Abstract
The transnational circulation of policy ideas has been increasingly advanced as a significant factor in the fabric of local diversity policies. On the one hand, the circulation of managerial concepts such as diversity management has contributed to the rise of neoliberal urban diversity models; on the other, city networks, international organisations, and transnational civic movements are pushing forward progressive urban diversity agendas. This chapter aims to analyse the role of such processes of policy modelling in shaping urban diversity governance. It is based on fieldwork conducted in Doha and Singapore since 2018 and on the analysis of these cities’ policy documents. The chapter shows how transnationally circulating references and norms contribute to shaping local diversity governance frameworks and how both cities strive to position themselves as diversity governance models. I argue that their modelling strategies rely on the spatial and organisational compartmentalisation of distinct diversity frames. The chapter identifies four compartments in Doha and Singapore that correspond to distinct understandings of diversity and differentiated modelling strategies. This allows to minimise policy tensions, alleviate external critiques, and craft local experiments that can be projected as models on the world stage.
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1 Introduction
On 23 April 2020, the Guardian published an article about the fate of Singapore migrant workers in the pandemic headlined ‘We’re in a prison’ and showing a photograph of a masked South Asian migrant worker sitting down anxiously consulting his phone with a chained iron door in the foreground (Ratcliffe, 2020). The story stressed the contrast between the image of global model that the city-state had gained by effectively addressing its first wave of Covid-19 infections and the reality revealed by the vulnerability of its migrant population housed in overcrowded dormitories. At the start of the pandemic, Singapore went from being considered as the ‘gold standard’ of pandemic response, with journalists and leaders from around the world looking at the city state for solutions, 1 week to being vilified for the poor treatment of its migrant worker populations, the next. Many observers drew comparisons with Gulf state cities where migrants endured similar fates, housed in overcrowded and segregated facilities where infections spread quickly. This crisis follows a series of events that have recurrently highlighted the contradictions behind these global cities’ successful growth models and their aggressive branding strategies that promote their rich diversity. This raises the question of how these cities deal with these contradictions and how it affects the way they manage their diversity.
The transnational circulation of policy ideas has been increasingly put forward as a significant factor in the fabric of local diversity policies. On the one hand, the circulation of managerial concepts such as diversity management has contributed to rise of neoliberal urban diversity governance models; on the other, city networks, international organisations and transnational civic movements are promoting progressive urban diversity agendas. The objective of this chapter is to analyse the role of such processes of policy modelling in shaping urban diversity governance. Urban policy modelling (Roy & Ong, 2011) refers to how local policies are developed in connection with policies developed in distant locations thus encouraging policymakers not only to be on the lookout for best practices but to promote their own actions as models. One key manifestation of the increasing prevalence of modelling is the expansion of city comparisons, city rankings, prizes, and fora in which cities promote themselves and measure up their performances in domains such as quality of life, innovativeness, digitalisation. Studies of the effects of policy modelling on urban diversity governance have only emerged quite recently and these effects remain insufficiently understood.
In this paper, I argue that the modelling of urban diversity policies goes hand-in-hand with a compartmentalised diversity governance, whereby different forms and understandings of diversity are framed and managed in a differentiated way. To comply with international standards and top a variety of urban hierarchies, local actors are driven to renounce to an integrated and comprehensive diversity governance approach and instead develop piecemeal strategies, mobilising specific policy sectors addressing particular local and transnational publics. This compartmentalised diversity governance approach seeks to minimise policy tensions, alleviate external critiques, and craft local experiments that can be projected as models on the world stage. While this compartmentalised diversity governance approach may be well-suited for city rankings and to showcase gradual improvements over lingering issues, it tends to avoid fundamental problems and is thereby vulnerable and prone to recurrent crises.
This chapter is based on fieldwork conducted in Doha and Singapore mainly since 2018. I made two-week fieldtrips to Singapore in February 2015, December 2018, and May 2022, and lived in the city from November 2019 to August 2021. I conducted 55 semi-structured interviews with policymakers and stakeholders in various urban policy sectors (such as culture, economic development, urban development, education, and social policy), managers of cultural institutions and art organisations, and representatives of NGOs involved in migration issues. In Doha, I made two two-week fieldtrips in January 2018 and October 2022. I conducted 53 interviews with the managers of cultural institutions and art organisations, migrant community organisation representatives, policymakers, and stakeholders in sectors such as culture, higher education, migration governance, urban planning, and the media. These interviews underpin my understanding of the drive of urban policymakers to shape their cities as global models.
To illustrate the implementation of these strategies, I analyse public discourses in the media and official documents. I have reviewed a range of documents such as national and sectorial policy documents (for example, the Vision 2030 in Doha and art and heritage policy plans in Singapore), local and international press coverage on controversies related to migration and diversity governance, and documents published by institutions involved in diversity governance (for example Singapore’s National Integration Council, Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the national museums of both countries). I analyse how transnationally circulating references and norms contribute to shaping local diversity governance frameworks and how both cities strive to position themselves as diversity governance models. I show that their modelling strategies rely on the spatial and organisational compartmentalisation of distinct diversity frames.
