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- Convenors:
-
Antonio Maria Pusceddu
(Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia (CRIA-ISCTE))
Jon Harald Sande Lie (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs)
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- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- U6-1E
- Start time:
- 23 July, 2016 at
Time zone: Europe/Rome
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
This panel brings together diverse ethnographic studies that empirically or theoretically address and explore the reciprocal relationship between what we tend to denote as the formal and informal in contemporary global economy and politics.
Long Abstract:
The formal–informal dichotomy is central to our understanding of practices pertaining to e.g. the economy, politics, power, organizations, the state, market. Too often, however, one tend to compartmentalise what one describes and analyses in terms of the formal and the informal. Current scholarship increasingly challenges this dualistic paradigm by rather focusing on how formal and informal are interconnected and mutually constitutive. Notwithstanding institutional assumptions on the need of formalizing the informal, it is widely recognized how informal practices have become a constitutive feature in the contemporary restructuring of the global economy and politics. Informality does not stand as a shortcoming of 'underdeveloped' or fragile economies, but it lies at core of the global regime of accumulation, its functioning and articulation.
This panel brings together papers that theoretically and empirically explore the reciprocity between the formal and the informal and how they interfere, support, undermine or subvert each other, with the aim of comparing different articulations of formality and informality in contemporary global economy and politics. Addressing a variety of subjects, the contributions look at various articulations of the interrelationship between the formal and informal, characterized by different power configurations, ranging from collaborative exchanges and reciprocity to exploitative forms of subordination and global governance. Seeking to untangle the complex relationships between situated practices and the global economy and politics, the panel aims at shedding light on the articulation of institutional actors – state, market, international organizations – and the informality that underpin their actual functioning.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I will shed light on how formalisation is buttressed by various extralegal practices, paying particular attention to how and which of these practices support respectively challenge the current developments of restructuring the marketplace in a peri-urban village in northern Vietnam.
Paper long abstract:
This paper looks closely at a variety of coexisting and mutually constitutive practices that question a strict separation between the formal vs. informal sector and instead point to the constructedness of this dichotomies. Based on long-term anthropological research on a marketplace in a peri-urban village in northern Vietnam, I argue that traders and state officials employ a mix of strategies of the legal-extralegal spectrum.
Although the launch of the Open Door Policy in the late 1980s is often considered the start of a liberal economy, it does not necessarily mean that the state interferes minimally or that economic decisions are transparent. In fact, while the economic sector has seen a whole set of new regulations in the last two and a half decades, corruption spread in the context of the country's economic growth. Marketplaces are a target for the modernising vision of the Vietnamese state and are undergoing redevelopment, often in combinantion with a change of ownership. Although in Vietnam the trend towards privatisation implies formalisation, informal and illegal practices are ubiquitous. For instance, "the legal," or "formal," that is produced through rather vaguely formulated regulations, gives way to illicit actions, such as expropriating land for new market projects, and legitimises processes—like marketisation—that oppose the very principle of social justice preeminant in state campaigns. I will shed light on how formalisation is buttressed by various extralegal practices, paying particular attention to how and which of these practices support respectively challenge the current developments of restructuring the marketplace.
Paper short abstract:
The paper examines the so-called non-monetary zone focusing on the re-use of unwanted things through establishing new socio-economic relations. Based on the ethnographic research I reveal three dimensions where tensions between formality and informality influence the nature of the non-monetary zone.
Paper long abstract:
In 2012 a socio-economic experiment called a non-monetary zone emerged in the Czech alternative scene in order to introduce an exchange system that provides things without the necessity to use money. In spite of being informal, the non-monetary zone aspires to spread among general public. However, this aim is hampered due to a stigma associated with the anarchistic origin of the non-monetary zone. This paper is based on two years of research taking advantage of participant observation and interviews with the organizers as well as visitors of the non-monetary zone in the Pilsen region, Czech Republic. The research reveals that formality and informality intersect here in three main dimensions: 1) cognitive dimension that reflects the inability to conceptualize exchange without Maussian obligations; 2) environmental dimension where non-monetary zone corresponds to ideology of re-use officially proclaimed by the state, which, however, does not support the spread of this phenomenon; and 3) social dimension stressing the creation and maintenance of social bonds different from the relationships that emerge during shopping. Through the analysis of these three dimensions I aspire to reveal benefits and limits of this experiment and juxtapose it with similar alternative attempts.
Paper short abstract:
What are the processes of which money (formality) transforms into gift (informality)? Pujogŭm, monetary gift in Korean, shows both monetary and gift characters. Money is social good and ultimately strenghens mutual dependencies of individuals in the society.
