Home, Community and Hope: Book Launch of The Singapore I Recognise
This event is now over. The full transcript and launch recording (with captions) will be made available in the next 2 – 3 months.
About the Event
In The Singapore I Recognise, notable journalist and activist Kirsten Han shares her experiences and perspectives on lesser-known aspects of home. Join Kirsten in conversation with sociologist Teo You Yenn, as they discuss the process of writing her debut essay collection, (un)learning, building communities, and the act of collective dreaming.
RSVP here: https://thesgirecognise.eventbrite.sg
About the Book
Singapore is small, a complex country full of contradictions, inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies. Often held up as a model nation, we sometimes forget that Singapore is seen differently by different people. With a decade of activism and journalism experience, Kirsten Han reveals various aspects of her home country that don’t follow what many of us know as the conventional ‘Singapore Story’. The Singapore I Recognise is Kirsten’s reckoning with civil society’s experiences of Singapore, perspectives that are often unheard, or fall through the cracks. Through researched interviews and heartfelt reflections, Kirsten tells us how parts of Singapore are already moving towards communal care, solidarity, empowerment and hope. This is a resonant portrayal of home in the island city-state.
Find out more about The Singapore I Recognise here: bit.ly/thesgirecognise
About the Speakers
Kirsten Han is a journalist and activist from Singapore. She has been Managing Editor of Mekong Review, a quarterly Asia-focused literary magazine, since the end of 2022. She runs two newsletters—We, The Citizens and Altering States—in which she writes about Singapore politics, human rights, civil society and drug policy. You can find these newsletters at wethecitizens.net. Her byline has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and more. She received an Honourable Mention in 2018 from the World Justice Project’s Anthony Lewis Prize for Exceptional Rule of Law Journalism, and a Human Rights Press Award in 2019 for her commentaries on “fake news” and freedom of expression. Kirsten is also a member of the Transformative Justice Collective, where she works towards the abolition of the death penalty and an end to Singapore’s war on drugs.
Teo You Yenn is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the Nanyang Technological University and author of This Is What Inequality Looks Like (Ethos Books, 2018).