2 Circulating Urban Models and the Compartmentalisation of Diversity Governance
The city is shaped by circulating ideas, the borrowing of forms, symbols, performances of globality, and locality (Pow & Neo, 2015). These processes are driven by the creation of rankings, which create mental maps of best cities (Bunnell, 2015). In contrast with the policy transfer approach, the notion of policy mobility stresses the interactive process of modelling, which goes beyond mere export or import of fix models (Temenos & McCann, 2012). Elaborating on these works, in this chap. I am interested in how urban policy modelling affects urban policymaking. The concept of modelling was initially introduced by Annaya Roy and Aihwa Ong (2011) as a key dimension of ‘worlding cities’. They described modelling as ‘discursive and material activities that are inspired by particular models of urban achievements in other cities’ (ibid., p.14). I understand urban policy modelling as an instrument mobilised by urban policymakers not only to transform their city in compliance with transnational norms, but also to establish it as a blueprint – an example to be followed by other cities (Molho, 2020).
So far, migration and diversity governance has had a marginal place in the urban policy mobility literature (Lacroix, 2021). Yet urban diversity governance is embedded in multi-scalar policy processes as diversity gets mobilised and politicised by states and international organisations as well as local public, private, and civil society actors (Çaglar & Glick Schiller, 2018; Molho et al., 2020). By reviewing the emerging literature on urban diversity modelling, one can identify two main trends. On the one hand, studies on ‘progressive modelling’ look at how local actors in different countries join forces to address challenges and problems that minorities and migrants face in their city, oftentimes in the face of restrictive national policies (Majka & Longazel, 2017; Guma et al., 2019). Progressive urban models provide insights for cities to welcome and integrate people of different backgrounds, alleviate the social injustices that affect minorities and build mutual understanding between individuals and communities of different backgrounds (Fainstein, 2005; Fincher et al., 2014). On the other hand, the critical studies of ‘neoliberal urban diversity modelling’ trace the genealogies of dominant urban diversity policy rationales and denounce the depoliticisation of diversity (Collins & Friesen, 2011). They show that neoliberal city governments ‘celebrate’ diversity as part of ‘success agendas’, drawing on the repertoire of corporate and public management (Raco & Tasan-Kok, 2020). This approach leads to a selective and elitist understanding of diversity and the commodification of communities’ identities according to the consumption desires of tourists and globalised mobile elite (Jensen, 2007).
I aim to go beyond this dichotomy. I argue that urban policy modelling contributes to the rise of compartmentalised diversity governance, where different diversity governance frames coexist despite their incompatibilities. Urban diversity regimes are characterised by tensions between antagonistic frames: colourblind attempts to deny a society’s diversity in the name of neutrality; diversity celebration that promotes diversity as a resource; and a critical perspective that emphasises the structural inequalities that minorities suffer from and denounces systemic patterns of domination. The cities’ impetus to promote themselves as models results in the coexistence of these contradictory diversity philosophies. This leads to a segmentation of diversity governance into separate policy domains that are associated with specific issues, publics, and international standards. Instead of an integrated system, compartmentalised urban diversity regimes are decentralised systems that allow various understandings of diversity and principles of diversity governance to coexist. From an internal point of view, this results in a reduction of tensions and critiques, which can be confined to more manageable compartments. From an external point of view, this enables to project local diversity management as a global model by detaching it from complex local realities.
The compartmentalisation of urban diversity governance has both organisational and spatial dimensions. The organisational dimension corresponds to the fact that different urban policymakers and stakeholders get assigned the management of a different kinds of diversities. Thus, distinct organisational assemblages within the same city are pushing forward different diversity frames; instead of trying to engage with each other and find compromise, connections, mutual interests, they operate in parallel. Tensions and incompatibilities exist but are only rarely confronted. These different organisations adopt distinct modelling strategies, each referring to particular norms and transnational links that pertain to their own networks.
The spatial dimension relates to the projection of this differentiated understanding of diversity onto the urban space, that is, how the different social groups referred to by distinct diversity frames are associated with distinct spaces in the city. It corresponds also to the distribution of differentiated modes of representation of diversity in the urban space. The separation and specialisation of different spaces of diversity in the urban space is a way to project showcases that frame positive images of the city’s diversity governance model. This aspiration of crafting local models can therefore go along with logics of segregation and gentrification. On the one hand it encourages the creation of ‘creative spaces’ of selective and exclusive diversity. On the other, it leads to the constitution of spaces of exclusion where marginalised populations are concentrated and the discourses on their conditions can be monitored.
As the use of the notion in psychology suggests, compartmentalisation is a defence mechanism, a way to address potential tensions and incompatibilities (Thomas et al., 2013; Rozuel, 2011). The city can resort to compartmentalisation to prevent internal tensions. The forces that push for change and pluralisation in a compartmentalised system are restricted to separate spaces or organisational fields. Compartmentalisation is also a defence against negative external perceptions that derive from diversity-related issues, such as urban fragmentation, interethnic tensions, racism, and marginalisation of minorities. To divert attention away from those negative aspects, urban elites can resort to compartmentalisation as a way to project positive accounts of the way diversity is lived in the city, emphasising peaceful coexistence and the plurality of forms of expressions in the city.
