37.3313, Reviews: Critical Ecolinguistics Within Singapore, 'the Garden City': Todd LeVasseur (ed.) (2026)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3313. Wed Oct 14 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3313, Reviews: Critical Ecolinguistics Within Singapore, 'the Garden City': Todd LeVasseur (ed.) (2026)

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Date: 14-Oct-2026
From: Yimin Zhang [yimin.sunny at gmail.com]
Subject: Anthropological Linguistics, General Linguistics, Sociolinguistics: Todd LeVasseur (ed.) (2026)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/37-883

Title: Critical Ecolinguistics Within Singapore, 'the Garden City'
Series Title: Bloomsbury Advances in Ecolinguistics
Publication Year: 2026

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
           http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/
Book URL:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/critical-ecolinguistics-within-singapore-the-garden-city-9781350438491/

Editor(s): Todd LeVasseur

Reviewer: Yimin Zhang

SUMMARY
This book presents an ecolinguistic analysis of Singapore’s discourses
surrounding economic growth, urban spatial planning, and
sustainability. Through a series of case studies grounded in
Singapore’s historical and contemporary biogeochemical and
sociopolitical contexts, the authors identify and critically examine
destructive, ambivalent, and beneficial discourses.
The introduction to the book, written by Todd LeVasseur and Hannah Ng
Shueh Yi, situates the book within ecolinguistics at the intersection
of climate change and urbanization. In this chapter, the authors first
provide a concise yet comprehensive overview of narratives related to
anthropogenic climate change: The climate science narrative, which
frames climate change as a scientific and evidence-based phenomenon
driven by human activities and characterized by the overshooting of
safe planetary boundaries and processes; the lived narratives, which
highlight climate change as a reality people live through,
particularly in relation to extreme climate events and natural
disasters; and narratives that present climate change as a shared
responsibility among countries and people, albeit one that is
distributed unequally and unjustly. The authors then zoom in on the
ideologies relevant to Singapore. In particular, they critically
engage with ecomodernism, which holds that human ingenuity and
technological innovation can mitigate climate destabilization and
environmental collapse. In reviewing these broad discourses, this
chapter contributes to situating the book within the field of
ecolinguistics in two meaningful ways. First, it contextualizes this
book’s findings and discussion within broader global discourses and
ideologies of climate change in modern urban realities. Second, it
demonstrates the significance of ecolinguistical analyses of Singapore
in the context of accelerating global urbanization and the deepening
climate crisis.
Chapter 1, “The Singapore Stories”, written by Anjali Venketram,
Beverley Choo Jia Ying, Hannah Ng Shueh Yi, Kristina Gweneth Ponce
Simundo, Lecarl Lim and Todd LeVasseur, presents the dominant
“Singapore Story” that lays the foundation of Singaporean
environmental discourses and ideologies. The authors examine this
national narrative from three perspectives: (1) From Fishing Village
to Metropolitan City; (2) Paternalistic Development; and (3) The Green
City. The ‘fishing village to metropolitan city’ narrative highlights
Singaporeans’ changing relationship to the land and capital, a
transformation deeply rooted in the colonial history of both Singapore
and the wider Southeast Asian region. A key theme in this narrative is
the struggle through uncertainty to attain the stability Singapore
enjoys today. However, as the authors point out, this narrative has
largely overlooked the costs of the city-state’s remarkable
development, which have been disproportionately borne by marginalized
communities. The paternalistic development narrative foregrounds a
form of authoritarian environmentalism, in which environmental
stewardship is framed by the Singaporean government as a highly
impersonal, abstracted, and manicured policymaking process that
requires minimal bottom-up participation. The Green City narrative
revolves around the notions of the “Garden City” and the “City in
Garden” proposed by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and later
advanced by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While the Singapore Garden
evokes an image of abundance, health, pleasure, and aesthetic beauty,
the authors note that this environmental framing is ultimately
profit-driven and growth-oriented through the lens of green
capitalism. As such, the resulting environmental strategy is
fundamentally ecomodernist and aligned with green growth, while
largely avoiding addressing deeper systemic issues. By critically
reviewing the multifaceted “Singapore Story”, the authors highlight
the gap between top-down narratives reinforced by the government and
the diverse lived realities experienced by communities on the ground,
and call for alternative Singapore Stories, some of which are explored
in the subsequent chapters of the book.
