2026-06-25 –, Room 208 (Seats 40)
World histories of cooling often highlight the emergence of air-conditioning as a dominant thermal technology, depicting an inexorable “progressive march” towards universal adoption that neglects the continued importance of electric fans in modern heat management. Singapore provides a critical intervention into these histories. Contrary to the “air-conditioned nation” discourse that equates Singapore’s modernisation with high AC reliance, I observe that a dominant fan-mediated culture gradually popularised in the island-nation since 1965. Drawing on 117 interviews from 39 households, I demonstrate that electric fans enabled Singaporeans to maintain time-honoured tropical heat-management practices despite the rise of residential AC from the 1980s.
Two arguments support this interpretation. First, the fan served as a foundational technological bridge during Singapore’s transition from rural kampungs to high-rise housing (1960s–1990s). This shift reflects the global phenomenon of rapid urbanisation where fans sustained time-honoured heat management practices—such as light dressing and consuming “cooling” foods—challenging the narrative of AC domination. Second, the Singapore case reveals a neglected “fan-based” world history through transnational stories of migrants from India, China, and Indonesia who settled in Singapore. These narratives highlight shared historical practices of electric fan usage with local-born Singaporeans, such as the use of metallic-blade fans and strategic angling to avoid direct fan-based ventilation on the body. These culturally-embedded practices illustrate the formation of an Asian transnational culture of fan usage distinct from Euro-American cooling approaches. Ultimately, centring the electric fan in world history enables identification of culturally-relevant sustainable practices, offering fresh insights for climate change mitigation.
Electric Fan; Modern Singapore; Air-conditioning Histories; Time-honoured Practices; Heat Management
Joshua Dao-Wei Sim is a Senior Research Fellow at the Human Potential Translational Research Programme, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. He is a historian of China-Southeast Asia interactions, with a particular focus on heat health and religion. Some of his publications have appeared in Social Science and Medicine, Military Medicine, and Healthcare. Before becoming a historian, Joshua worked as an exercise scientist in the Singapore Armed Forces. Currently, he is also working on a project which profiles the heat experiences and practices of Singapore households through physiology, rapid ethnography, and oral histories.