Urbanization, Sustainability, and Livelihood Strategies

Urbanization, Sustainability, and Livelihood Strategies

Abstract

Building on work in political ecology, development, and migration, this presentation will explore the ways in which state planned urban expansion in Thailand (Samut Prakan and Nakhon Ratchasima provinces) alters land allocations, natural resource availabilities, and household labor organization among agrarian households.  Given that agricultural households’ livelihoods closely depend on natural resource availabilities, they experience increased vulnerability to the Thai state’s urban expansion policies and to the environmental effects of peri-urbanization.  This presentation will also further consider decentralized governance issues within a political ecological framework. 

Brief personal biography

gullette.jpgDr. Gregory Gullette is currently an assistant professor of anthropology at Santa Clara University and is a visiting fellow at the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University.  He primarily conducts ethnographic research in Thailand and Mexico, while exploring theoretical perspectives that connect policies on natural resource usage and economic development to the formation of labor mobilities and environmental and social inequalities.  He has also conducted applied research in the United States on anti-tobacco health campaigns and in New Zealand on sustainable forestry..

Wednesday, September 4, 2013 Time: 12:30 – 13:30 hrs. Room 109 (Srabua), 1st Floor