Metaphors of Meltdown: Political Representations of Economic Space in the Asian Financial Crisis

Abstract

Economic geographers have increasingly acknowledged the importance of discursive constructions and metaphorical representations of economic space. The representational has been recognized as more than just colourful rhetoric, being also a construction of reality that contains implicit understandings of how economic processes work and the corollaries of such processes in terms of government policy. Furthermore, the connections between understanding processes, making policy, and retaining legitimacy mean that such metaphors are highly political. The author explores some of the metaphors that have been employed by political leaders in understanding the Asian financial crisis of 1997–99. Two sets of contrasting metaphors are highlighted in the rhetoric of leaders in Malaysia and Singapore, respectively: in Malaysia, metaphors of colonial domination and militaristic aggression dominate; in Singapore, ‘natural’ metaphors of typhoon damage and tectonic shifts tend to prevail. These representational strategies can be linked to discourses of political power and the construction of economic policy in each context.