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- Convenor:
-
Graeme Young
(University of Glasgow)
Send message to Convenor
- Formats:
- Papers Synchronous
- Stream:
- Global inequalities
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel will explore how informal economies in cities in the Global South are governed; how different forms of governance might reinforce or transform power structures, exacerbate or address marginalization and impede or promote inclusive development; and what inclusive governance might entail.
Long Abstract:
Unsettling development demands an engagement with questions of power, marginalization and possibilities for inclusion. This panel will explore these by focusing on the governance of urban informal economies in the Global South. Presenters will be encouraged to address one or more of the following questions:
1. How can interdisciplinary approaches to the governance of informality provide critical insights into its evolution, its dynamics and possibilities for change?
2. How are the forms of exclusion that exist in the informal economy connected to power dynamics and other forms of marginalization surrounding class, gender, racial/ethnic identity, religion, migration, age and/or (dis)ability? How does governance reinforce, seek to address or neglect these dynamics and forms of marginalization?
3. What can the governance of informality reveal about state power; strategies of political control; forms of political competition, contestation and negotiation; representation; and the role of institutions in development?
4. What roles can different actors, including associations, unions, cooperatives, civil society groups and other organizations, play in governance and/or promoting inclusion?
5. How does informal economic activity facilitate, restrict or otherwise interact with strategies of accumulation and dispossession? How are these strategies connected to governance?
6. How does the governance of informal economies change during periods of crisis, including the COVID-19 pandemic, and what implications does this have for individuals who engage in informal economic activity?
7. What would the inclusive governance of informal economies entail in theory and practice, either in specific contexts or more generally? How could this be realized?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 July, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how weak power dynamics, whether formal or informal, exacerbate the marginalization of displaced households caused by the construction of Metro Line in the urban city, Lahore. We find awareness of governance laws through power dynamics addresses the issue of marginalization.
Paper long abstract:
Amid the issue of urban giantism in the Global South, power dynamics through informal networks play a significant role in addressing the miseries of marginalized groups, particularly those displaced due to the construction of infrastructure projects. Displacement tends to exacerbate the well-being of the marginalized displaced households. In this regard, power dynamics are considered significant in mitigating the hardships experienced by them, fundamentally, through cognizance of governance laws associated with land acquisition and provision of compensation. However, that awareness of governance laws comes from both the formal and informal networks. The informal means to get formal support relates to information, knowledge, awareness through friends and families and other informal groups of people with some political connections. Whereas, formal support relates to all the efforts, actions and endeavors taken by the executing and implementing agency Lahore Development Authority (LDA) to aware people about resettlement and compensation through public notices and through official meetings. Against this backdrop, this paper examines the issue of displacement caused by the construction of 27-km Orange Line Metro Train track in the metropolitan city of Lahore, Pakistan. A sample of 100 displaced households has been selected and by employing quantitative techniques. Interestingly, we find that both the informal and formal means positively affects the mechanism of getting the formal support but once controlled for the other correlates, formal means becomes insignificant whereas informal ways remain significant thereby suggesting that existing power relations in heterogeneous societies results in better welfare outcomes for the marginalized people through informal networks.
Paper short abstract:
With the focus on determinants of migration, the research on migration has undermined the agency of migrants. Using a capabilities approach, this paper captures the agency of seasonal migrants through the relationship between aspirations and migration decisions of rural households in India.
Paper long abstract:
Under the prominent scholarly pursuit of determinants of rural-urban migration, the agency of migrants continues to be underresearched. The priorities of rural migrants are overshadowed by explanations of rural-urban migration through aggregated indicators of economic growth. This dissertation project extends the capabilities approach to understand the agency of a rural migrant household under conditions of economic distress. With a case study of migrant households in rural Odisha, India, this project pursues two key objectives. First, it tests the human capital and human security arguments that emphasize the improvement in well-being, and mitigation of risk as to the underlying reasons for rural-urban migration. However, seasonal migration in Odisha is an instance where entire families migrate during the agricultural lean season without any substantial improvement in well-being, or risk mitigation. Second, this project looks towards the agency of the household characterized by their aspirations, priorities, and decision-making process to understand the persistence of seasonal migration. This project uses mixed methods to pursue these objectives. The focus group discussions in the first phase corroborate the priorities and aspirations from existing theoretical and empirical work. The first phase of household surveys that will reflect these priorities will capture the household level data about well-being indicators, risk indicators, aspirations, and priorities. As an intermediate component, focus group discussions will be used to corroborate the initial findings from the surveys. Finally, using quantitative methods the paper substantiates the relationship between aspirations and migration decisions of rural households in the sample.
Paper short abstract:
The entry of Domestic workers into the urban economy is mainly through the informal labour market to ‘precarious work’ which makes them marginalized and highly the vulnerable group in terms of being protected by the state, labour law or social protection measures.
Paper long abstract:
ILO defined the informal economy as “all economic activities by workers and economic units that are- in law or in practice- not covered or insufficiently covered by formal arrangements (ILO, 2002)”. Researchers dealing with informality have found that there are direct linkages between informality and persistent poverty (Chen et al., 2005; Samal, 2008). Other researchers [e.g. De Soto (1989, 2000)] directly linked informality to economic exclusion for the most vulnerable groups in society. Labour in informal economies is constituted primarily of migrant workers from rural to urban areas who are already vulnerable and marginalized, economically and socially (Hart, 1973). Their entry into the urban economy is mainly through the informal labour market to ‘precarious work’ which earns low wages, income insecurity, and occupies low-quality jobs, which makes them marginalized and highly vulnerable group in terms of being protected by the state, labour law or social protection measures. Additionally, they are precarious in their powerlessness. In this study, we particularly focus on domestic workers, as a group of informal workers, predominantly migrant and female. This paper qualitatively explores the impact on the “precarity” of domestic workers as a consequence of COVID-19. Thirty live-out domestic workers from Dhaka were selected and interviewed randomly from a survey. Findings showed that all the domestic workers lost their jobs initially when the lockdown began in late March 2020 without compensation or prior notice due to safety measures are taken by the employers. This impacted their overall livelihood and household welfare and necessitated various coping strategies to survive.
Paper short abstract:
This paper argues that developing a critical understanding of how informal economies are governed necessitates interrogating the class dynamics in which informal economic activity takes place.
Paper long abstract:
The global ubiquity of informal economic highlights the need to integrate it more fully into longstanding conceptualizations of the political economy of the state, capital and labour. Drawing on examples from across the Global South, this paper takes up a central part of this task, contending that class dynamics must inform analysis of how informal economies are governed. It first presents a critical analysis of possible understandings of informality and class, with a particular reference to the work of Marx, Guy Standing and Hernando de Soto, emphasizing the tension inherent in the duality of understanding informal workers as a class that is united by a shared position at least partially outside of the legal and regulatory structures of the state and, simultaneously, existing within class structures defined by forms of accumulation and dispossession both within the informal economy and in linkages with the formal economy. It subsequently examines what insights class dynamics offer into patterns of integration into, or exclusion from, local, national and global economies that are defined for facilitated by forms of governance. Finally, it considers what an emphasis on class reveals about the possibilities for and limitations to efforts to promote forms of inclusion, exploring how class creates opportunities for mobilization around common interests and, where divisions exist, risks of fragmentation. In doing so, it outlines how governance must aim to simultaneously address economic, political and legal marginalization if it is to meaningfully confront vulnerability in the informal economy.