3 Doha and Singapore as Modelling Machines
Doha’s and Singapore’s modelling strategies need to be situated in their historic, geographic, and political contexts. First, from a historical point of view, for former colonies crafting autonomous paths and evolving from model importers to model exporters signals not only their accession to autonomy, but also their symbolic success (Chia, 2005; Al Raouf, 2010). In the colonial era, racialist theories influenced the shaping of the city. In Singapore, the Raffles Town Plan established in the 1820s conceived a city divided along ethnic lines. After independence, while local governments were able to set their own agendas, foreign experts still played a major role in the imagination of urban futures (Dale, 1999; Boussaa, 2014). In Doha, the British planner Richard Llewelyn-Davies, who was invited shortly after Independence in 1971, and later on the American planner William Pereira played a crucial role in shaping the city’s path to modernisation and development. Likewise, after its independence in 1965, Singapore sought support from United Nations experts for the Concept Plan that oriented the city’s development.
Until today, global city shapers such as transnational consulting firms and star architects, are regularly mobilised in Doha and Singapore to devise urban strategies and design new districts (Aoun & Teller, 2016). Yet, their mandate is no longer simply about adapting a foreign concept to the local context, but also to elaborate distinctive and pioneering models so that the cities can claim leadership in various domains of global urbanism (Zaina et al., 2016; Shamsuzzoha et al., 2021). Singapore has actively promoted its model, not necessarily as a coherent whole but as a complex assemblage of differentiated elements (Pow, 2014). Since its creation in 2003, Surbana, an offshoot of the Singapore Housing Development Board, has sold urban design services in more than 20 countries around the world. This modelling business builds on the prestige of local urban development projects. Recently, the public housing estate Punggol Town won awards from the Urban Land Institute in 2021 as part of its Global Award for Excellence, recognising its promotion of biodiversity (Parida, 2021). As for Doha, it has put forward both urban regeneration projects and new town developments as models. With the organisation of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Doha created a subway network from scratch at an unprecedented pace, challenging its long-standing car-oriented urban development (Azzali, 2017). This went along with the creation of a ‘new Downtown’ in Msheireb, promoted as the ‘world’s first sustainable downtown regeneration project and one of the smartest cities on earth’ (Msheireb, n.d.). It also launched a new town project in the North Coast, Lusail, promoted as ‘fertile grounds for a tech-powered environment’ and ‘a model sustainable city of the future’ (Lusail, n.d.). Beyond the urban marketing discourse, these projects reflect the significant resources invested to promote innovative urban practices to set these cities at the forefront in the establishment of new standards in global urbanism.
Second, Doha and Singapore’s modelling strategy is also a part of their geopolitical strategy to position themselves as interfaces (Tan, 2018). Their status as small independent nations creates a need to diversify their alliances both within and beyond their regional neighbourhoods (Kamrava, 2015). Qatar, although member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, has conflictual relations with its neighbours, revealed by the embargo imposed by the UAE and Saudi Arabia from 2017 to 2021 to coerce it to shift its domestic and foreign policy. Likewise, Singapore is a founding and active member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, but it is also keen to limit strategic dependence on its neighbours (Leifer, 2013). In recent years, some prominent diplomatic negotiations took place in Doha and Singapore signalling their strategic position in regions that are often at the top of the global diplomatic agenda. In 2018, Singapore hosted the Trump-Kim Summit, which was the first meeting between sitting leaders of the United States and North Korea. In 2020, Doha hosted the negotiations and the signing of an agreement between the US and the Taliban after two decades of war in Afghanistan. Hosting these events also reflects the cities’ respective capacity to position themselves as mediators that can address antagonistic global players.
Third, their modelling strategies also derive from their respective domestic context. As illiberal regimes, Doha and Singapore use modelling to diffuse consensual visions and avoid their development models and diversity management regimes from being challenged (Harkness & Levitt, 2017; Luger, 2020). In the absence of political alternations, these regimes need alternative sources of legitimation. Mobilising apolitical international standards, norms, and models projects an image of good management and diminishes risks of contestation (Mohamed Nasir & Turner, 2013). Their modelling strategies are characterised by a highly centralised governance; they rely on policy plans mobilising external references while formulating a specific path, implemented by entrepreneurial government agencies like the Qatar Foundation in Doha or the Economic Development Board in Singapore. The promotion of their model relies also on the control the media. Reporters without Borders ranks Singapore 139 out of 180 in its Media Freedom Index and points out that ‘Singapore boasts of being a model of economic development but it is an example of what not to be in regard to freedom of the press’ (RSF, 2022). Qatar appears just 20 ranks above Singapore, reflecting the restrictions that journalists endure to document local issues. In contrast, national media benefit from a lot of resources to highlight the positive achievements that the government wishes to emphasise – and its counter-arguments to any local or international critiques.
