Recent activities, winter 2014

As I head into 2014 the winter will be unusually busy, even by my standards. Of course, there is teaching, at Trent University: the Blackboard site for my winter term course, IDST - ANTH - SAFS 2600H, 'Peasants, food and agrarian change', is ready and teaching starts on Monday 6 January at 9 in the morning. I must say that I always look forward to teaching this course because it is, in a very real sense, what I do.  At the University I will also have my administrative responsibilities as Chair of the Department of International Development Studies. In terms of scholarly activity, there will be a lot of it. In early January I will give a Keynote Address at the 2014 Conference of the Atlantic International Studies Association Annual Meeting, in Sackville, Nova Scotia. In late January I will be off to Pondicherry in India -- my first trip in 5 years -- to give a paper at a conference on The Agrarian Transition in India. I will then be delivering a Keynote Address to the annual International Development Studies Student's Association conference at the University of Toronto in Scarborough. Other talks are probable as I continue to promote my most recent book, Hungry for Change: Farmers, Food Justice and the Agrarian Question. In terms of my advisory work, I will continue in my role as a Gender and Poverty Adviser to the United Nations Development Programme's Gender Team as they continue to roll out the Global Gender and Economic Policy Management Initiative in the Asia-Pacific region. I will complete revisions to a training module on gender, economics and the environment in early January, and in February will travel to Vietnam -- my first trip in 7 years -- to deliver tailor-made training to senior civil servants in the economics ministries of the Vietnamese government.  I will also spend some time in Seoul as part of that work in May, to which I look forward. There is also the possibility of some work with the UN Capital Development Fund as I have designed a major project for them. It will be a busy winter.