Dissertation Workshop on Agrarian Transition in SEA

I just got an email today from Harvey via Pauline that there will be a dissertation workshop on "the challenges of agrarian transition in Southeast Asia". It's held in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines from 30 May to 1 June 2008!

2 exciting points:
1) I can finally work with other veggie people and stop feeling left out amongst migration studies and hydrologists!
2) It ends 2 days before the SEAGA conference which is also held in Philippines! Kill 2 birds with 1 stone!

I emailed Harvey immediately thanking him for circulating the email since I really don't think anybody else is studying farmers. Either way, he replied saying that he previously went for the same workshop in 2006 and found it very useful! (He was studying the pig industry in Malaysia)

2 other exciting academic points:
1. I fulfill 2 set of the 6 core processes examined at this workshop!

• Intensification of regulation, as new forms of private, state and supra-state power are developed and formalized to govern agricultural production and exchange relationships
• Processes of environmental change that modify the relationship between society and nature to reflect new human impacts and new valuations of resources.

2. There are people I recognize by name and reputation on the list of facilitators!

• Philip Hirsch (!!!) - I actually own the book he wrote "Seeing Forest for Trees" and I've briefly spied him in aacaan sombat office in Changrai
• Jonathan Rigg - He worked on some tsunami studies with people in my department and I've also spied him at the last SEAGA conference at NYGH

Other facilitators include:

• Philip Kelly (York University)
• Michael Leaf (UBC)
• Tania Li (University of Toronto)
• Pham Van Cu (Hanoi University of Sciences)
• Peter Vandergeest (York University)
• Chusak Wittayapak (Changmai University)
• Doracie Zoleta-Nantes (University of the Philippines)

I am excited. Can you tell? haha