- University of Vienna, Development Studies, Post-Docadd
- is a sociologist and holds a postdoctoral position at the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies - Sou... moreis a sociologist and holds a postdoctoral position at the Chair of Comparative Development and Cultural Studies - Southeast Asia. Prior to her current post, she was PostDoc at the University of Vienna's Department of Development Studies where she was PI of an Austrian Science Fund(ed) research project ‘A Body-Political Approach to the Study of Food: Vietnam and Global Transformations’ (2015-2019). In this project she focussed on food-related body and beauty practices and ideals. Besides food, identity and body politics, her research interests include human-nature interfaces and the sociology of knowledge. From 2000 to 2007 she studied sociology in Bamberg, at the National University of Galway, and at the University of Bielefeld. Her PhD focussed on environmental knowledge and agrarian change in the Mekong Delta (awardee of the German Federal Ministry of Science and Education, Centre for Development Research at the University of Bonn, from 2007 to 2011)edit
Floods are generally perceived as natural hazards. This book, in contrast, portrays the 'beautiful floods' of the Mekong Delta, which annually constitute a substantial resource for people's rural livelihoods. With a focus on... more
Floods are generally perceived as natural hazards. This book, in contrast, portrays the 'beautiful floods' of the Mekong Delta, which annually constitute a substantial resource for people's rural livelihoods. With a focus on floods, the book employs a 'lifeworlds' analysis to investigate dynamics of environmental and livelihood knowledge among farming and fishing communities, and it demonstrates that rapid agrarian change has both positive and negative impacts. (Series: ZEF Development Studies - Vol. 19)
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Research Interests:
The latest food crisis hit food producers and consumers – mainly in the Global South – hard and refocused attention to the question of global food security. The food sovereignty movement contributes to the growing re-politicization of the... more
The latest food crisis hit food producers and consumers – mainly in the Global South – hard and refocused attention to the question of global food security. The food sovereignty movement contributes to the growing re-politicization of the debate on ‘how to feed the world’. From an actor-oriented perspective, the article presents a methodological reflection of the concept of food sovereignty in opposition to the concept of food security, both agendas highly relevant in terms of food policies in Southeast Asia. After framing the two concepts against the development politics and emergence of global agriculture following World War II, this paper elaborates on how actors and agency are conceptualized under the food security regime as well as by the food sovereignty movement itself. With reference to these two concepts, we discuss in which ways an actor-oriented methodological approach is useful to overcome the observed essentialization of the peasantry as well as the neglect of individua...
Research Interests: Globalization, Nutrition, Human Rights, Agricultural Development, Food, and 15 moreAgriculture, Food Sovereignty, Food Security, Agency, Development policy, Agricultural Production, Actor Oriented Research, Farmer, Ernährung, Entwicklungspolitik, Globalisierung, Menschenrechte, Landwirtschaft, Ernährungspolitik, and Development paradigms
In Southeast Asian societies, food has always been at the center of diverse forms of contestation over access to land and other productive means, food self-sufficiency, and quality as well as food-based identities.Political struggles and... more
In Southeast Asian societies, food has always been at the center of diverse forms of contestation over access to land and other productive means, food self-sufficiency, and quality as well as food-based identities.Political struggles and socio-economic differentiation in terms of food production, distribution, and consumption have dramatically intensified in the region. This has mainly been caused by enduring periods of agrarian reform, rapid global market integration, as well as processes of industrialization and urbanization in countries traditionally characterized as peasant societies.Scott (1976) elaborates on the struggles and resistance of the peasantry in Southeast Asia in the context of emerging world capitalism and colonial hegemony - fighting against food shortages and the exploitation of their subsistence means. Following the region's independence from colonial exploitation, protests and other forms of contentious and 'everyday politics' of peasants and farmer...
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This article draws on Bourdieu's concept of habitus as a means to analyse social distinction and change in terms of class and gender through the lens of food consumption. By focusing on urban Vietnam, this qualitative study looks into the... more
This article draws on Bourdieu's concept of habitus as a means to analyse social distinction and change in terms of class and gender through the lens of food consumption. By focusing on urban Vietnam, this qualitative study looks into the daily practices of food consumption, dieting and working on the body as specific means to enact ideal body types. Economically booming Vietnam has attracted growing investment capital in the fields of body and beauty industries and food retail. After decades of food insecurity, urban consumers find themselves manoeuvring in between growing food and lifestyle options, a nutrition transition, and contradicting demands on the consumer to both indulge and restrain themselves. Taking this dynamic urban context as its point of departure and adopting an intersectional perspective, this article assesses how eating, dieting and body performance are applied in terms of making class and doing gender. It shows that the growing urban landscape of food and body-centric industries facilitates new possibilities for distinction, dependent not only on economic capital but on bodily and cultural capital also, and furthermore, how social habitus regarding food-body relationships are gendered and interlaced with class privilege.
