PhD defence: Sofie Mortensen (IFRO)

PhD defence by Sofie Mortensen, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen (IFRO).

Thesis:

Agrarian Change and Emotional Struggles over Land, Labor and Mobility
– Subjectivity Formation among Myanmar youth in Thailand

Across the world, policy and modernization discourses portray rural youth as having lost interest in rural and agrarian life and as irresistibly drawn to modern lifestyles in urban centers.

In her thesis, Sofie Mortensen explores this phenomenon through the case of rural youth out-migration from Myanmar to Thailand’s agriculture and tourism sectors, which receive very little attention compared to for example factory and fishery workers.

Sofie Mortensen’s PhD thesis contributes to a nuanced perspective on young people’s emotional and subjective experiences of precarity and illegalization under neoliberal agrarian relations of production and migration regimes, and in doing so, further enhances our understanding of the unanticipated developments within contemporary agrarian societies.

For full abstract, details and more, visit the official event page on KU.dk here.

The defence is open to all.