My research studies the impact of urbanisation on diets, in the "South", using Indonesia as a case study. My project is multidisciplinary in nature, as it draws on literature from different fields—urban geography, development studies, anthropology, public and global health—and uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, to challenge the assumption of a universal "nutrition transition"—that is, the hypothesis of a uniform shift, in urban(ising) areas of the South, towards so-called "Western" diets, characterised by high intake of overall calories and nutrients such as fats, sugars and refined carbohydrates, which are associated with increased likelihood of chronic disease occurrence.

Instead, I propose an alternative, but complementary, understanding of the process of dietary change that considers how food choices are influenced, on the one hand, by specific cultural factors, related to the production, consumption, and understanding of food itself; and on the other hand, by local environmental factors, such as the particular shape of cities and urban food systems in the South, where often multiple actors—both formal and informal—coexist. 

My research project is carried out under the Joint Doctoral Programme (JDP) in Geography at King’s College London and the National University of Singapore.

Urbanisation, food and nutrition security, urban health, indigenous food systems, knowledge and practices