4 Promoting Urban Diversity as an Asset
Doha and Singapore constitute superdiverse cities and have been keen to promote their long history as trading hubs. They are located in two regions historically characterised by large flows of trade and migration that have shaped the diversity of their citizen populations. Cultural, commercial, and religious exchanges have shaped these regions’ heritage (Hall, 2010). In Southeast Asia, Indian and Arab merchants took part in the trade of spices, which enriched the region’s religious diversity (Ooi, 2004). In the colonial era, Singapore was a migration magnet, which has led to its ethnically diverse population that consists of Chinese (74%), Malays (13%), and Indians (9%). In the Arabian Gulf, local culture has been influenced by long distance trade with Asia and Africa (Onley, 2005). The Qatari population is composed of different groups that relate to their migration origins: the Arabs originating from the Arabian Peninsula, the Ajams who descend from Persian traders and craftsmen, and the Abds who are the descendants of African slaves that were brought to Qatar until the 1950s (Nagy, 2006).
In recent decades Doha and Singapore have become global migration hubs. In Singapore, the immigrant population has increased by nearly one million in the last 50 years, and in 2020 represented around 40% of the city’s 5.7 million population. This includes nearly one million low-skilled migrant workers employed in sectors like construction or domestic work and who only have a temporary status. In Doha, migration has led to a seven-fold increase of the population to nearly three million between 1980 and 2020. Some 90% of the population are foreign nationals with temporary status (De Bel-Air, 2017).
Doha and Singapore’s official narratives put forward their diversity as a distinctive component of their identity. They emphasise their pasts as trading ports, as spaces of cultural exchanges. But while this ‘old diversity’ is glorified as a rich heritage of the past, ‘new diversity’ is presented as an undesired necessity. Most migrants have a temporary status and no path to citizenship (Babar, 2014; Baas et al., 2020). National preference is the norm as citizens benefit from multiple social benefits and privileges. Both cities are also adamant to reject the forms of diversity that they present as contradictory to traditional family values. Singapore and Doha authorities explicitly and recurrently opposed the inclusion of LGBT+ community rights as part of their diversity strategies. In 2022, the Singapore authorities removed a long-standing law criminalising homosexuality, only to enshrine in the constitution the banning of same-sex marriage. At the same time, the head of Doha 2022 FIFA World Cup organising committee vilified European teams wearing a symbol in support to LGBT+ communities as a sending a ‘divisive message’, arguing ‘what you’re essentially saying is you’re protesting an Islamic country hosting an event’ (Ingle, 2022). In sum, elites in Doha and Singapore have shaped an illiberal model of diversity governance, founded on national preference and selective exclusions that they deem legitimate and actively defend it against external critiques (Thiollet, 2022).
Doha and Singapore’s diversity strategies are closely linked to their aspirations to top world city rankings. Urban elites in Doha and Singapore have developed multiple efforts to build their city’s status by investing in the various domains that can contribute to make it regarded as a global city. Success and progress in various global city rankings are often reported with pride. In Singapore, Corinne Kerk from The Business Times praised the city-state for having ‘moved up 3 ranks’ and reaching eighth place in the Schroders Global Cities Index, stressing that it had overtaken Hong Kong and ‘emerged as the top city in Asia’ (Kerk, 2022). Likewise, Sue-Ann Tan in The Straits Times played up Singapore’s ability to attract global talent recognised by its second-place rank in the yearly ‘global talent competitiveness index’ published by the Insead business school and the Portulans Institute (Tan, 2021). In Doha, Irfan Bukhari, in The Peninsula, highlighted that Doha ‘has been declared as the second safest city in the world’ out of 431 cities in the Numbeo’s Crime Index, crediting ‘the continuous efforts of the Ministry of Interior’ for this achievement (Bukhari, 2021). The Qatar website Living2022.com website reported Doha’s 23rd-place in the Resonance Consultancy Global Place Equity Ranking as providing an interpretation for this success: ‘it’s not just the quality of attractions, events and entertainment, or even the immense culinary scene in Doha that make it an up-and-coming tourist hotspot. Its diversity and acceptance of other cultures, its quality of life and prosperity, and its peacefulness and safety record also make Doha a welcoming place to visit or to live.” (Living2022.com, 2020).
These rankings often take into account criteria that relate to the city’s diversity. For instance, the Kearney Global Cities Index, which in 2022 ranked Singapore ninth and Doha 57th, uses criteria such as the city’s foreign-born population and number of international students (Lohmeyer et al., 2022). The importance of ‘information exchange’, ‘cultural experience’, and ‘human capital’ as key dimensions in these rankings has further legitimised investment in culture, media, sport, and higher education infrastructures (Molho, 2021). Doha has created world class museums such as the Museum of Islamic Art in 2008, Mathaf in 2010, the National Museum in 2019, and the 3–2-1 Sports Museum in 2022. Since the 1990s, Singapore, has inaugurated a number of new cultural institutions, like the Singapore Art Museum in 1996, the Esplanade cultural complex in 2002, and the National Gallery 2015. These institutions are at the forefront of projecting a narrative that strategically articulates a cosmopolitan and a nationalist discourse (Levitt, 2015).
