Podcast Summary: New Books Network – Ruth E. Toulson, Necropolitics of the Ordinary: Death and Grieving in Contemporary Singapore

Host: Dr. Miranda Melcher
Guest: Dr. Ruth E. Toulson
Date: September 7, 2025
Book: Necropolitics of the Ordinary: Death and Grieving in Contemporary Singapore (University of Washington Press, 2024)

Episode Overview

This episode features a compelling discussion between host Dr. Miranda Melcher and anthropologist Dr. Ruth E. Toulson about her new book. Toulson explores the transformation and politicization of death, grieving, and funeral practices among Singapore’s Chinese community within the broader context of state intervention, societal change, and individual experience. The central question: Can a state make its people forget the dead? The conversation is rich with anthropological insight, lived examples, and critical reflections on what it means to grieve and remember in a rapidly evolving, tightly regulated society.

Main Discussion Points

1. Origins and Motivation for the Book

[02:32-06:53]

• Dr. Toulson recounts her path into the topic, beginning with early fieldwork in Singapore (2003).
• Singapore is described as a “planned city... a social science experiment of a state.”
• The catalyst was state policies to destroy all but one cemetery. For Singaporean Chinese, burial was once sacred, integral to family well-being and future prosperity.
• Dr. Toulson was fascinated by how Singaporeans have adapted or acquiesced to these large-scale shifts:
    > “What happens when burial goes away? How does that work? How do people respond to that?” (05:38, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

2. Necropolitics and the “Ordinary” Dead

[07:03-12:29]

• The literature on necropolitics usually focuses on dead political leaders or those lost in violence or catastrophe.
• Toulson’s intervention: Even “ordinary” deaths are reshaped by the state.
• Most Singaporeans display a pragmatic attitude:
    > “They’re practical above all else... Of course, accommodation for the living should replace accommodation for the dead.” (07:24, Dr. Ruth Toulson)
• The book emphasizes thick, nuanced engagement with lived experiences, resisting reduction of funeral practices to mere data or symbols.

3. Death and Funeral Practices in Singapore

[13:01-21:17]

• Singapore’s multi-ethnic context means funeral practices are divided: Chinese, Malay (Muslim), and Indian (Hindu) each have separate processes.
• For the Singaporean Chinese:
    - The first call is to funeral directors who mainly serve their own ethnic group.   - Key decisions: casket selection, length and nature of ritual, choice of officiant, method of body preparation.   - Role of funeral directors: Gatekeepers and teachers in grief, mediating between inchoate desires and available options.
• Embalming is nearly universal, even though most are cremated. Ritual focus has shifted from years-long relationships with the grave to an intense, short period centered on the corpse.
• Example: Mr. Bao’s story—torn by expectations and grief after his troubled daughter’s suicide:   > “He just did not have an appropriate way to grieve because this, in some ways, was a bad death... mirrored what others had judged as a bad life.” (20:15, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

4. Historical Change and State Intervention

[23:00-29:38]

• The state’s approach to tradition, language, and identity has shifted repeatedly:   - Early emphasis: “We are just Singaporeans”—suppress ethnic distinctions, promote English.   - Later: Return to “Asian values” and Mandarin, discouraging dialects and pushing ideal family forms.
• Rapid change leads to “impossibility” of fulfilling ideal forms or rituals.
• Example: The “model” Singaporean whose children must perform rituals in a dialect they don’t understand, highlighting tensions between state ideals and familial realities.

5. Regulation and the "Logic" of Embalming & Cremation

[29:38-36:05]

• Surprisingly, direct legislation on funeral rites is minimal. Regulations mostly concern health and spatial logistics rather than ritual.
• Embalming persists for pragmatic (lack of refrigeration) and symbolic reasons—condenses former long-term relationships to a brief, intense period:   > “Everything that needs to be done... happens around the preserved body in those one to three days before the body is cremated.” (32:17, Dr. Ruth Toulson)
• Toulson challenges assumptions that ritual is inherently conservative or that remaining elements are the “most meaningful.”

