Building Sustainable Food Systems in Asia: Multiple Rural-Urban Linkages in a Globalizing World
Overview
Globalization promotes connection and integration in the ASEAN region. Specifically, the rural-urban integration is seen as one of the by-products of globalization in terms of the economic, social, ecological and political aspects. The rural-urban integration could later on be a mechanism that could help address the many social and development programs including poverty, food security, and inequality, among others.
The Asian Rural Sociology Association (ARSA) is a facility and mechanism where recent developments, issues and discourses on rural and urban societies in Asia are tackled through the International Conferences that it organizes every four years. The 6th International Conference of ARSA is being organized with the theme “Building Sustainable Food Systems in Asia: Multiple Rural-Urban Linkages in a Globalizing World. It will be held on August 27-30, 2018 at Hasanuddin University, Makassar, Indonesia. Among the sub-themes of the Conference are rural-urban migration, political ecology and economy, food systems, social capital, gender systems in Given the situation above, the Asian Rural Sociology Association will discuss these issues in an international conference with the theme: “Building Sustainable Food Systems in Asia: Multiple Rural-Urban Linkages in a Globalizing World” which will be held August 27-30 date of 2018 at Hasanuddin University Makassar, Indonesia. The issues in this theme includes rural-urban migration, political ecology and economy, food systems, social capital, gender roles in sustainable development, and, local institution and governance.
Aim
- To promote knowledge and science in promoting linkages rural urban food system in globalizing world
- To bring together researcher, scientist, practitioner and scholar in the field of rural and urban studies
Scope
There are 9 topics will be discussed cover in the conference, namely
1. Rural Urban Migration:
For the 1st time in the history, the world’s urban population is almost as great as the number of rural residents. The world’s population are getting increases in urban areas, which caused by a continuity of migrant investments from rural areas to urban areas. Surging population in the urban areas, raises varies issues whether it is prolific economic, crime, social, environmental, and prolific political.
The growth of city population is a result of the massive internal migration from the villages to the cities ,it also reveals the most important issues to be discussed, on how migration policy should be formulated and positively impacted on villages and towns, and certainly impacted the growth of the city. The Orthodox strategy of development that done in a couple of decades ago, whom prefer the modernization of industry, technological sophistication, and the growth of the metropolis in geographical imbalance ,it is definitely created the deployment opportunities or economic opportunities, as well as become the main cause of a constantly massive displacement of villagers to the cities
2. Rural Political Economy and Ecology:
There are strong linkages among rural areas and urban areas in spatial as well as economically in point of view. The rural growth will affect the growth of the urban, vice versa. But the fact is, urban is growth faster than rurals,because of the development funds to urban areas is larger if it compare to the rural area. Moreover the transfer of surplus from agricultural areas in rural to urban industries in unbalanced with the transfer of surplus from the city to the village. Capital flows (net capital outflow), and a variety of transfer on resources was not only urban auspicious but also can’t afford to encourage the growth in rural areas. Even the potentially of the village are declined, rural ecology increasingly damaged, the poor in rural area increasingin number lagging behind due to the reduced capacity of rural resources. Opening access to the rural area in the form of harmonious infrastructure often utilized by the elite , government officials, and entrepreneurs are trying to occupied and exploit the village resources. Meanwhile the villagers are not empowered to play a role in managing their resources because the bargaining position is lower than the perpetrators of the exploitation. These condition are the reflection of political economic and political ecology connections between rural areas and urban areas that need a deeper scrutiny to establish a synergies among them.
3. Rural/Urban Food System:
In rural and urban areas, the context of global food and nutrition insecurity is still become an important issue. In general, the case of food insecurity/hunger is not only due to food production but also involved an uneven distribution of food that affects a limitation on food availability to be consumes. Urban food consumption is depends on rural food production and distribution factors. Therefor the sustainability of food systems including food production, food distribution and food consumption are essential. This session will explore the linkages of rural-urban food system in Asia, including several aspects that related to (1) regulations, guidelines and / or controlled the rural food production and food distribution process and furthermore on discussing how the food is ready to consume by urban community (2) Institutional that may give some contribution in food systems sustainability to achieve food independency or food and nutrition security.