Chapter 2, “Ecosophy”, written by Todd LeVasseur, Kristina Gweneth
Ponce Simundo and Lecarl Lim, provides an overview of the ecosophy
that motivates the book and underpins the philosophical framework upon
which the analysis in the following chapters draws. The authors begin
by presenting a brief history of environmental philosophy and
environmental ethics. Acknowledging that dominant discourses on
appropriate human-nature interactions have largely been shaped by
Western environmental thought and policy, the authors offer a concise
overview of the Western intellectual tradition of environmental
philosophy and ethics. This overview encompasses Aldo Leopold’s land
ethic, Holmes Rolston III’s notion of nature as a category and
placeholder of value, Murray Bookchin’s philosophy of ecosocialism or
ecological socialism, radical environmentalism in the 1980s, and
ecofeminism. In particular, the authors focus on deep ecology proposed
by Arne Naess, not only celebrating the concept but also critically
engaging with it. In doing so, they elucidate how they understand and
apply the concept within the realities of Singapore and contemporary
global contexts. For the authors, deep ecology is fundamentally about
ecological self-identification that “inform[s] and inspire[s] a shift
from the shallow ego ‘I’ (and the ideologies of consumption,
instrumental valuing of nature and human supremacy) to a deeper
ecological ‘Self’” (p.55). Following this review, the authors recount
the collective process through which they developed the group ecosophy
for the book and elaborate on its three pillars: community, care, and
critical. They name their ecosophy “Majulah…?” and explain
exceptionally well the inspiration behind the name as well as the
significance of the two thought-provoking punctuation marks. They
ground the three pillars in the theoretical foundations of
environmental philosophy and ethics. The chapter concludes with an
explanation of the methods of ecolinguistical analysis applied
throughout the book. While the authors elaborate on the selection of
case studies and data collection methods, I was expecting a more
detailed discussion of the concrete analytical approaches and
processes they adopted to interpret the data.
In Chapter 3, “Destructive Discourses of Singapore”, Beverley Choo Jia
Ying and Lecarl Lim present two destructive stories in Singapore. The
authors analyse two case studies that demonstrate how growthism and
anthropocentrism are central to these destructive stories: Singapore’s
petrocultural past and present and its agri-food industry. In the
first case study, Beverley Choo Jia Ying demonstrates the construction
of, and continued support for, the fossil fuel and petrochemical
sector in Pulau Bukom in pursuit of fossil fuel-driven economic
growth, while revealing the anthropocentric sidelining of
environmental harms associated with its development. She identifies
two ecolinguistic discourses that justify this story: First, “a
conviction discourse that increases the facticity of fossil fuel and
petrochemical industries as positive contributors to
socio-environmental outcomes, rather than viewing them as sources of
environmental degradation”; and second, “[t]he erasure of the effects
of the fossil fuel and petrochemical sectors, leading to a lack of
awareness about the broader consequences of these industries” (p.76).
In the second case study, Lecarl Lim discusses Singapore’s agri-food
story, which is strongly shaped by growthism and characterized by a
commitment to industrial economic growth at the expense of food
self-sufficiency. Lim analyses three key ecolinguistic discourses
underlying this Singaporean story: “(1) euphemization strategies
around agrotechnological ambitions that obscure the exploitative
practices involved and perpetuate a distant human-animal relationship;
(2) appraisal patterns that privilege modernity over tradition,
leading to a disregard for traditional ecological knowledge and
diminishing its relevance in contemporary discourse; and (3) a
conviction discourse used to justify the control of nature as both
necessary and sustainable, shaping public perception to align with
these growth-centric narratives” (p.77). Taken together, these two
case studies present Singaporean stories that de-romanticize the
seemingly ecomodern discourses underpinned by growthist and
anthropocentric ideologies.
