This was posted in our class blog for SC 6192 (Social Theory) as part of our commentary on the topics discussed during the 4th week of the semester.  Comments are most welcome!

-Janssen, Fiona, & Johan

In one of those random nights when you meet up with your friends and have dinner and drinks afterwards, Fiona, Janssen, Johan, Weida, and Mel decided to go to get cozy in a conspicuous place – a playground right next to Fiona’s block (which had a police post at the void deck). Now who would ever have 3 bottles of Dutch beer in a children’s playground (next to the cops’ nest) while watching an old Schwarzenegger movie titled “Kindergarten Cop” at around 2145h. It takes 5 crazy soci grad students, we would surmise (composition: 3 Singaporean-Chinese [according to their ICs, 1 ang moh [with no ID whatsoever], and a Filipino who happened to have his social security card with him).

While licking and sucking on to bars of white chocolate magnum bars, these guys were in the midst of an interaction order, which operated in its own parameters. Weida was busy preparing cups and opening the bottles (sans a bottle opener) while engaging in a vivid conversation about masculinities as a prelude to Arnie’s movie. Janssen, Mel, and Fiona droned on with their ideas about the 70’s representation of the alpha male as a product of American Cold War anxieties, while Johan was busy setting up our portal to Arnie’s bizarre exhibition of male power.

At this point, two of our friendly neighborhood boys in blue made their presence felt as they strutted across the playground towards the 5 surprised graduate students. Fiona slowly slipped her cup out of sight, while Janssen did the same for his huge bottle of Dutch beer. Fiona and Janssen found themselves in a situation where they were policing themselves. Fiona wasn’t aware of the laws in Singapore, while Janssen was clearly operating on his assumptions about how the police worked back in his country. Meanwhile, Johan was trying to engage the two coppers while Mel played the coy and sweet innocent little girl tactic. Weida froze and answered the questions thrown at him diligently.

As their hearts raced, the 5 were asked to provide their IDs. This question shattered the bubble that they had – borders were breached by two agents of the structure. Certainly when the cops were marching towards them, these agents of the state made their presence felt even more as the 5 suddenly sensed the encroachment of a structure that they basically ignored before the cops came. This intrusion not only disrupted the interaction but also qualitatively shifted the subjects of the conversations then and after. Actions and topics of the conversation shifted but their agency certainly tried to center itself once more. Fiona, for one started talking about one of the coppers by the name of Hadi being not that bad looking. Mel added that Hadi had a good-boy bookish look. This was offshoot of the previous topic – masculities, representation of alpha-males, and men’s appearances in general.

With Arnie brandishing his big guns (no pun intended), the laptop probably hit 150 decibels so Fiona, in an interesting twist, started policing the group by asking to turn down the volume for fear of a reprise from the boys in blue (on the other hand they started cracking jokes that the volume should be turned up even more so that Hadi would return).

What the 5 guys did was nothing forbidden; so the authority didn’t have enough structural arsenal for pounding. However the cops needed to manifest their authority and translate it into power – by moralizing these 5 naughty graduate students about the inappropriateness of drinking at a children’s playground. To a certain extent it worked, as Janssen exhibited a guilty face and they all felt bad about it. But that certainly didn’t stop them from finishing the drinks. In addition to that, the cops became softer on them when the 5 graduate students disappointed the cops’ stereotypes by showing them their uni matric cards. Hadi (the handsome cop – Fiona) commented that these guys are highly educated.

So, this bed-time story is basically about 5 guys who were minding their own business and had parameters of their own in terms of how they related to each other. Their boundaries were punctured and their agencies threatened by a structural force that they had ignored at the very first instance (there was a police station next to the playground, for crying out loud!). Nevertheless, agency developed into a different form when the structure made its presence felt. The interaction among these guys might have seemed unperturbed after the entire incident – with certain parameters being changed nonetheless. But the interaction did change substantially. For one there was a qualitative shift of topics (we started talking about policing in Singapore). Another was that they started actually policing themselves even if they carried on drinking the remaining bottles of beer.