5 Compartmentalized Diversities
Underneath the image of diversity management models that these cities project in cultural institutions lies a complex diversity governance framework divided along lines of tensions. The first factor of compartmentalisation is socio-economic polarisation and the stark contrast between privileged elites and marginalised working classes (Sassen, 2002). In addition, there is a contrast, in both cities, between an increasing recognition of the city’s ‘old’ diversity – namely the celebration of the city’s migration heritage – and the rejection of ‘new’ diversity, in particular low-skilled migrant workers (Vertovec, 2015). Both cities have experienced a strong ‘globalisation backlash’ (Crouch, 2018) and a return of nationalism (Triandafyllidou, 2017).
Deriving from these lines of tensions, four compartments structure the diversity governance of Doha and Singapore. A first compartment refers to the diversity of the national population and relies on a state-sanctioned and cohesive identity discourse. It appears in national museums and national commemorations; it underpins the city’s planning and is explicitly projected in heritage neighbourhoods. A second compartment pushes this understanding of diversity towards a more malleable and open understanding of the nation and is mobilised to brand the city as cosmopolitan. This approach is promoted by emerging cultural and higher education institutions. A third compartment targets elite migrants. It constitutes creative clubs of exclusive diversity to promote the city as creative and is formalised in spaces that draw on globally-circulating urban references, such as creative clusters and gentrified urban neighbourhoods. A fourth compartment targets low-skill migrants, especially those employed in manufacturing and construction. It is characterised by various forms of cultural exclusion, but also by the co-optation of NGOs and private actors to project a caring image.
5.1 A Nation-Building Model: Essentialization and Securitization
The official national narrative draws on a historical register to explain how the city’s historical path has constituted a specific diversity governance framework. Singapore promotes itself as a multicultural society (Yeoh & Chang, 2001). The Chinese, Malay, Indian and Other, or CMIO, model relies on the quantification of each ethnic group. This is used to prevent the formation of segregated ethnic communities: three-quarters of the population are housed in ethnically-diverse public housing. The bilingual education policy enables ethnic Chinese to learn Mandarin, ethnic Malays to learn Malay, and ethnic Indians to learn Tamil. Cultural policies document the heritage of each ethnic group and strive to promote the artists and art forms of these three communities. The creation of three ethnic heritage districts – Chinatown, Kampong Glam, and Little India – is another way in which the city displays its multicultural character. But critiques have pointed out that by reducing the city’s diversity to three main ethnic categories, Singapore’s multicultural model has homogenised plural and interconnected communities (Huat, 2003). They also argue that it led to the disappearance of intangible heritage such as dialects, as well as the destruction of built heritage to create a sanitised and simplified display of the city’s cultural diversity (Kwok & Low, 2002; Yeoh & Kong, 2012).
Singapore presents its multicultural model as a national cohesion imperative. The ‘Guide for Permanent Residents’ (NIC, n.d.) states that the ‘country’s emphasis on racial and religious harmony’ is the result of ‘episodes of ethnic turmoil and strife during its pre-independence past’. The 1950 ‘Maria Hertogh riots targeting Malays and Eurasian communities and the 1964 ‘Communal riots’ between Chinese and Malays are memorialised and commemorated to highlight the risks of inter-ethnic conflicts and highlight the success of the Singapore Republic in ‘fostering and managing good relations between the different racial and religious groups’. At the Harmony in Diversity Gallery, an institution established to project the Singapore multicultural model, the Maria Hertogh riots are represented using multimedia technologies, and Singapore’s successful model of multicultural harmony is displayed in contrast to religious conflicts around the world.
Doha’s identity discourse prioritizes a narrative of cultural unity, leading to a more prominent portrayal of the dominant cultural components as representative of the official culture, rather than emphasizing the diverse and distinct communities within the national fabric. This leads to a dominance of the Arab Bedouin identity and the marginalisation of the nation’s Persian and African heritage (Exell & Rico, 2013; Potter, 2017). The national heritage narrative mainly promotes features related to rural and desert life like falconry. The Souq Waqif conserved in the 2000s as a showcase traditional Qatari heritage is presented as a ‘weekend market used by the Bedouins when they came to town to trade their meat, wool, weaving materials and milk for staple goods’ (Marhaba, 2022).
The presentation of local culture in simplifying terms is justified by the need to preserve local culture against global homogenising forces. The Qatar National Development Strategy 2018–2022 urges to ‘achieve the desired benefits in terms of development and prosperity while preventing any threats to its identity and culture and value heritage’. The Marhaba Information Guide asks foreigners to ‘bear in mind that Qatar is a conservative Islamic state’ and provides practical advice such as to ‘dress modestly’ or ‘be mindful when talking to Arab women’ (ibid.). This attitude, which affirms difference between locals and foreigners, is also illustrated by Embrace Doha, an initiative launched by a Qatari woman, Amal Alshammari, and benefits from support from the public authorities, including Qatar University and the Ministry of Tourism (Alfoory, 2016). The initiative invites ‘expatriate communities’ and introduces them to Qatari culture in a hotel space ‘decorated to look like a traditional Qatari majlis’. Alshammari emphasises: ‘We don’t want to end up like Dubai…We as Qataris don’t want to lose our identity; so to keep it, we believe in educating expats about our culture’ (ibid.).
