This presentation summarizes a new book analyzing the history of food security and agricultural development initiatives in post-colonial Africa and outlining a vision for future prosperity. The basic argument has three parts. First, development organizations and governments will only begin to seriously address food insecurity in Africa when they more fully question the assumption that production agriculture is the solution, an idea that is central to crop science or agronomy. Second, agricultural development must be seen as more than the first step in an industrial development process, but as a sustainable livelihood that has value in and of itself. Third, an agroecological approach, combined with good governance, will allow people to have greater control over their food systems, produce healthy food more sustainably, and enhance access to food by the poorest of the poor. Following a broad conceptual introduction emphasizing political agronomy and political ecology, the author reviews past food security and agricultural development experiences in four countries where he has undertaken research: Mali, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Botswana. He then examines successful efforts in each of the aforementioned countries and outlines future directions that emphasize agroecology, the application of ecological principles to agricultural systems. He concludes with some ideas about institutions at the national, regional and international levels. To build more resilient food systems and a different kind of development, new institutions will need to emerge that support agroecology and vibrant rurality.

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In this presentation, I discuss how street traders’ associations in Harare (Zimbabwe) mobilize and organize to defend the interests of traders operating in a politically volatile and contested urban environment. I demonstrate how external political dynamics, and institutional constraints shape the strategies and outcomes of these associations. Drawing on qualitative research, including interviews with municipal officials, civil society leaders and focus groups with street traders, the findings reveal that while some associations engage in episodic activism, responding to immediate crises like harassment or eviction, their efforts often lack sustained impact. This is due to challenges in maintaining legitimacy, fostering long-term member engagement, and navigating a politically polarized context. I argue that despite their actions leading to incremental gains, they fail to catalyze structural changes in urban policy and planning. The fragmentation and political polarization within the associations weaken their bargaining power to influence policy agendas or propose alternative policies for negotiation with urban authorities.

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Becoming 'Unlawful': Homeownership, housing bureaucracy, and the production of precarity in Eastridge, Cape Town, South Africa

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Join us for a talk with Cornell alums Sutee Anantsuksomsri, PhD and Nij Tontisirin, PhD where they discuss the role of street food in Bangkok's identity and development.

This talk will take place in Sibley Hall 208 on Monday, Decmeber 9 from 12:00pm to 2:30pm. The talk will be followed by lunch and a Q&A.

About the Talk

Street food has long been a defining element of Bangkok’s urban landscape, playing an essential role in both the city’s culinary identity and its socio-economic development. This study explores how food streets act as catalysts for urban development through an analysis of three significant streets in Bangkok: Yaowarat Road, Pracharajbumpen Road, and Bantadthong Road. Each street reflects unique narratives of cultural heritage, globalization, and urban transformation. Yaowarat Road, known as Chinatown, has been a center of Chinese heritage for over a century. The area’s vibrant food scene is deeply rooted in the traditions of local families who have lived and worked there for generations. This cultural legacy has set Yaowarat’s status as a landmark of historical and culinary significance in Bangkok, drawing both locals and tourists alike. In contrast, Pracharajbumpen Road showcases the effects of recent migration and international investment. The emergence of numerous Chinese restaurants, mainly operated by investors from Mainland China, signifies a shift in the area's character. This influx of new flavors and economic opportunities has transformed the urban dynamics, bringing fresh vibrancy to the street. Bantadthong Road* serves as an example of the intersection between local popularity and global tourism. Once a quieter area, it has now become a bustling food hub, attracting attention from both Thai locals and Chinese tourists. The growth of Chinese-owned establishments underscores the increasing impact of international investment on Bangkok’s food culture and urban environment. By examining these three streets, this study illustrates how food streets function as reflections of broader urban processes. They showcase cultural exchange, economic shifts, and the complexities of globalization, emphasizing the transformative role of food streets in shaping Bangkok’s urban identity and future development.

* This research on Bantadthong Road is part of a collaborative project between the presenters and respondent, supported by a Chulalongkorn University-Cornell University Global Hubs Seed Grant. The project focuses on using urban modeling tools to analyze and guide the neighborhood’s rapid transformation, providing insights into the dynamics of urban change and development in Bangkok.

About the Speakers

Sutee Anantsuksomsri, PhD

Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University

Associate Professor of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University

President of Thailand Section of Regional Science International

The Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Regional Science Association International

Sutee Anantsuksomsri is an associate professor in the Department of Urban Regional Planning at Chulalongkorn University, where he also serves as the deputy dean of the Faculty of Architecture. He is also the head of the Center of Excellence in Regional, Urban, & Built Environmental Analytics at Chulalongkorn University. He specializes in urban economics, regional and urban development, complex systems, resilient cities, and geoinformatics. Anantsuksomsri has received grants from organizations such as Thailand Science Research and Innovation, the Sumitomo Foundation, ADPC, SERVIR, NASA, and USAID to support his research. He has served as the editor-in-chief of Nakhara: Journal of Environmental Design and Planning (indexed in Scopus Q1) and is a member of the editorial boards of several academic journals. He has also served as an expert on the National Smart City Committee and has worked as a consultant for national and international organizations such as the Eastern Economic Corridor Office of Thailand and the Asian Development Bank.

Anantsuksomsri has previously held teaching positions at Cornell University and Waseda University. He holds a PhD and Master of Arts in regional science from Cornell University, a Master of Science in construction management from Northeastern University, and a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from Chulalongkorn University. He is the president of the Thailand Section of Regional Science International and a council member of the Diversity and Inclusion Committee for the Regional Science Association International.

