Multiple Modernities in the Megacity? Economic and Spatial Restructuring of Food Markets in Dhaka / Bangladesh

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The megaurban food system of Dhaka is currently experiencing the fast growth of modern retail outlets. Although we can certainly not yet speak of a “supermarket revolution” (Humphrey 2007), this modernisation process which is driven by global change both in terms of new global food chains and changing food and shopping preferences, impacts the existing retail system of Dhaka in many ways. It gradually leads to shifts in its economic and spatial structure, but it also requires specific marketing strategies from the side of the new food entrepreneurs to cater the needs of the megaurban consumers.The coexistence of and the interaction between existing and newly established food retail structures leads to what Jackson (2004) has called “multiple modernities”. Global economic drivers, new food habits, new types of food outlets, and the characteristics and needs of the largely informally organized existing food system interact in a dynamic way, thus creating complex new forms of modernity. The project will analyse these processes empirically by integrating the perspectives of development economics and cultural geography. It will employ the concept of “real markets”, with an emphasis on the politics of markets, on power relations, and on the resulting institutional arrangements that govern the megaurban food system and deeply impact the livelihoods of “real people” in the megacity.