In sum, the official national narrative describes local identity in simplistic and essentialising terms in view of projecting a unifying discourse in the name of stability and for the sake of the preservation of national heritage in the context of globalisation. The construction of this model is not intended to generate emulation but rather to be widely acceptable and limit contestation, both locally and internationally.
5.2 Sophisticating the Diversity Discourse in Cultural and Intellectual Networks
With their investments to build knowledge cities, Doha and Singapore have created certain spaces where alternative visions of diversity can be put forward. In Singapore, cultural actors both within formal cultural institutions and in the non-profit sector try to go beyond the celebration of side-by-side multicultural heritage. The cultural institutions and art organisations operating within the conserved ethnic heritage districts, like the Indian Heritage Center in Little India, stress the complexity within each official ethnic category as well as the intense intercultural relations that were taking place in the neighbourhood.
Artistic initiatives are also involved in pushing the boundaries of the official diversity management discourse as they mobilise diverse cultural traditions. For example, Maya Dance Theatre strives to produce ‘trans-cultural dance’. While the choreographer Kavitha Krishnan draws on Indian traditions, like the stories and characters of the Mahabaratha, she does not frame her projects as being for and by a particular ethnic community. She engages with contemporary dance forms and collaborates with performers from different traditions and ethnic backgrounds. She also uses these projects to tackle social issues that cut across ethnic and cultural boundaries, such as end of life or domestic sexual violence.
In Doha, cultural actors endeavour to excavate within the urban space the traces of a plural heritage in order to challenge the official unitary discourse. The Msheireb district includes an area with four conserved houses converted into museums. This project, as a whole, takes part in the conservation/redevelopment of the historical core through an imagined and unitary vision of Qatari heritage. However, the conservation of these heritage houses along with the conception of different museum projects taking into account the specific history of each house brought about the possibility to excavate the neighbourhood’s diverse past. The history of each house determined the theme of the various exhibitions: in particular, the Bin Jelmood House, which was once the property of a slave trader, is dedicated to the history of slavery. Taking a global stance, it situates the place of Doha in the global history of slave trade. Based on the display of testimonies of Qataris of African descent, it offers a local viewpoint to the global issue of the legacy of slavery in contemporary patterns of racism and discrimination.
Globally connected higher education institutions established by the Qatar Foundation to prepare for the post-oil future play an important role in connecting Doha to transnational conversations. Set within the local branch of Northwestern University, the Media Majlis is a museum focused on media ambitions to ‘challenge standard narratives and ‘represent the diversity of voices, perspectives, events and people that contributes to the evolving media world’ using its exhibition to shine a critical light on media representations. As the FIFA World Cup in late 2022 approached, the Media Majlis hosted an exhibition entitled ‘Is it a beautiful game?’, which discussed problems such as ‘injustice, inequality, and a lack of diversity and inclusion’ in football. For instance, it interrogated gender representations, challenging the stereotypical representation offered of the Qatari woman in the official discourse.
In sum, we see that the creation of new cultural and higher education spaces has opened the possibility of adopting more sophisticated discussions on identity and diversity, which in Singapore move beyond the side-by-side multiculturalism based on ethnic stereotypes and in Doha highlight the plurality of the national identity and give voice to marginalised minorities. This sophistication of the official diversity discourse is part of the integration of these cities in cultural and higher education networks where local issues matter within global discussions.
6 Creative Clubs
The purpose of creative clubs is to make the city attractive for elite migrants. In Singapore, attracting highly skilled professionals has been a long-standing priority. In 2000, the Renaissance City Plan aimed to generate ‘cultural and creative buzz’ to ‘attract both local and foreign talents’ (MITA, 2000, p. 5). The impetus to attract elite and hypermobile creative professionals has led to the creation of new urban landmarks like the Moshe Safdie-designed signature building Marina Bay Sands, which became one symbol of the city. It also paved the way to the establishment of exclusive gated communities designed to attract wealthy and mobile professionals like the Sentosa Cove inaugurated in 2006 on the Island of Sentosa, designed by master planners Bernard Spoerry, McKerrel Lynch, and Klages Carter Vail. The enclave was promoted as ‘a cosmopolitan community of some 4000 residents of over 23 nationalities’ and as ‘as one of Asia’s premier waterfront residences’ (Lim et al., 2011). Its promoters have been keen to obtain ‘internationally-renowned accreditations’ and in 2012 proudly announced that the Marina Industries Association of Australia had distinguished the neighbourhood with a ‘five gold-anchor rating’ (Lim et al., 2012).
Gentrifying central urban areas using arts and culture is another key pillar of the creative club strategy. Ethnic cultural districts like Chinatown, Kampong Glam, and Little India have been key targets. According to the Singapore Tourism Board, Little India provides creative elites with a ‘unique blend of the best of the modern world and rich cultures to deliver enriching experiences (STB, 2009, p. 44). Since the 1980s, urban regeneration projects have emphasised the neighbourhood’s ethnic character, with for example, the development of shopping arcades selling Indian souvenirs, the creation of an Art Belt welcoming Indian dance companies, the commissioning of murals throughout the neighbourhood, and the organisation of an annual art walk. The neighbourhood has also seen the development of high-end residential towers, like the Sturdee Residences, a 30-story building with 305 apartments promoting itself as an ‘oasis above the bustling metropolis’ and ‘surrounded by a rich urban fabric’ (Sturdee Residences, n.d.).