Chapter 4, “Ambivalent Discourses of Singapore”, written by Anjali
Venketram, Hannah Ng Shueh Yi, Kristina Gweneth Ponce Simundo and Tan
Yock Han, examines ambivalent discourses in Singapore, which reflect
the contradictory narratives that shape Singapore’s relationship with
the environment. The authors note that such contradictions and
tensions often emerge between the ideology of growthism, which
underlies infrastructural expansion, and approaches to ecological
preservation and conservation. They conduct an ecolinguistical
analysis of the “City in Nature” narrative (Hannah Ng Shueh Yi,
Kristina Gweneth Ponce Simundo, and Tan Yock Han) and the Singapore
Botanic Gardens (Anjali Venketram). These two case studies showcase
beneficial ideals of environmental stewardship while remaining deeply
intertwined with destructive narratives that prioritize economic
progress, global competitiveness, and urban development. In their
analysis of the “City in Nature” narrative, Ng et al. approach the
narrative from four perspectives: the historical discourse context
behind Singapore’s transformation from the “Garden City” to the “City
in Nature”; policies of “destroying to recreate”, which entail a
selective preservation of biodiversity and habitats; the Eco-Link at BKE
and Rail Corridor as empirical manifestations of the “City in Nature”
vision; and the implications of the conception of “green spaces” for
Singpore’s urban spatial planning. Through this comprehensive
analysis, the authors argue that the “City in Nature” narrative is
essentially a top-down metaphor hypercurated by the state and
governing bodies, serving to position Singapore as a frontier of new
eco-cities and eco-progressiveness (Pow 2018). However, this narrative
“elides and erases the biotic and abiotic features of Singapore,
without which the humans of Singapore cannot exist, … reinforce[ing]
the ideology of anthropocentrism, which goes against our ecosophy’s
pillar of Care, because it upholds a relationship of human domination
and exploitation of the non-human” (p.134). In the analysis of the
Singapore Botanic Gardens, Venketram reveals the colonial conception
of nature as a resource to be exploited, a view embedded in the
Garden’s colonial history, even though the space has since evolved
into a beneficial site for human-nature connection and environmental
education. As Tan Yock Han notes in the conclusion, the two case
studies presented in this chapter reveal “two distinct yet
interconnected discourses on urban-nature relationships that elucidate
factors such as space, time and positionality as variables that shape
the ambivalent relationship between Singapore’s discourses and [this
book’s] ecosophy” (p.143).
In Chapter 5, “Beneficial Discourses of Singapore”, Beverley Choo Jia
Ying, Hannah Ng Shueh Yi and Kristina Gweneth Ponce Simundo examine
beneficial discourses of Singapore. They present three case studies:
Singapore’s Park Connector Network (Kristina Gweneth Ponce Simundo),
the Bukit Brown Cemetery (Beverley Choo Jia Ying), and the Chek Jawa
Wetlands (Hannah Ng Shueh Yi). In her examination of the Park
Connector Network (PCN) as a space characterized by complex discursive
qualities, Simundo elucidates how the PCN fosters a discourse of an
anti-capitalist relationship with space, time, and nature, one
characterized by slowed transit. She also analyses how PCN foregrounds
an interconnectivity narrative, which promotes a message of linkage
across spaces in Singapore, highlighting the interdependence of
different natural spaces and emphasising the interconnectedness of
residents within the larger ecosystem as a whole. The author further
argues that PCN constitutes a potential space for discourses of
inclusion and equity, a third place beyond productivity and capital
exchange, and the cultivation of relationships in non-hierarchical
ways. The second case of beneficial disourse focus on the Bukit Brown
Cemetery. Choo examines how Bukit Brown currently functions as a
spatial text that represents the possibility of cohabitation and
interconnectedness between humans and other (non-)living beings. By
reviewing the cemetery’s historical and cultural background and
shedding light on the recent tensions between the construction of the
Lornie Highway and community-led efforts to preserve the site, Choo
demonstrates how Bukit Brown generates discourses of Community, Care
and constructive Criticism in the face of growthism. The third case
study examines Chek Jawa Wetlands’ narrative of successful advocacy
via scientific methods and public engagement. While Chek Jawa
represents a discourse in Singapore in which nature is framed as
central rather than subordinated to anthropocentric urban ecologies,
Ng reminds readers of the erasure of the indigenous culture of Ubin
Orang Pulau underlying this beneficial discourse. The author calls for
alternative narratives beyond “green nature” that draw attention to
“the brown and blue ecologies of the sea, the mud and everything in
between” (p.185), as well as greater recognition of the precarity of
Chek Jawa and the indigenous islander. Ng concludes the chapter by
highlighting the shared discursive characteristics of the three case
studies: namely, “…the strengths of ground-up and highly localized
formation of Community; their strengths come from creating specific
contexts of Care, which come from the unique attributes of each ‘text’
and the way beneficial discourses have Critically been shaped around
them” (p.187).
The concluding chapter, written by Todd LeVasseur, offers a summary of
the key lessons drawn from the case studies presented in the preceding
chapters. LeVasseur argues that while the Singapore Story, as well as
the challenges and struggles Singapore faces in its pursuit of strong
sustainability, is unique to the country because of its particular
historical and biogeochemical contexts, it nevertheless offers
valuable insights for other countries confronting environmental
challenges associated with urbanization, urban metabolic resource
bottlenecks, and the planetary boundaries. He calls for critical
reflection on the growthism, anthropocentrism, and ecomodernism that
underpin Singapore’s environmental policies, as well as for the
identification and creation of beneficial stories-to-live-by in the
pursuit of a more sustainable future.
