Paper short abstract:

The paper uses a postcolonial and intersectional approach to deepen our understanding of the histories and contemporary realities of men and women involved in hazardous sanitation labour in small towns and cities in Bangladesh, and across South Asia.

Paper long abstract:

The paper uses a postcolonial and intersectional approach to deepen our understanding of the histories and contemporary realities of men and women involved in hazardous sanitation labour - the manual handling of human waste in pit latrines, septic tanks, sewers and drains - in small towns and cities. Whilst extensive literature focuses on manual scavenging in India, few studies have examined the caste and colonial origins and legacies of this work in Bangladesh, including forced or coerced labour migration by British colonisers (using alcohol as payment). The paper addresses this critical knowledge gap via interweaving detailed accounts on identity and everyday working realities from those involved in nongra kaj (dirty work), with existing literature on sanitary infrastructure and public health in the postcolonial city, and the reproduction of caste as a form of social, economic and political power across South Asia. I highlight different ways in which the labouring bodies of men and women are continuously (mis)used as infrastructure in contemporary sanitation systems despite the introduction of technical 'innovations', how dirty work has changed over time, and how workers - especially a new generation of educated youth - navigate these changes in contexts of systemic discrimination based on caste, gender, religion, class, age, occupation and place of residence. In doing so, I set out a broader conceptual, methodological and empirical agenda that calls for other urban scholars to examine the histories and contemporary realities of 'dirty work' in a world where it continues to be undervalued, unseen and deadly.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on Latin America, we use a taxonomy approach to classify informal economy policy papers based on their underlying definitions and conceptualizations (schools of thought). This allows to compare different theoretical approaches taken and to link these with resulting policy recommendations.

Paper long abstract:

For over five decades, policy makers and scholars have been trying to understand the dynamics of the informal economy and to translate their findings into policy action. A significant impediment to formalization lies in the convoluted body of partially contradicting literature, resulting from a continuing disagreement among scholars on how to define and conceptualize informality. In response to this, recent research attempts to summarize and compare the existing theories to establish a coherent analytical basis. Building on these approaches, we conduct a broad literature review of informal economy theory to construct a taxonomy that allows to classify relevant policy recommendations based on their underlying definitions, conceptualizations (or explanatory approaches), and statistical methods. Central to this analysis are the different schools of thought—dualism, structuralism, legalism, and voluntarism—that use distinctive conceptualizations to explain causes and consequences of informality. Applying the taxonomy to classify a sample of Latin America focused policy papers published by international organizations allows to compare their differing theoretical approaches and to relate these to the corresponding policy recommendations. By connecting theory and practice, the analysis finds that in some instances, two papers following different theoretical approaches recommend directly opposing policies to the same underlying issues. The paper thus underlines the need to establish a coherent theoretical understanding of the informal economy theory as basis for policy formulation and proposes a taxonomy as conceptual tool to work towards this goal.

Paper short abstract:

This paper traces the unpaid labour Burkina Faso vendors did to reproduce their workplaces and their self-representations as entrepreneurs while structural crises eroded their market's financial flows, questioning how decent work is reimagined and sustained at the edges of tenable livelihoods.

Paper long abstract:

This paper traces the work of a Burkinabè market vendor in (re)producing his workplace and working life, despite the eroded tenability of his livelihood. During the twelve months of fieldwork this research is based on between 2017 and 2018, this group of traders were dealing with an intensifying security crisis that eroded public confidence, resulting in a gradual but dramatic decrease in the market's financial flows. Yet still, the market continued despite a dearth of demand for many sellers' wares, with a critical mass of traders still coming to try to earn, but also to spend their days together.

This research takes as its point of departure a quote from François, a fish vendor who often told me "Overall it's OK, but in the details it's not OK". The details here were not inconsequential: depressed footfall and income, school fee dues that were no longer affordable, jihadi attacks in the city and intensifying violence in the country. This was all data that required vendors to continually recalibrate what was possible and plausible for their businesses and broader more worlds. This paper sheds light on the vital and fragile arrangements through which vendors maintained the structure of the market and their individual and collective self-understandings as entrepreneurs in the face of such details - the material, social and affective infrastructure of a (work)place that contribute to everything being OK in the face of constant "everyday disasters" through which crisis refracted into everyday livelihoods and lives (Ibanez-Tirado 2015).