Territory, hydraulics, biopolitics - internal colonization through urban catchment management in Singapore

Sep 8, 2026

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The paper examines how internal colonization in Singapore is produced through urban catchment management, linking land and water scarcity to territorialization. It shows that expanding catchment areas via reservoir construction and anti-pollution measures enabled and normalized the restructuring of the domestic economy, urban renewal, gentrification, and population resettlement. It reframes territorial integration as political ecology, historicizing and politicizing territory through its contested physical geography while connecting internal colonization to Foucault’s ideas on power.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryGeneral

FormatDOCX

Pages34

Reading Time12 min

AccessFree to download

Reframing the land question

Internal colonization and territorial integration

Land scarcity and state dominance

Land acquisition, reclamation, and spatial innovation

Territory, hydraulics, biopolitics: internal colonization through urban catchment management in Singapore Mark Usher, University of Manchester (mark.usher@manchester.ac.uk) Department of Geography, School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED), University of Manchester, Manchester, UK On separating from Malaysia in 1965, the People’s Action Party (PAP) sought to rapidly transform Singapore into a modern, industrialized nation-state. This was deemed essential if Singapore, a small island-nation, were to survive as an independent country. Nation-building would be reliant on territorial integration, entailing the industrialization and subordination of the rural periphery by a modernizing urban core, a process referred to as internal colonization. Territorial integration was critical in Singapore as the British had focused its efforts on the port city, leaving much of the island undeveloped. While there has been significant academic interest in both land and water scarcity in Singapore, rarely are they addressed together, which, as this paper argues, is necessary to understand the wider territorialization process. This paper reveals how the gradual expansion of catchment area into different regions of the island, through reservoir construction and anti-pollution measures, facilitated, legitimized and depoliticized the comprehensive restructuring of the domestic economy, urban renewal and gentrification, and resettlement of the population. The case is made for a political ecology of the state that historicizes and politicizes territory by revealing its forgotten, contested, physical geography. The importance of internal colonization to Michel Foucault’s thinking on power is also underlined. Territory; internal colonization; Singapore; land; water; infrastructure; gentrification; political ecology Reframing the land question In 1965, the year that Singapore became an independent sovereign country, expelled from the Malaysian Federation, the state owned approximately 50% of its land surface. By 2018 this figure had increased to 90%, bringing much of this small island, over a number of tumultuous decades, under the control of an increasingly modern, territorial state. This process of land consolidation has been fundamental to Singapore’s widely documented transition from ‘third world to first’ (Lee, 2000). Indeed, of all the resources that are considered scarce in Singapore – water, energy, population – land has been the starkest limiting factor (Chua, 2011). Former Prime Minister and ‘Founding Father’ of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew described the country as a ‘heart without a body’ (Lee, 2000, p. 3), lacking not only in natural resources but the fundamental necessity of space. Endowed with a limited, low-lying surface area of 580km², less than half the size of London, much of it marshy and flood-prone, land scarcity has been the overriding concern of the People’s Action Party (PAP), the only party to hold office in Singapore since independence. Smallness and vulnerability has provided justification for robust intervention in a broad range of domestic issues on an emergency basis (Leifer, 2000). Certainly, land scarcity was linked to Singapore’s command-and-control approach during an early planning session, as preparations were being made for British withdrawal: ‘Speaking from the point of view of geography, we are only a tiny island…we believe in democratic socialism, but we are seriously limited by political and economic considerations in respect of land, raw materials and natural resources’ (Hansard 1961). Growth – economic and territorial – has been pursued through centralized long-term planning, under a developmental state (Liow, 2011). Strict social control measures have also been implemented, with respect to labour relations, political and media freedoms, civil liberties and crime prevention (Mauzy & Milne, 2002). Urban planning and social engineering, two sides of Singapore’s development model, has dovetailed most intimate

FAQs

What does the paper mean by internal colonization in Singapore?

Internal colonization refers to the industrialization and subordination of the rural periphery by a modernizing urban core, enabling territorial integration after independence.

How does the paper connect catchment management to territorialization?

By tracing the expansion of catchment areas through reservoir building and anti-pollution measures, the paper shows how these interventions facilitated, legitimized, and depoliticized broader economic restructuring and urban change.

Which land policies and mechanisms underpin Singapore’s territorial state described in the paper?

The paper highlights land consolidation under state control, large-scale reclamation, the 1966 Land Acquisition Act, 99-year leasing contracts via state auctions, and development guidelines centralizing land administration.

Sep 8, 2026

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