Doha has also invited star architects to establish attractive landmarks like the Museum of Islamic Art designed by Ieoh Ming Pei and the National Museum of Qatar designed by Jean Nouvel. The conversion of a former fire station into a cultural centre welcoming local and international artists in residence reflects the city’s willingness to propose its own model of culture-led urban regeneration. The city has also created an attractive residential offer for deep-pocketed mobile professionals such as The Pearl, established on 32 kilometres of reclaimed coastline, designed by the planner Callison, and inaugurated in view of the 2006 Asian Olympic Games. It is composed of different precincts that use diversity and cultural hybridisation as a marketing resource: the Qanat Quartier is ‘modelled after the Italian city of Venice’ (The Pearl Island, n.d.-a, b), with canals and Venetian architecture and promoted as ‘a private and picturesque community where Venetian charm meets Arabian chic’, and the Viva Bahriya precinct boasts its luxury villas inspired by Moroccan architecture that ‘echo the very best of the Arab Maghreb’(Ibid.).
While Doha’s urban centre long been left to decay, as it was vacated by Qatari families and used to house migrant workers, a process of gentrification is now underway, boosted by the opening of numerous metro stations and the creation of new cultural districts. In particular, the Msheireb district inaugurated new creative spaces like Liwan and M7. Liwan was established in a former girls’ school dating back to the 1950s and proposes private studios, co-working spaces, meeting rooms to invite ‘designers working across a range of disciplines to experiment and test the boundaries of design’. Not far away, the M7 has been established as ‘Qatar’s new creative hub’ to provide creatives with exhibition spaces, an incubation centre, a fab lab, a café, and a shop in order to boost ‘Qatar’s innovation and startup scene’.
In sum, to lure mobile creative professionals both cities project an attractive urban lifestyle that combines local and international references by creating new districts or by regenerating central neighbourhoods. Within these creative clubs, diversity is mobilised as a resource to promote the city.
6.1 Spaces of Cultural Exclusion
Doha and Singapore’s economies are heavily reliant on the cheap labour provided by migrant workers. The construction of a local model to manage these populations has had to deal with the xenophobic hostilities expressed by national citizens and the scrutiny of international organisations and civil societies. Both cities have dealt with these challenges by relocating migrant workers away from the residential areas. In Singapore, foreign workers were initially settled either at workplace sites or rented HDB flats. But as Singaporean nationals expressed reluctance towards their presence, they started being housed in separate dormitories. In 2008, 11 dormitories were planned to host 65,000 workers, and government buildings were converted into housing for migrants. In 2013, the Urban Redevelopment Authority issued guidelines that recommended locating workers’ dormitories ‘away from residential areas and areas where the use is likely to cause amenity problems’ (URA, 2013). Due to the lack of services in these dormitories, Singapore saw the emergence of what Ostertag (2016) called ‘transient community hubs’, where migrants gather for leisure and to access services such as remittances’. The main transient community hub in Singapore is Little India, which on Sundays could attract up to 100,000 migrant workers in pre-pandemic times (Goh, 2014).
In 2013, the Little India riots generated international press coverage of the poor living conditions of migrant workers. The New York Times published an editorial on 27 December titled ‘Singapore’s Angry Migrant Workers’ that called for the city-state to ‘ensure that the millions of transient workers who contribute so much to the economy are not marginalized and abused’ (New York Times, 2013). This was followed a few months later by a report in the Guardian: ‘Singapore needs to address its treatment of migrant workers’ (Malay, 2014). As a result, the Singapore authorities sought to reduce the presence of South Asian workers in Little India by implementing tough security measures. They also began planning mega-dormitories able to host up to 25,000 workers and which also included leisure facilities. For instance, the Tuas South Avenue 1, which opened in the summer of 2014, has 16,800 beds, a minimart, a food court, a 250-seat cinema, and a cricket field (Tan & Toh, 2014). Locating such recreation centres near the dormitories was conceived as a way to decongest Little India (Toh, 2014).
In Doha, migrants historically settled in the city centre in buildings vacated during the modernisation and construction of new neighbourhoods for Qatari citizens (Boussaa, 2014). From the 2000s, the historical centre’s regeneration paralleled the relocation of migrants in peripheral areas (Mohammad & Sidaway, 2016). In addition, there have been reports of South Asian ‘bachelors’ being banned from mainstream public spaces such as Souq Waqif, the Corniche, Aspire, or malls (Pattisson, 2016).
