Food, diversity, vulnerability and social change (Research findings from insular Southeast Asia)

Food is a universal basic need. The diverse ways in which people and households try to meet this need, the constraints they are up against in doing so, and the strategies they develop to reduce their vulnerability to food insecurity form the core of this book. A large range of findings on these subjects is reviewed and analysed, based on recent research carried out in Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia and the Philippines. Household food provision and the nutritional status of household members reflect processes and outcomes that reach far beyond agricultural parameters of food production and biological indicators of nutrient intake. They evolve in a dynamic and gendered context shaped by ecological, socio-cultural, economic and political factors. Hence, research in the field provides a meeting ground for researchers with various disciplinary backgrounds, like agronomists, nutrition scientists, anthropologists, sociologists, and economists. The methodological implications of this are discussed in the book as well. The author, Anke Niehof, holds the chair of sociology of consumers and households at Wageningen University. She has widely published on issues relating to household food security and spent about ten years of her working life in Indonesia.