Nij Tontisirin, PhD

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University, Thailand

Chair, Program in Urban Environmental Planning and Development, Faculty of Architecture and Planning, Thammasat University, Thailand

Nij Tontisirin is an associate professor of urban planning and the chair of the Program in Urban Environmental Planning and Development at Thammasat University Faculty of Architecture and Planning. Her academic expertise includes regional science, urban and regional economics, infrastructure development, land use changes, and climate risk assessment, particularly in Thailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor. Her work bridges academia and practice, with significant contributions to policy development and urban planning.

She holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Regional Science from Cornell University, a Master in Urban Planning from Harvard University, and a Bachelor in Architecture (First Class Honor) from Chulalongkorn University.

Talk by Zehra Hashmi (History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania)

This talk examines how and why Pakistan’s national biometric-based identification regime came to use an individual’s blood relations to construct and track uniquely identified individuals. Through the concept of datafied kinship, it proposes that the uses of kin networks in Pakistan’s identity database, as information, can reconfigure our understanding of contemporary identification practices at large: individual identity is generated and tracked through relatedness, not unique bodily characteristics, or biometrics alone. To demonstrate this, it first examines how the database design works to construct identity through kin, and specifically how it excludes individuals on the basis of their kin through technological categories such as that of the “family intruder.” Second, it shows how this mode of individual identification differs and departs from the longstanding classificatory schemas that were so foundational to taxonomizing identity along the lines of caste, tribe, and religion in South Asia. It traces this diverging logic—between classification and individuation—to the emergence of individuating technologies in 1970s Pakistan, in the aftermath of the civil war between East Pakistan and West Pakistan, and during the escalating Cold War in the region. In so doing, it illustrates how the political stakes of Pakistan’s identification regime lie not only in its new possibilities for surveillance, a function of its individuating and tracking technology, or its classificatory refusal, but also in their interconnections.

Zehra Hashmi is an assistant professor in the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is an anthropologist and historian who works on identification technologies in South Asia. Her research explores the everyday workings of securitization and surveillance in Pakistan through the intersection of identification, migration, kinship, and postcolonial and colonial governance. She received her PhD from the Interdepartmental Program in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan.

Talk by Ghazal Asif (Anthropology, Lahore University of Management Science)

For the past decade, the press in Pakistan has remained rife with stories of the kidnapping, forcible conversion to Islam, and marriages of young Hindu women at the hands of Muslim men. Women’s rights and minority advocacy groups have demanded a state-led response, but two attempts at legislation have already failed. In courts, legal redress requires a clear, visible difference between forcible abduction and what is termed “free will” elopement. However, these matters are complicated further when the very nature of Hindu women’s desires appears indeterminate. Accusations that young Hindu women have been seduced (warghalana) into conversion by Muslim men compete with claims that such women leave their natal homes upon becoming irrepressibly attracted to Islam and the Prophet. Drawing on an archive of conversions, elopements, and love affairs that I have been collecting since 2014, in this talk I problematize reductive binaries that focus only on the presence or absence of “free will”, to ask how hierarchies of il/licit desire feed into the public question of just who can claim control of young Hindu women’s bodies in Pakistan. I argue that the seeming unknowability of women’s desires underscores the entangled sexual and religious stakes at the heart of these events.

Ghazal Asif Farrukhi is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at LUMS, Lahore. In 2024-25, she is a fellow at the Women’s Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Ghazal is currently completing a book manuscript provisionally titled Hindu Intimacies Amidst Pakistan’s Muslim State, which focuses on how Hindu women navigate ritual, devotional, and social boundaries while constituting the interface for the state-led reform of religiously minoritized communities. She also writes on the politics of caste emancipation in Pakistan. Her research has been published in American Ethnologist, Inter-Asian Cultural Studies, and South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies.

Talk by Renny Thomas (Sociology & Social Anthropology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal)

My book, Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (2021), explored ethnographically, the various ways in which Indian scientists lived their religious and scientific lives. In this lecture, I attempt to examine conversations and debates from the early days of space science in India by examining how different Indian stakeholders responded to the new developments in understanding the cosmos and how they imagined space and space science. The ISRO, or the Indian Space Research Organization is one of the largest and generously funded techno-scientific projects in post-colonial India with many successes, ups and downs. The intention of this lecture is not to discuss the case of ISRO. Instead, the lecture examines the early days of ‘space science’; the small history of a big scientific project in modern India. Based on archival sources, I look at how the cosmos and space were discussed in the parliamentary debates and the curiosity it generated among various actors in the early 1960s. The lecture analyzes the nature of those debates to see how space science was imagined religiously and how categories from religion were employed to describe the nature of space, cosmos, and space science.

Renny Thomas is currently the Taki Visiting Global Professor at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study, New York University (NYU-Gallatin), New York (2024-2025) and an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. He has been a Charles Wallace Fellow in Social Anthropology at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK (2017-2018), and a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Cultural History at Friedrich-Schiller University-Jena, Germany (2022-2023). He is the author of Science and Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (Routledge, 2021), and co-editor of Mapping Scientific Method: Disciplinary Narrations (Routledge, 2022), Religion and Technology: Power, the Sacred, and the Digital (forthcoming), and Decolonial Keywords: South Asian Thoughts and Attitudes (forthcoming).