public sphere is so dominated by the state and so devoid of public, collective articulations of interests and grievances.