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The latest food crisis hit food producers and consumers – mainly in the Global South – hard and refocused attention to the question of global food security. The food sovereignty movement contributes to the growing re-politicization of the... more
The latest food crisis hit food producers and consumers – mainly in the Global South – hard and refocused attention to the question of global food security. The food sovereignty movement contributes to the growing re-politicization of the debate on 'how to feed the world'. From an actor-oriented perspective, the article presents a methodological reflection of the concept of food sovereignty in opposition to the concept of food security, both agendas highly relevant in terms of food policies in Southeast Asia. After framing the two concepts against the development politics and emergence of global agriculture following World War II, this paper elaborates on how actors and agency are conceptualized under the food security regime as well as by the food sovereignty movement itself. With reference to these two concepts, we discuss in which ways an actor-oriented methodological approach is useful to overcome the observed essentialization of the peasantry as well as the neglect of individual peasants and consumers as food-sovereign actors.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is one of the most productive areas in terms of rice cultivation and aquaculture in the world. Ambitious water resources management and fl ood control have largely contributed to this success. Nevertheless,... more
The Mekong Delta in Vietnam is one of the most productive areas in terms of rice cultivation and aquaculture in the world. Ambitious water resources management and fl ood control have largely contributed to this success. Nevertheless, agricultural intensi fi cation and diversi fi cation have generated new ecological and socio-economic challenges in the region. Vietnam’s science and technology policy, described in this chapter, emphasises research on the water sector, focusing on the delta’s sustainable and integrated water resources management. Several research institutes have been established and numerous research programmes, partly in cooperation with foreign organisations, have been initiated. The emergence of knowledge clusters of water-related research in these regions is the result of Vietnam’s science policy, in which Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta are playing decisive roles. Clustering has a positive effect not only on the increase of knowledge output, but also on the economic growth of these regions. Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho City are knowledge hubs with favourable conditions and a large pool of skilled people and advanced infrastructures. This chapter will analyse to what extent proximity and clustering have led to inter-organisational networking and knowledge sharing in academia. It will be shown that limited knowledge sharing has greatly reduced the effectiveness of water-related knowledge production and knowledge output in the south of Vietnam. This fi nding is mirrored at the local level, where the access of rural communities to water-related innovations and technologies will be examined and alternative local knowledge strategies of managing livelihood insecurities investigated. The current transformation process of agricultural modernisation – as heavily enforced in the Mekong Delta – will aggravate livelihood insecurities in the future. Water-related knowledge needs thus to be produced and disseminated more effectively to the targeted communities. Further, the importance of local knowledge has to be taken into account for a coherent strategy to develop a knowledge based economy.
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In the conclusion, the editors draw together and consolidate the floating themes in the book and reflect on the methodological considerations of civil society studies emerging from the participatory book editing process. Most prominently,... more
In the conclusion, the editors draw together and consolidate the floating themes in the book and reflect on the methodological considerations of civil society studies emerging from the participatory book editing process. Most prominently, the 'civil society lens'—a conceptual instrument for studying associational activity—is theorized and directly put to use by the editors in analyzing the cross-cutting themes illuminated in the book contents. In addition to a summary of the contents, conclusions and innovations from each contributing author, the editors investigate the various points of departure employed in each chapter and elaborate how civil society functions as a 'boundary concept' for facilitating inter- and transdisciplinary exchange. In this respect, the process of assembling the book contents, selecting areas of study, and the dynamics of academic exchange are opened up for scrutiny. The editors conclude this chapter by analyzing the political and ethical implications of employing a civil society lens in research and of identifying or labelling civil society in various contexts.
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Child obesity is increasingly addressed as a public health problem in Vietnam and framed as one of the most severe food-related risks globally. By drawing on theories of the body and from the perspective of mothers feeding their children,... more
Child obesity is increasingly addressed as a public health problem in Vietnam and framed as one of the most severe food-related risks globally. By drawing on theories of the body and from the perspective of mothers feeding their children, this chapter stresses the ambivalences women face in their capacity of caring through food. It puts eating and feeding as subjective embodied experience in context by retracing how different authorities of biopower such as the public health sector, the food industry and the family work on the bodies of mothers and children, admonishing and regulating food in concert with conflicting body ideals in children. Rather than obesity as supposed food-related risk number one, it is the complex struggle of ‘good motherhood’ that essentially drives women’s food-related anxiety.
As developing countries with recent histories of isolation and extreme poverty, followed by restoration and reform, both Cambodia and Vietnam have seen new opportunities and demands for non-state actors to engage in and manage the effects... more
As developing countries with recent histories of isolation and extreme poverty, followed by restoration and reform, both Cambodia and Vietnam have seen new opportunities and demands for non-state actors to engage in and manage the effects of rapid socio-economic transformation.
This book examines how in both countries, civil society actors and the state manage their relationship to one another in an environment that is continuously shaped and (re)constructed by changing legislation, collaboration and negotiation, advocacy and protest, and social control. Further, it explores the countries’ divergent experiences whilst also uncovering the underlying basis and drivers of civil society activity that are shared by Cambodia and Vietnam. Crucially, this book engages with the contested nature of civil society and how it is socially constructed through research and development activities, by looking at contemporary discourses and manifestations of civil society in the two countries, including national and community-level organizations, associations, and networks that operate in a variety of sectors, such as gender, the environment and health.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in Cambodia and Vietnam, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian studies, Southeast Asian politics, development studies and civil society.
This book examines how in both countries, civil society actors and the state manage their relationship to one another in an environment that is continuously shaped and (re)constructed by changing legislation, collaboration and negotiation, advocacy and protest, and social control. Further, it explores the countries’ divergent experiences whilst also uncovering the underlying basis and drivers of civil society activity that are shared by Cambodia and Vietnam. Crucially, this book engages with the contested nature of civil society and how it is socially constructed through research and development activities, by looking at contemporary discourses and manifestations of civil society in the two countries, including national and community-level organizations, associations, and networks that operate in a variety of sectors, such as gender, the environment and health.
Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted in Cambodia and Vietnam, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian studies, Southeast Asian politics, development studies and civil society.