Culture and the state: Manufacturing traditions for tourism

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Abstract
Most scholars in cultural studies treat culture either as a relatively autonomous sphere of human activity or as largely influenced by economic forces. As a result, they fail to consider the role of the state in the production, patterning, preservation, or prohibition of culture. This essay is a case study of how the state in Singapore influences the production and patterning of cultures through the policy of national tourism. National tourism is a central part of the nation‐building process in newly independent nation‐states, where a national culture is actively created and projected to the international polity and international mass market. The chief image of national tourism in Singapore is the diversity of ethnic “traditions”;: the lifestyles, food, religious rituals, and customs of selected groups are simultaneously advertised and manufactured for the potential tourist to sample, savour, and see. This policy of national tourism has important implications on the way cultures of ethnicity are lived.

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