%0 Journal Article
%T On ¡®Asian¡¯ Distinctiveness and Race as a Variable: The Case of Ophthalmic Epidemiology in Singapore
%A Catelijne Coopmans
%A Margaret Tan Ai Hua
%J Science, Technology and Society
%@ 0973-0796
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/0971721818762865
%X The notion that Singapore¡¯s multi-ethnic population provides a unique and quintessentially ¡®Asian¡¯ asset for its biomedical sciences initiative has been part of the discourse in local and international media coverage of that sector. It has also been highlighted by scholars as a feature of Singapore¡¯s political economy. This article discusses how ¡®racial/ethnic difference¡¯ was initially central but then became peripheral to one high-profile research programme: the Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Disease (SEED) Study Programme. The case study is offered as an example of the flexible deployment and situational enactment of racial/ethnic difference in biomedical science, by demonstrating how it gets entangled with and disentangled from the creation of scientific capital and legitimacy, as well as complicates the notion of ¡®Asian¡¯ science
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0971721818762865