Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses formality-informality articulations through an examination of construction work in and around Yangon, Myanmar. I argue that formality-informality articulations are fruitful points of entry for investigating everyday state formation, and the contested nature of state power.

Paper long abstract:

At first glance, Myanmar appears anomalous to global narratives of labor market flexibilization.

Since the reintroduction of electoral democracy in 2010, the Myanmar government has legalized trade unions and tripartite collective bargaining as means for workers' to realize the recently-introduced minimum wage, and existing occupational health and safety laws. In the context of Myanmar's ongoing political and economic transformations, these shifts in labour policy suggest a move of formalization—an effort, that is, to expand state regulation over the largely informal employment relations that dominate Myanmar's economy. Yet the persistence of sub-contracting, sub-sub-contracting, and labour brokerage—all of which emerged following the collapse of socialist rule in 1988—have ensured that formalization here remains a rather shallow project. In other words, informality persists behind the mask of formalization. This is a regulatory disjuncture made most stark in large-scale "formal" enterprises and in formal government infrastructure projects that remain dependent on informal labour. In the present paper, I consider this articulation of formality and informality through an examination of employment relations in the construction sector in and around Yangon. I suggest that those sites where we find such articulations of formality and informality offer particularly fruitful points of entry for pursuing a contemporary anthropology of the state. For it is precisely in the quotidian claims for, or avoidances of, formalization that we can observe everyday processes of state formation, and the contested nature of state power.