On January 4, 2021, Singapore's Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan told parliament that the contact tracing programme TraceTogether introduced by the state in June 2020 as a technology for COVID prevention and management can also be used "for the purpose of criminal investigation." The TraceTogether programme is rhetorically constructed as a voluntary programme that uses either a smartphone app or a bluetooth token to track locations that users check into as well as monitor who an user has been in contact with. During and since its launch in June, 2020, the programme has been celebrated as an exemplar of technology-enabled COVID-19 prevention and management, having been projected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an exemplar of effective COVID-19 response. As with various facets of Singapore's technocratic management projected as models, the "Singapore model" of COVID-19 management held up the TraceTogether programme as an organizing f
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.