This paper provides evidence of alternative urban food strategies challenging ethnocentric public/private models of urban space that have their roots in a particular historical experience of the Western city. This will be achieved by painting a brief "foodscape" of the sprawling, dynamic metropolis of Bangkok. Specific attention will be devoted to the nature of gender relations in this urban food system, particularly with respect to the culture of public eating. I will argue that, traditionally, women and men in Bangkok occupy different socio-spatial positions in the Bangkok food system and that, more recently, femininity and masculinity are being spatially re-orchestrated in light of "postmodern" developments. The first example will detail the arrival of the "plastic-bag housewife," who is instrumental in blurring public and private space in Bangkok. Quotidian, mass-based food strategies will be compared and contrasted with elite food establishments of recent vintage in the city. Many of these have a postmodern quality, blending nostalgic architectural and design pastiche with the contemporary restaurant. "Food gardens" and restaurants in an ostensibly "royal style" represent and promote specific and new forms of gender relations. The place of women within the constellation of these relations does not reflect the traditional economic and social prominence of women in the community. Instead, 6lite establishments either display women publicly as aesthetic objects or capitalize on their talents in the "back" areas of the kitchen. Thai men, who are a minority of small foodshop owners, are involved in key roles in the larger, more profitable food establishments. The nature of "public" and "private" in Bangkok civil society, as well as the postmodern blurring of points along the continuum, cannot be separated from the locally specific, dynamic Thai constructions and practices of gender. 526

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Background: Globally, two billion workers are employed informally but there is limited research on the relationship between informal work and health. Existing studies have focused on informality as an employment condition, with little emphasis on the diversity of physical and social contexts in which informal work takes place. The study considers the diversity of informal workplaces and explores the ways in which this diversity might influence health and well-being of two informal occupational groups in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar. Methods: We conducted 21 field observations and 47 semi-structured interviews with street vendors and homebased garment workers based in Yangon, Myanmar. A constant comparative method was used to identify and compare how the physical characteristics of their informal workplaces affect their health for these two informal subgroups. Results: Although both street vendors and home-based garment workers work informally, their exposure to occupational health and income risks are specific to the physical features of their informal workplaces. Street vendors, who work in public spaces with minimal coverage, are more likely to experience the direct effects of outdoor pollution, inclement weather and ergonomic risks from lifting, carrying and transporting heavy merchandise while home-based garment workers, many of whom live and work in unsanitary housing and deprived neighborhoods, are more likely to experience pollution in or near their homes, and ergonomic risks from poor posture. Similarly, although both groups face safety challenges, street vendors face urban violence and abuse during their commute and at vending points whereas home-based garment workers felt unsafe in their homebased workplaces due to the presence of crime and violence in their neighborhoods.

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