Abstract
In this article, the process of Singapore's rapid industrialization is used to illustrate what Jenks referred to as `the erratic evolution of the imagery of childhood and its changing modes of recognition and reception'. The inherent relationship between women and children situates the discussion in concurrent debates about the role of women. This article relates the formation of the child as a social status to the building of Singapore's rational-bureaucratic infrastructures and the establishment of a plethora of political programmes, campaigns and moralizing projects. Nonetheless, self-formation has been found to be an indeterminate process, such that even uncompromising strong state dicta could not successfully legislate how people should forge their own identities.
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