Paper short abstract:

The garment industry is presented as the stepping stone for Mauritius' successful export-led development in official reports. Contrary to locational factors mentioned, the paper discusses how successful integration into the global garment trade oscillated between formal and informal economic strategies.

Paper long abstract:

The paper discusses the intersection of formal and informal economic activities in the historical and present day development of the textile and garment industry of Mauritius. The industry is presented as the stepping stone for successful export-led development, in the 1990s even called an "economic miracle in the Indian Ocean", in World Bank reports and scientific literature. Analysis here usually draws on locational factors and flexible legal as well as institutional politics at the national level. Drawing on extensive field and archival research in Mauritius and England the paper applies the anthropological framework of formal and informal economic strategies to two case studies: the events which led to the foundation of the Mauritian Export-Processing Zone and the establishment of numerous stores for 'legal' bootlegs of "haut de gamme" clothing. We thus gain a different picture of Mauritius' successful integration into the global market for textiles and garments: A strategy of conscious oscillation between formal and informal economic strategies by local and translocal actors using informal strategies as a testing ground for export-led development dependent on the legal and political integration of the Mauritian state into the world market.