About The Author
Gisèle Yasmeen began studying Bangkok's "foodscape" in 1991 for her Ph.D. dissertation, which was completed in 1996 at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Subsequently, she undertook post-doctoral work in the area of urban food-systems in Thailand, as well as the Philippines with comparative work in India funded by, among others, the Canadian International Developren Agency, the Sustainable Development Research Institores at UBC and the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. She also served as a consultant for the United Nations Foo and Agriculture Organization, the International Develop ment Research Centre and a host of other clients. Gisèle Yasmeen is a senior executive with the Canadian federal government. She has published widely and has provided frequent media commentary on matters related to Asia and international development.
About The Book
Bangkok's Foodscape: Public Eating, Gender Relations and Urban Change provides an overview and analysis of the habit of "public eating" in Thai society with specific attention paid to the case study of Bangkok where the phenomenon has been particularly widespread for several decades. Using the well-established ethnographic approach of "thick description", this contribution to the study of Thai and Southeast Asian foodways concentrates on the nexus between eating habits, the social construction of gender and patterns of urban development in one of the world's mega-cities. By providing a detailed snapshot of the rapid growth period of the early to mid-1990s in central Bangkok and concluding with insights as to the impacts of the economic crisis that wreaked havoc in the latter part of the decade, Gisèle Yasmeen illustrates the recursive social, economic and cultural impacts of the "foodscape" on urban space.
Preface
This study examines public eating in urban Thai society. The book provides a "thick description" of the recursive relationship between society and space by advancing the concept of foodscape. The focus is the widespread habit of purchas-ing prepared food in Bangkok. Three interrelated questions form the heart of the research effort: 1. How can one represent and interpret Bangkok's food-system? What are its past, current, and future trends? 2. How is Bangkok's foodscape gendered? Is it possible to typologize eating establishments vis-à-vis gender relations in urban Thailand? What are the different roles played by women and men in the culture of public eating? Are gender relations complementary, hierarchical, or antagonistic? 3. What are the spaces associated with the sale of cooked food in Bangkok, and how are these being affected by rapid urban development? How are food-shop owners adjusting to the socio-spatial changes? How is space conceptualized with respect to gender and food-systems in Thai society? Are private/public spheres relevant in the Bangkok case? Women dominate the sale of prepared foods, particularly at the level of small and micro-enterprises. What is fascinating about the Thai case is the presence of women in this sector, making them a firm part of the public sphere. By looking at the mutual interrelationship between food-systems, gender relations, and urban spatial phenomena, I establish why and how public eating is gendered and how small food shop (eating establishment) owners are adjusting to the rapidly changing environment of Bangkok. The theoretical pivot is that urban space is gendered with respect to the food. system in unique ways that intersect with discourses of "public" and "private" Through recourse to relevant literature, statistics, and empirical research, I construct tion, formal and informal interviewing, and a quantitative survey of the Victory a portrait of Bangkok's foodscape. The methods used include participant-observa-and more traditional approaches to urban geography. A self-reflexive use of field Monument Area in Central Bangkok. The result is a hybrid between ethnography notes and interview transcripts creates a grounded representation of place focussed on the field research encounter. Chapter 1 unearths the foundations of the research project. First, a sketch is provided of the subject matter to introduce the central questions this study addresses. The study of food and foodways' is justified and the bodies of literature briefly commented on that have conditioned my view of urban foodscapes, a concept introduced in the first chapter. The study's theoretical "hook" is outlined in greater detail in Chapter 2, which draws on the work of Smith, de Certeau, and cultural geography to advance the notion of foodscape and how it can be used to interrogate public/private sphere models. Chapter 3 introduces the methodological approach, ethnography broadly defined, and illustrates through examples how I went about reaching conclusions and gathering data. The Victory Monument case study area is also presented. Chapter 4 outlines the basic structure and function of the Thai food-system and couches it in wider Southeast Asian foodways. Chapter 5 focuses on Thai and Southeast Asian gender relations in the food-system and introduces the results of the quantitative survey. In Chapter 6, the study's principal informants are introduced and their daily lives profiled. Daily routines and operating budgets are presented and analyzed. Chapter 7 weaves together the factors that enable cooked-food sellers to open a business. The necessary and contingent relations present in different locational environments and the changing real-estate market and role of the local state are also explained. This chapter also introduces the important topic of the foodscape's encounter with globalization and the rapidly changing local-global dialectic. Chapter 8 summarizes several years of work examining the impact of the Asian economic crisis, and subsequent, gradual recovery, on the food-system of Thailand. The final chapter serves as a quo vadis with commentaries on the situation found in Bangkok in the first few years of the new millennium. This book's final chapter illustrates some of the major changes affecting Bangkok's foodscape in the turbulent years following the devaluation of the Thai baht in 1997 and the subsequent Asian economic crisis.
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