Events

Jointly organized by Asia Research Institute, and Centre for Family and Population Research, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore.

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Wei-Jun Jean Yeung, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

In this seminar I examine the intersections between economic transformation and social change, through the lens of the family. Drawing mainly on work in rural areas of Southeast Asia, including in the Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam, the seminar will highlight the social and family/household implications of livelihood change. The delocalization of livelihoods is having significant effects on the family, from strategies of caring to the geriatrification of farming. The market economy is increasingly being accompanied by the emergence of a market society in which economic demands and exigencies are re-shaping social structure and relations, and vice versa. The question that lies at the core of the seminar is: How have the mechanics of economic transformation re-engineered societal arrangements and structures and, in turn, social and cultural norms?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Jonathan Rigg is Professor of Geography and Director of Asia Research Institute. His work mainly focuses on agrarian transformations in Southeast and South Asia. He has undertaken fieldwork in the Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam and also in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Jonathan’s most recent book is Challenging Southeast Asian Development: The Shadows of Success (Routledge, 2015). With Eric Thompson he has begun a new research grant with the title “Asian Smallholders: Transformation and Persistence” and he is also working on a new book with the title Thai Rural.

REGISTRATION

Admission is free. Please register at http://goo.gl/forms/e1C5720mSf by 11 January 2016.