New and Old Faces of Hunger: Cambodia, Timor Leste, and Food Crises

Drawing on research in Cambodia and Timor Leste, the author examines historical and recent causes of food insecurity and how they are related to the dynamics of the global food crisis. Despite differences in culture, society, geography, and political history, both countries have been subjected to th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review - Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems, and Civilizations Historical Systems, and Civilizations, 2009-01, Vol.32 (1), p.61-89
Main Author: Guttal, Shalmali
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Cambodia
Crises
Famine
Farm exports
Food crops
Food economics
Food security
Food sovereignty
Hunger
Ideologies
Markets
Political Development
Rice
Sustainable agriculture
Work Environment
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Summary:Drawing on research in Cambodia and Timor Leste, the author examines historical and recent causes of food insecurity and how they are related to the dynamics of the global food crisis. Despite differences in culture, society, geography, and political history, both countries have been subjected to the same macro forces of economic and political development in their independent, postcolonial eras. Both countries have been the "wards" of the international community through United Nations-World Bank designed postconflict reconstruction and nation building programs. The author argues that it is the same ideology at work in conditioning and reproducing the food crisis globally, as well as nationally in Cambodia and Timor Leste through neoliberal development and free market ideology. As people in the two nations have struggled to rebuild their lives after occupation, war, and genocide, this ideology and its accompanying development model has debilitated rather than rehabilitated their capacities, thus making them particularly vulnerable to global food and financial crises.
ISSN:0147-9032
2327-445X