EVALUATION
The authors successfully achieve their goal of presenting a
comprehensive Singapore Story told by diverse narrative voices : The
government’s stories about the sustainability of Singapore by , for
example, From Fishing Village to Metropolitan City and the Green City;
the everyday realities of  citizens and residents, such as Park
Connector Network and Bukit Brown; lived experiences of  Indigenous
communities, notably Chek Jawa Wetlands; and stories imposed by
actors  outside of Singapore, such as the petroculture-focused
discourses of Pulau Bukom. All these stories are examined within the
broader context of anthropogenic climate change. Adopting Stibbe’s
(2015) ecolinguistic analytical framework, the authors critically
examine the Singapore Stories surrounding sustainability and
human-nature relationships that are embedded in the country’s
historical, geopolitical, and everyday contexts. Through identifying
the destructive, ambivalent, and beneficial discourses across a series
of case studies, they shed light on the growthism, anthropocentrism,
and ecomodernism underlying Singapore’s seemingly positive visions of
sustainability and development, while also offering alternative
narratives that promote reciprocal human-nature relationships and
greater awareness of the intrinsic value of nature. As LeVasseur notes
at the end of the book, drawing on Barnhill’s (2011) conception of
ecotopia, building a climate-resilient future that is “full of
justice, care, respect, safety, bodily security, intergenerational
community, honesty and self-actualization without judgement or
coercion” and “with clean air, clean water, nutritious and accessible
food, surrounded by biodiversity and its continued evolutionary
flourishing” requires us to explore “paths shaped by decolonial praxis
and theory, by insights from degrowth theory and by solidarity with
feminist or queer speculative visions” (p. 195). This call enhances
the book’s theoretical and practical contributions, as the authors do
not confine themselves to merely examining the existing “Singapore
Story.” Rather, they use it as a basis for envisioning and promoting
beneficial narratives for the future that are relevant not only to
Singapore but also to many other parts of the world facing the
devastating environmental consequences of colonialism, growthism, and
marginalization of Indigenous communities.
Conceptually, the authors apply Stibbe’s (2015) ecolinguistic notion
of “stories we live by” effectively to examine the beneficial,
ambivalent and destructive discourses in Singapore that are embedded
within the country’s history and everyday life. While this book offers
an excellent example of how ecolinguistical analysis can be applied in
practice to examining stories-we-live-by, its theoretical grounding
could have been strengthened and made more accessible to readers
unfamiliar with Stibbe’s work if the authors had provided a concise
overview of his ecolinguistic framework at the beginning of the book.
For example, how do the beneficial, ambivalent and destructive
discourses relate to broader concepts of ideologies, frames and
framing, metaphors and patterns (Stibbe, 2015)? How are concepts such
as erasure and re-minding defined and operationalised in the analyses?
These theoretical concepts are introduced rather scatteredly
throughout the chapters. For example, the concept of erasure is
firstly defined in Chapter 3 Destructive Discourses of Singapore, in
the course of the analysis itself (p.75). In my opinion, providing a
comprehensive introduction to the relevant concepts at the beginning
of the book, rather than introducing them throughout the analyses,
would enhance its theoretical coherence and further improve its
readability for non-academic readers. That said, the authors still do
a commendable job of integrating the conceptual framework into their
analysis and producing a coherent argument, with the chapters closely
connected to one another. In presenting destructive, ambivalent, and
beneficial discourses in Chapters 3, 4, and 5 respectively, the
authors frequently refer to one another’s analyses to demonstrate that
these discourses are not separate categories. On the contrary, they
are interconnected and open to examination from multiple perspectives.
For instance, Anjali Venketram and colleagues reflect on the
interconnectivity and multiperspectivity of the discourses: “So far in
the book, we have discussed the destructive and now ambivalent
stories-we-live-by in Singapore, and it can be concluded that stories
are never just black and white – there is potential for a space to
hold multiple interpretations. Discourses are standardized ways that
particular groups in society use language, images and other forms of
representation (Stibbe 2021, 22). The narratives and language that
frame and shape the Singapore Botanic Gardens are equally complex and
ambivalent, as is its history from being first a colonial pet project
and now a prideful UNESCO site, such that these gardens have meant
many different things to multiple generations of Singaporeans and
foreigners alike.” (p.136) By presenting their case studies and
arguments in dialogue with one another, the authors effectively
illustrate both the complexity of Singaporean realities and the value
of an ecolinguistic approach in capturing such complexity.
