Diversity and change in food wellbeing: Cases from Southeast Asia and Nepal

This volume presents recent research on food and nutrition in Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Nepal. The overall theme is food wellbeing, which is seen as having two key components: food and nutrition security, and food sovereignty. The cases cover a diversity of contexts, ranging from indigenous communities and rural villages to the urban environment. The studies highlight the subjective dimensions of food wellbeing, such as values attached to certain foods and emic meanings of food security and nutrition, and show how these may divert from objective assessments of food and nutrition security. Another pervasive theme is the relational dimension of food wellbeing, visible in the importance of social capital for access to food and the role of gender relations in intra-household food distribution. While change is an integral factor in all studies, three deal specifically with the outcomes of interventions aimed at improving food and nutrition security at the local level. It shows how outcomes may be different than expected and how an intervention may have a positive spill-over effect on others than the targeted beneficiaries, in this way contributing to food sovereignty. Together the studies reveal the meanings and feelings behind food data in various contexts.