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7 - The Affective Regime of Luxury and Exclusivity
Lionel Wee, National University of Singapore, Robbie B. H. Goh, National University of Singapore
Book:

Language, Space and Cultural Play

Published online:

30 October 2019

Print publication:

24 October 2019, pp 127-149
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Summary

This chapter examines the ways in which areas such as luxury housing projects and enclaves are structured as luxurious, desirable and valuable by virtue of being unattainable by the general public. The nature of such “Veblen goods” is primarily to confer preeminent stature upon the owner; as such, they have to be strictly demarcated as being both desired by the majority of people, and also distinctly out of their reach. The chapter shows how dialectical tension between strong desire and distinct unattainability relies on a complex semiotics combining some of the elements of conviviality (safety, acceptance, comfort and well-being) with quite different elements of awe, superiority and rejection.