Empirically, the authors offer the original ecosophy “Majulah…?”.
Mujulah is the Malay word for “onwards”. The authors’ ecosophy is
grounded in the implications of Community, Care, and Critical.
Together with Stibbe’s (2015) ecolinguistic analytical framework, the
ecosophy of Majulah…? also serves as the unifying thread throughout
the book. What I find exceptionally valuable is that this ecosophy is
developed from a collective research project led by undergraduate
students enrolled in the Foundations of Environmental Humanities
course taught by LeVasseur. In this respect, the volume gives voice to
the young “climate generation”, as noted by LeVasseur in the Preface
(xvi), and demonstrates how ecolinguistics resonates with the
environmental concerns of younger generations as well as how it can
help us understand everyday realities, while encouraging reflection in
the context of the environmental crisis. Furthermore, by identifying
beneficial stories, the authors provide a hopeful pathway towards a
sustainable future, offering an alternative and much-needed voice amid
the prevailing discourses of ecological crisis and environmental
degradation. As LeVasseur notes: “It is possible for new stories for
Singaporeans to live by to emerge in the service of a post-capitalist,
post-ecomodern ecotopia. Beneficial examples already exist, in the
same geospatial contexts as Singapore’s largely destructive ones, as
for example in the difference between Pulau Bukom and Chek Jawa - both
islands, but ‘texts’ that are shaped by entirely different ideologies.
Or in the difference between a City in Nature discourse that
perpetuates ecomanageralism and geopower while commodifying nature in
the name of ‘sustainable development’ (Luke 1995, 2005) with the
discourse of the Parks Connector Network that instead helps create
community and care…They are beneficial texts and ideologies that
reflect Stibbe’s call for ‘re-writing and re-speaking the world’
(2021, 211).” (p.198)
Methodologically, I would be excited to see the authors, or other
interested scholars, examine ethnographic data related to the
discourses explored in this book in future research. In my view, such
an approach could help answer, or at least open up more concrete and
in-depth reflection on, the thought-provoking questions posed at the
end of Chapters 3, 4, and 5. For example, ethnographic observation
could be conducted in the Botanic Garden and along the Park Connector
Network to illustrate in situ how different groups of people engage
with these spaces and construct diverse relationships with the
non-human world through their everyday activities. Similarly,
narrative interviews could be conducted with visitors to Bukit Brown
Cemetery to explore how they perceived the interconnections between
nature and culture, and between life and death.
Overall, this book is a critical and heartening contribution to the
field of ecolinguistics and a valuable resource for all of us living
in the Anthropocene. It will be valuable for scholars interested in
ecolinguistics. Moreover, the authors offer not only a critical
analysis but also a heartfelt account of the Singapore Story that is
deeply intertwined with the nation itself, making the book
particularly relevant to Singapore’s citizens and residents. Beyond
Singapore, the Singapore Story offers valuable insights for countries
across Southeast Asia and around the world that face the challenges of
economic growth, urbanisation, and environmental degradation, making
this book a meaningful resource for a global readership concerned with
sustainability and environmental futures.
REFERENCES
Barnhill, David. 2011. “Conceiving Ecotopia.” Journal for the Study of
Religion, Nature and Culture 5 (2): 126–144.
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v5i2.126.
Pow, C. P. (2018). Building a Harmonious Society through Greening:
Ecological Civilization and Aesthetic Governmentality in China. Annals
of the American Association of Geographers, 108(3), 864–883.
https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2017.1373626
Stibbe, Arran. (2015). Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology, and the
Stories We Live By. London: Routledge.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Yimin Zhang holds a PhD in Education from the Univerisy of Luxembourg.
Her doctoral research examines how a group of environmental volunteers
in Luxembourg construct and understand human-nature relationships in
their everyday lives, using ethnographic methods. Her research
interests include environmental discourse, multilignualism and
migration, and qualitative research methods. She also designed and
taught the master’s-level course Introduction to Environmental
Humanities at the Univerisity of Luxembourg.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) USE DISCLOSURE
The author used Microsoft Copilot for grammar and style suggestions
during the writing of this review. All substantive claims,
interpretations, and citation judgements are her own.



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