4.Rural/Urban Social Capital:
The empirical Facts show that social capital relates to development because it can affect the principles informing the progress of economic and social welfare of a country. The State or community who have high social capital will tend to be more efficient and effective running of the various the activities to prosper and advance the lives of its citizens so do have the economic success higher than the country that have low trust capital . Social capital can be defined as a set of norms or informal values shared by members of a group that allows the establishment of cooperation. Thus the community which is able to cooperate is a society that is able to develop trust and networks. Relationship between the village and the city should based on mutual trust and the network and it was basically a relationship of cooperation . The context become imperative to be explore on how social capital contributed in building relations and harmonious city in the era of globalization
5. Rural/Urban Gender and livelihood:
Sustainability a living pattern and responsiveness towards gender equality is one of the strategic issues in the realization of food security both on the scale of local, national and global. These topics generally discussed about associations between gender relations in the context of food security with sustainable living pattern based relatedness between villages and cities. In it covered a sub-topic of: gender relations in the food security in the rural/urban; gender expertise and gender responsiveness in the food policy; the relationship between the gender relation with sustainable living systems; the context of the socio-economic vulnerability and ecological vulnerability in the sustainability of the agricultural/rural living patterns, as well as a strategy for sustainable living-based rural-urban interaction
6. Rural Production Sustainability:
It is really necessary to understand Rural Production Sustainability as one of the development indicators for Rural Community in Asia. A strong assumption that rural can be developed by pushing sustainable production creating a good linkage with urban community needs. In addition, it is believed that to promote knowledge and science in linking rural urban food system in globalizing world is a long standing issue in Asia. In other words, food system cannot growth without sustainable production and vice versa, production cannot sustain without a good food system supports (food system-production nexus). This session will explore how to strengthen Food System (rural-urban) through Rural Production (input side) Sustainability in Asia
7. Rural Techno-culture :
Nowadays, the rhythm of development and cultures tend to be not aligned. The culture moves in the rhythm of social life as a whole, while the construction was moving in rhythm to the accumulation of wealth. Disharmony that happening between these elements lead to unsustainable development and potentially become the trigger onset of multidimensional crises that have an impact on many sectors, such as food, energy and the environment. As the rapidly of development in technology, it will influence the development of the culture in a society on differently base in the spatial space i.e., village and town. Village getting developed based on its communal culture while city was developed by a culture of individualism and kalkulabitas. This perspective is need to be studied more deeply, on how technoculture is needed to be developed in building a synergy on village and city.
8. Rural Institution and Globalization:
Globalization as an integration process of various units of the region and the expansion economic of capitalism has brought a number of changes in the countryside. One of the elements that change is institutional. Some variety of the rule game (rule of the game) in the utilization of the resources of the countryside as well as interactions between actors that engaged in rural experience is changes by the introduction of globalization. This session discusses the relationship between rural institutional with dynamics driven by globalization. It covered the relationship between globalization with institutional land mastery; the relationship between the capitalism expansion with the process of disembeddedness in rural economy from the local social system; changes in the relationships between suppliers, traders and buyers on a chain of rural products supply; and the rural lifestyle changes behind the enactment of globalization
9. Rural/Local Governance:
Many developing countries in Asia still facing problems in their own government (local governance). The arises problems are ; Lack in the granting of services, lack of funds, lack of human resources , the low participation of citizens, the low level of capability building and the slow adopt in technology of the government and the poorness in socio demographic partnership. If this problem cannot be solved it will not only hamper the operations of the Ministry of governance but it will also impede the economic development of the region. In that context it takes forethought and innovative consideration to find strategies in tackling the weaknesses and the problems of local government (local government)).
ARSA - Asian Rural Sociology Association 