6. Material Culture: Sackcloth and Ritual Objects

[36:05-44:29]

• Dr. Toulson’s material culture analysis reveals shifts in meaning and practice:   - Sackcloth gowns once marked deep, bodily grief; now replaced by small patches.   > “Doesn’t this really matter? Wasn’t it that sackcloth mattered so much? ... ‘These people are grieving. Haven’t they suffered enough?’” (38:21, Dr. Ruth Toulson quoting a funeral director)   - Some ritual items fade because they could provoke controversy or mark problematic identities; “bland” items survive due to their inoffensiveness.   - Ritual’s visible changes don’t straightforwardly reflect shifts in internal beliefs about death.   > “We cannot dig up historic graves and presume... the grave goods provide an easy reader guide to what was valued in life.” (43:49, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

7. Barriers to Grieving and Generational Change

[44:49-48:00]

• Grief is always difficult, but Singapore’s rapid transformation exacerbates generational gaps—differences in language, worldviews, and ritual knowledge.   > “Grief is something that we do together… That is really difficult in Singapore because there is not a shared community of sentiment.” (47:14, Dr. Ruth Toulson)
• Ritual actions, once bodily and unspoken, no longer unite as before.

8. Exhumations, the Last Cemetery, and Open Questions

[48:25-50:25]

• With only one cemetery left, exhumations and memory practices raise ongoing questions. The pace of change is so great that fieldwork is perpetually outpaced.   > “One of my big questions... was when should I stop? ... Singapore has changed again entirely.” (48:57, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

9. Comparisons: Singapore vs. Other Urban, Densely Populated Contexts

[51:01-53:48]

• Limits on space for the dead are not unique to Singapore—Manhattan, Hong Kong, and Japanese cities face similar pressures.
• Still, in Singapore, every element is “loaded with different meaning because of everything it is made to hold” due to the unique state’s changing, interventionist approaches.

10. Future Research and Projects

[53:56-57:08]

• Dr. Toulson is continuing to research death in different contexts (e.g., Benares, Baltimore), and writing a novel about a funeral home in North West England.
• Upcoming interests include the hidden infrastructures of society (“the social life of rubbish”), tracing their material, social, and spiritual entanglements.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the impossibility of ideal Singaporean rituals:
    > “You have people grieving who just cannot keep up. They cannot be ideal Singaporeans. Very, very few people can.” (26:57, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

• On the pragmatism of Singaporeans and the loss of ritual:
    > “Singaporeans are practical above all things. They say, ‘we’re very short of land... of course, accommodation for the living should replace accommodation for the dead.’” (07:16, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

• On ritual and material culture:
    > “The things that are kept are sometimes the things that say very little at all... Items that might have held real meaning but might have said something problematic about who you were, what you valued, had vanished.” (42:00, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

• On the state’s indirect influence:
    > “The state has surprisingly little to say about funeral rites... but you are dealing with a set of possibilities shaped by life—and by everything you’ve lived with through life.” (16:51, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

• On generational gaps and grief:
    > “There is not a shared community of sentiment. People don’t get what others mean in their bodies and their actions, because of this whirlwind pace of change.” (47:20, Dr. Ruth Toulson)

Timeline of Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|--------------------| | 02:32–06:53 | Toulson’s introduction & Singapore context | | 07:03–12:29 | Necropolitics of ordinary deaths & anthropological aims | | 13:01–21:17 | Funeral practices & family decisions (incl. Mr. Bao’s case) | | 23:00–29:38 | Historical shifts in language, family, and mourning | | 29:38–36:05 | Embalming, cremation, and legislation in Singapore | | 36:05–44:29 | Material culture: sackcloth and ritual items | | 44:49–48:00 | Barriers to grieving, generational gaps | | 48:25–50:25 | Exhumations, the last cemetery, and “when to stop” | | 51:01–53:48 | Comparisons with other urban, high-density societies | | 53:56–57:08 | Future research, writing, and exploring “hidden” essential systems |

Tone and Character

Throughout, Dr. Toulson’s approach is thoughtful, empathetic, and keen to resist easy generalizations or simplistic narratives about loss, ritual, and the politics of death. Dr. Melcher's questions facilitate a nuanced inquiry, connecting big-picture themes to everyday realities. The conversation remains scholarly yet accessible, inflected with Toulson’s commitment to “writing with the corpse, the family, the tears.”

For Listeners

This episode offers a rare window into Singapore’s changing deathscapes, exploring how state, tradition, and the lived realities of grief interweave—not with heavy-handed regulation, but through the subtler shaping of possibilities, expectations, and even the objects that surround the dead.

Recommended for anthropologists, historians, urbanists, and anyone interested in how societies remember, adapt, and mourn in the face of modernity and state intervention.