Ethnographic notes on the state funeral of Lee Kuan Yew: introduction
This is the introduction to a special section of five ethnographic papers on the state funeral of Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, authored by Martha Kaplan (Vassar College) and John Kelly (University of Chicago) (p. 81).
Summary
The introduction situates the collection within the context of 2015 in Singapore, a year marked by both the SG50 independence anniversary and Lee’s death in March. The project originated when anthropologist Bernard Bate of Yale-NUS College interrupted his ritual theory class to study the public mourning events, and tragically he died in March 2016 before completing his own commentary (p. 82). The team conducted participant-observation research at memorial kiosks, the Padang, the Parliament lying-in-state, and along the funeral procession route, while also reading social media and press coverage (p. 82).
The five papers that follow address nation and memorialization: John Kelly on the conversion of death into sacrifice and its effects on national elections; Li Nanlan on the state’s orchestration of a guided national mourning; Regina Hong on the tension between state and individual narratives of Lee as ancestor versus founding father; Ronald Chen on the ethical rupture caused by Amos Yee’s critical video; and Alisha Cherian on Singaporean reactions to the outpouring of grief in Tamil Nadu (p. 83).