Saudade: The Culture and Security of Eurasian Communities in Southeast Asia

by Antonio L. Rappa, Barry Desker (Foreword)

Saudade is a Portuguese idiom that symbolizes a sense of belonging; a special feeling of attachment to a time and place, as well as a desire to retain its memories and hopes. Saudade is the result of the mixture of European and Asian traditions. The experience of Saudade is also found in Portuguese Eurasian songs, dances and speech. It is from these explanations of Saudade that this book takes its title. The aim of this book is to reveal how Eurasian communities in Singapore and Malaysia survived since local Asians had their First Contact with the Portuguese traders, priests and sailors. Saudade is a rendition of belonging to the Eurasian community as a whole. It involves an important percentage of Portuguese Eurasians whose ancestors were the life-stem of many Eurasian communities in Singapore and Malaysia.

249 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2013

About the author

Antonio L Rappa held a Singapore Armed Forces Overseas Training Award (New Zealand) in 1984 and a National University of Singapore Overseas Graduate Scholarship (Hawaii, Manoa) in 1994. He was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the NUS Department of Political Science, General Editor at the NUS-FASS Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS); and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley. He was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science (Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Johns Hopkins University), and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He was a former Senior Fellow and Consultant to the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S Rajaratnam School of International Affairs, Nanyang Technological University. Dr Rappa has written some articles and commentaries on Thai politics. He is Associate Professor and Head, Management and Security Studies, School of Business, SIM University.

Reviews

[Professor John · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent cultural ethnography of a dying - dead community in Singapore ... they will go the way of the Singapore Armenians, Javanese, Peranakans and Jews.