Thailand has experienced dramatic growth of large national and international modern food retailers, such as supermarkets, hypermarkets and convenience stores in large cities and regional centres in the last two decades. Nevertheless, Thai consumers continue to purchase perishables (fruits, vegetables and animal products) from fresh markets (wet markets, talat sot) contradicting predictions from analysts that modern food retail chains will rapidly replace fresh markets as the preferred venue for purchasing all types of foods. This paper examines trust in food retail systems as an under-explored dimension lying behind the continued patronage by Thais of fresh markets to purchase perishable items. It derives from a research program commenced in 2005 that includes fieldwork visits, interviews and questionnaires. In the context of the Thai food retail transition, we propose that trust affects relationships between consumers and (1) individual fresh market-based vendors, (2) the food products sold at fresh markets and (3) the food retail system more broadly. If fresh markets can be maintained in the face of sustained pressure from modern national and international food retailers, Thais will continue to use them. Meanwhile, trust is a relatively unrecognised dimension that is supporting the continued existence of traditional food retail formats.

In rural communities on the north bank of River Gambia, religious 'visitations' or pilgrimage ceremonies () are becoming increasingly popular. These ceremonies have been described as a hallmark of Senegalese urban Sufism but are currently organised across the countryside and communicated in wide personal networks and through social media to attract guests and strangers from near and far. The sensibilities articulated in preparations for ceremonies promote inclusiveness, hospitality and the bridging of difference. Organisers appeal to the 'oneness' of humankind, to be achieved in by transcending differences between people and between humans and the spiritual realm, through communal prayers that enhance the circulation of God-given blessing. This article takes debates among Wolof speakers in rural Gambia over such Muslim religious ceremonies as the starting point to explore how attention to 'network' can illuminate various appeals to 'shared humanity'. Appeals to human unity feature divergent, or in part competing values and virtues, and bring particular social forms and worlds into being. These, I will show, are articulated as modes of consumption, but also moral living, including forms of modesty and preferences for rural lifestyles and futures, and convey generational differences. The article questions what 'politics' of shared humanity encompasses, and argues for a gaze beyond dyadic relationships and interpersonal networks, and a perspective on goes into, as well as takes part in, world-making.