The award of the 2022 FIFA World Cup triggered an accelerated influx of migrant workers, increasing logics of exploitation and an enhanced scrutiny from the international community. In September 2013, the Guardian reported on ‘Qatar’s World Cup “slaves”’ (Pattisson, 2013), while in January 2014, the New York Times denounced ‘Qatar’s showcase of shame’ (Aziz & Hussain, 2014). This led to the appointment of a UN Special Rapporteur for human rights, who issued recommendations for improving migrants’ living and working conditions; the Qatar foundation also issued its own report (Jureidini, 2014). In addition, dedicated new towns were planned to house migrant workers. In 2015, Doha unveiled a plan to build seven new cities to house 250,000 workers employed in the construction of the infrastructure planned for hosting the football world cup. These initiatives were presented as an attempt to upgrade migrants workers’ living conditions. NAAAS, the developer of Asian City, promoted it on its website as ‘designed and developed to strategically meet the vision of Qatar 2022 World Cup assuring better living conditions for the workforce’, adding that the city contains a ‘variety of excellent facilities including open spaces, gardens, gyms and recreation areas, thereby creating pleasing environment and positive outlook’.Footnote 1 Along with the creation of a complementary entertainment centre called Asian Town, the housing development was presented as an attempt to cater to the specific needs of Asian workers, with a hypermarket, a mall, a 16,000-seats amphitheatre, a 13,000-seat cricket stadium, and four cinemas screening Bollywood movies (Kovessy, 2015).
In sum, the modelling of spaces of exclusion targeted at low-skill migrant workers in Doha and Singapore has been developed to project a controlled image of the treatment of these marginalised migrants to both local and international audiences. This is intended as a response to domestic and foreign critiques, without putting into question the foundations of the exploitative system that maintains migrant labour in conditions of precarity and vulnerability.
7 Concluding Remarks
Globalisation has not only brought about a significant diversification of cities, as they attract ever more diverse people and see the affirmation of multiple identities, it also led to the emergence of new modes of governance of diversity. As traditional, nation-centric models such as assimilation and multiculturalism have been challenged and critiqued, urban-centric models started to be seen as potential alternatives able to respond to the specific needs that each city faces with regards to the management of its diversity. This is manifested by the multiplication of city networks and think tanks that promote good practices on diversity governance, as well as consultancies and experts selling solutions for good urban diversity management. These new arenas, which enable urban professionals to search for ideas and solutions, and to situate their achievements within a transnational policy-making sphere, signal the emergence of urban policy modelling as a key process in the governance of diversity.
By drawing on the lessons learned from urban policy modelling studies, I have argued that the analysis of the intrinsic characteristics of urban diversity models is insufficient. It must be combined with an analysis of the organizational dynamics that underpin it. Indeed, urban policy modelling plays an ambivalent role in diversity governance. It can contribute to movements of transnational solidarity and progress, as cities come together to propose solutions to the new challenges emerging from urban diversity, but it can also contribute to a depoliticisation of diversity, along with the diffusion of standardized diversity management models that frame diversity as an asset while legitimising regimes that adopt restrictive views of diversity and marginalise minorities and migrants. In this chapter, I have therefore proposed to approach urban policy modelling as a symbolic resource used by policymakers to interact with a transnational policy-making networks to gain local and global legitimacy. This echoes Caponio (2018)’s analysis of the symbolic functions of transnational city networks, and their role in legitimizing local policies and construct city identities than to tangibly shift integration policies.
The central argument is that as globalising cities are embedded in increasingly complex multiscalar networks, the governance of their urban diversity becomes more compartmentalized. This compartmentalization stems from the decline of nation-centric grand narratives which claimed to propose overarching diversity management frameworks, and the rise of a global urban diversity modelling competition. Cities that wish to position themselves as successful diversity governance models need to show that they flexibly respond to local issues and propose attractive and inspiring solutions that showcase their openness.
Compartmentalization allows local actors to segment issues to make them easier to address, and to situate their actions in relation to wider global discussions. Compartmentalization leads to the coexistence of apparently contradictory processes. Emerging global cities like Doha and Singapore actively open up to global flows and publicly embrace cosmopolitan values, while at the same time, implementing national preference systems and promoting of a traditionalist national identities. I have shown that these processes coexist, in parallel, in distinct organizational spheres and urban spaces, with relatively little spaces and moments of frictions.
The compartmentalisation of diversity governance restricts progress on diversity matters to transnationally connected elite spaces and organisations. Thereby, it greatly limits the potentially disruptive effects of urban diversity modelling. As they aspire to rise as global cities and cultural hubs, Doha and Singapore have created global centres of cultural and intellectual production that bring up global discussions on diversity issues, but do little to challenge the foundations of the city’s diversity governance framework.
The compartmentalization of urban diversity governance derives from the contradictions of the global city. Inter-city competition favours limited redistributive mechanisms and labour regulations. The compartmentalisation of urban diversity governance is closely linked to the inequality that this system generates. It is also generated by the tensions between antagonistic popular aspirations: the preservation of traditional national culture understood in conservative terms and the recognition of the city as a hub of knowledge and cultural exchange. The governments of Singapore and Doha are weary to minimise these tensions and showcase an effective bureaucracy able to anticipate problems and devise rational solutions in line with international standards. Faced with recurrent crises, they respond by providing policy solutions such as the planning new cities, new recreational centres, or reforms that display gradual progress.
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Molho, J. (2024). Urban Policy Modelling and Diversity Governance in Doha and Singapore. In: Triandafyllidou, A., Moghadam, A., Kelly, M., Şahin-Mencütek, Z. (eds) Migration and Cities. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-55680-7_3
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