The global consumption of meat and animal products has increased dramatically in recent decades, particularly due to rising consumption in so-called developing countries. This increase has popularly been explained as part of a "nutrition transition" driven by rising income, urbanisation and foreign culinary influences. From the supply side, the increase has been approached as part of a "livestock revolution", or alternatively as the outcome of capitalist agricultural processes. This paper argues, however, that these explanations have given insufficient attention to how and why consumption of meat changes. The paper analyses the case of Vietnam, where meat consumption has increased very rapidly since the initiation of market reforms in 1986. In understanding how meat consumption and development have coevolved, the paper argues that consumption should be approached at the intersection between systems of provision and everyday practices. With this backdropand partly combining, partly going beyond standard explanationsthe paper locates four main contributing factors towards increasing meat consumption in Vietnam: (1) changes in systems of provision for meat, (2) the meat intensification of traditional meals and the import of meat-intensive eating practices from abroad, (3) the increasing prevalence of eating out; and (4) the positive social connotations attached to meat as a symbol of development and progress. The paper goes on to argue that the dramatic meatification of food provision and practice in Vietnam should be understood as the result of capitalist development processes and their associated economic and social changes, rather than the 'natural' and inevitable outcome of development.

The rapid developments in Vietnam since the economic reforms (doi moi) initiated in 1986 have led to a transformation of urban mobility. In less than 20 years, motorbike ownership in the country increased tenfold, and there are now 4 million motorbikes in Hanoi alone. While the two-wheelers dominate traffic, car ownership has increased rapidly in the last decade. This article approaches the consumption of cars and motorbikes in the Vietnamese capital from a social practice theory perspective. It particularly emphasises material conditions for practices in terms of systems of provision, available technology and infrastructure. This emphasis, the article argues, is necessary to account for large-scale changes in consumption in a context of rapid economic development. These conditions, however, have co-evolved with mobility practices and the local geography of consumption. Private cars in many ways represent a break with the dominant two-wheeled conditions and practices, but bring along social distinction, safety and comfort. In turn, a new automobility regime is emerging in the outskirts of Hanoi. The article analyses these material, social and bodily pillars of practices, and based on fieldwork in Hanoi approaches the changing urban mobility in the interplay between development and everyday life.

The 'meatification' (Weis, 2013) of human diets has been subject to increasing scholarly attention in recent years, along with its many impacts. While the rapidly expanding meatification in many Asian countries has been noted, the geographies of these processes have been left largely unexplored. This paper maps the changing geographies of meat with special focus on Southeast Asia. We use Tony Weis' concept of 'the industrial grain-oilseed-livestock complex' to analyse how forms of systemic meatification are taking place in Asia. We map and analyse regional trends in meat production and consumption, as well as trade patterns in meat products and dominant feed crops. We argue that the regional meat complex emerges through increasingly regional development processes and capital, as well as through new South-South connections. The geographies of meatification in Southeast Asia thus constitute an empirical manifestation of the emerging multipolarity of the global food regime.

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The private car comes with promises of modernity and comfortable mobility for the growing middle class in Vietnam. Vietnam's government has also targeted the domestic automobile industry as a "spearhead industry" in an attempt to achieve industrial upgrading. Paradoxically, the government is simultaneously restraining the market for this industry through imposing high taxes and fees on cars, making them available only to a limited number of people. This article discusses the promises and problems of the automobile in Vietnam. It analyses policies related to the development of the automobile industry, and discusses the reasons for the relative failure of the project. The article argues that the failure is linked to weaknesses in Vietnamese development strategies, but also to the potential problems an expansion in car ownership in Vietnam would lead to. The paper contends that the car represents a development dilemma between industrialisation and urban mobility, and that environmental, energy and social concerns add to the rationale for limiting car ownership. Furthermore, while forces promoting car-driven industrialisation appear to be gaining ground, the requirements for regional economic integration may challenge the future of the infant automobile industry.

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The nature of global development has changed substantially over the past three decades in step with the intensified globalisation of capitalism and its imperatives of growth and expanding consumption. Most significant is the ongoing shift in the balance of the global economy towards the South in general and the East in particular. As the 'Rise of the South' materialises, a number of emerging economies are moving beyond their roles as factories of the world and are turning their focus towards expanding domestic markets. The emergence of high-consuming middle classes in these countries represents a profound challenge for global sustainability. When coupled with the as-yet unsuccessful efforts to constrain the consumption in the mature capitalist countries, rising global consumption constitutes one of the greatest challenges to sustainable development. Neither development theory nor sustainability policy has adequately acknowledged surging global consumption. How do we best understand the changes behind the dramatic increase in consumption? Drawing on social practice theory as well as the political economy of capitalist development, this article analyses the social and environmental dimensions of increasing consumption in the South, using India and Vietnam as case studies.

The rapidly escalating production and consumption of meat across the world has drawn much attention in recent years. While mainstream accounts tend to see the phenomenon as driven by 'natural' processes of consumption pattern change through economic development, critical geographies have turned to exploring the uneven capitalist processes underpinning what Tony Weis calls 'meatification'. In Weis' view, meatification unfolds through what he calls 'the industrial grain-oilseedlivestock complex', which is presently becoming a dominant form of agricultural production worldwide. Simultaneously, but less thoroughly investigated in the emerging scholarship, meatification unfolds in and through everyday geographies of consumption that we conceptualize as variegated 'meatscapes'. By bringing together critical geographers' interest in the political economy of meat with practice theory and consumption research, this contribution furthers the geographical dialogue around the spatial transformations brought about by meatification. Looking at Vietnam and China as examples of rapidly meatifying countries, we explore the intersection of macro-scale spatial transformations through trade and commodity flows and, at the microscale, transformations in food practices. We thus argue for an approach to meatification that is multi-scalar and conducive to further regionally specific research of meatification in Asia and beyond.