In theorizing globalization, there have been discussions of the mobility or disembedding of people into new host societies (Coupland 2003) and the mobility of things across different types of scapes (Appadurai 1990). These categorizations of globalization typically involve transnational movements of people and objects. In adding to the discussions of such categories, this paper examines the semiotic landscape (see Jaworski & Thurlow 2010) of housing advertisements where global elements are artificially re-created in Singapore’s housing estates. While housing advertisements are not physical locations, they play a part in shaping people’s perception of actual places. To inject a desirable global flavor into local communities, a number of condominiums are advertised as providing luxurious resort/hotel-style living. This spatialization process includes naming of the housing estates, the provision of concierge services, lush landscaping, grand swimming pools, among other things. Through the recontextualization of tourism discourse and attractive images of foreign locales, local housing spaces are thus made to conjure non-local/non-residential images in people’s minds. By integrating global discourse and images into the local branding of housing spaces, homes are delocalized. That is, rather than evoking a sense of familiar stability, the sense of mobility is the desired goal in these housing advertisements to appeal to those who aspire to such lifestyles. This phenomenon is not simply a globalization of housing estates nor a glocalization that involves the adaptation of global elements to local context or vice versa. Instead, it is more of a delocalization as fixed/immobile local spaces are discursively destabilized and made to be perceived as foreign. Where ‘home’ often means permanence, stability, and immobility, such branding in housing advertisements associates 'home' with the temporal and the mobile. This study suggests a shift in ideology of younger Singaporeans towards globality and mobility as the desired standard of living.
Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. Public Culture 2.584-603.
Coupland, Nikolas. 2003. Introduction: Sociolinguistics and globalisation. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7.465-472.
Jaworski, Adam and Crispin Thurlow. 2010. Introducing semiotic landscapes, Semiotic Landscapes: Language, Image, Space, ed. by Adam Jaworski and Crispin Thurlow, 1-40. London: Continuum.