Paper long abstract:
Money, as a symbol for rational calculation, is often contrary to the concept of gift. However, monetary gift, pujogŭm in Korean, is conventionally exchanged between relatives, friends, and colleagues in contemporary South Korea. What are the processes of which money (formality) transforms into gift (informality)? Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the wedding and funeral ceremonies in Seoul, findings indicate that collective giving practice and formation of homogeneous groups facilitate this transformation. Historically, Korea was a peasant society in support of self-help and safety-first principles (J. Scott 1976). As the country underwent rapid industrialization since the 1960's, practices in rural societies experienced substantial changes. However, certain types of informal economy continue in market-structured society as well, but in a transformed form. For instance, reciprocal monetary exchanges occur in modern funeral and wedding ceremonies instead of material contribution, as observed prior to industrialization. Pujogŭm practice implies morality and emotions similar to gift exchange. On the other hand, calculation of sum, charge and discharge of debt demonstrate the monetary character of pujogŭm. Moreover, relationships can be broken due to unpaid debt. Despite these contradictory aspects, money plays an important role in keeping the members of a group together. In this sense, money is a sort of social goods and ultimately strengthens mutual dependencies of individuals in the society.
Paper short abstract:
Through the rapid rise of app-based service providers, conventional neighbourhood-based motorbike taxi services are facing new competition in Jakarta. This paper compares both service models in terms of in/formality with regards to their legal status, organizational structures and labour conditions.
Paper long abstract:
Due to Jakarta's notorious traffic jams and its inadequate public transport system, the motorbike taxi, ojek, has become an essential means of transportation. Conventional ojek services are organized territorially by neighbourhoods (kampung) and have an established role in the informal urban economy. Recently, however, a new type of motorbike taxi service is booming: Corporate businesses like Go-Jek or Grab-Bike now provide the same transportation services through smart phone applications. These new companies are formally registered, even though 'motorbike taxi' as their service is not (yet) a legally recognized transportation. Drivers register with the respective company, but work self-employed on commission.
Threatened by this new business model, conventional ojek drivers banded together, putting up banners to keep Go-Jek and GrabBike from entering their territories, some even resorting to physical violence. To a certain degree this conflict parallels the resistance of taxi companies against the on-demand ride service Uber as we know it from many cities around world, including Jakarta. With regard to in/formality, though, the constellation is reverse: While Uber is accused of undermining the regulative framework of the taxi service industry, motorbike taxi services have been unregulated - or rather: informally regulated - all along. The new application-based business model thus increases formality.
Drawing on ethnographic research in a Jakartan neighbourhood and the analysis of local media coverage, this paper compares the two different motorbike taxi service models and elaborates on the complex intersections of the respective legal status, moral claims, organizational structures and labour conditions.
Paper short abstract:
Based on an ethnographic research about Roma camps in Turin, this proposal aims to highlight the role of camps’ dwellers in political urban economy and specially in management of urban waste, analyzing a process of criminalization of informal (and “ethnified”) workers and their responses.
Paper long abstract:
Based on an ethnographic research about Roma camps in Turin, this proposal aims to highlight the role of camps' dwellers in urban economy and specially in management of urban waste. As Rennó (2013) pointed out, despite hegemonic discourses about ecology and sustainable development is gaining in importance, the paper of waste informal workers is not socially recognized - on the opposite, their activity is often criminalized.
In Turin, during the winter of 2013, took place what local media called "the war for iron". Local authorities forbade scrapyards' owners from buying scrap from private individuals without regular license. That caused a real turmoil in the consolidated equilibrium of local scrap market, in which participated also factories' owners, that illegally got rid of residues of industrial production. The most part of informal scrap pickers were Roma - many of them, camps' dwellers. Official explanation of the repressive measure focused on the increase of copper robbery. However, speaking informally with scrapyards' owners and local authorities, another explanation emerged: public sanitation company was increasingly taking part in a competition with informal waste picker for the access to metallic waste.
According to Marxist theory, capitalist economy tends to produce rapid obsolescence of goods, environmental degradation and rapid urban renewal processes. This way, while activities of slums' dwellers (such as waste picking and squatting of residual urban spaces) are represented as an ethnic issue and criminalized, they are strongly integrated in processes of 'creative destruction' which characterizes global capitalism.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the formal-informal linkages in the context of policymaking in the development sector, arguing that the formal order of participatory planning is being subverted by indirect and informal governance mechanisms installed by the formal order itself.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on multi-sited ethnographic fieldworks within both the World Bank and a Ugandan ministry, this paper explores their partnership and its policymaking processes. Policymaking within the aid sector is a highly formalised endeavour, as it seeks to reconcile the contradictory concepts of freedom and control: the donor agency has granted its aid recipient the freedom and responsibility to devise its own policies, to enhance local ownership to and participation in processes previously controlled by the donor. This liberal practice has been accompanied by new indirect and informal governance mechanisms installed by the donor as integral to the formal order of the partnership arrangement, through which the donor seeks to retain control over the policymaking process it formally has conferred its recipient.
The paper demonstrates empirically how the formal order of aid comes with certain informal processes that enable indirect governance. Using both post-structural and actor oriented approaches, the paper focuses on the practical encounter between the World Bank and its Ugandan counterpart. It demonstrates how the formal order of fostering local ownership is subverted and rather involves new governance mechanisms that work not through repression or direct control. Rather, it is a productive power - akin to Foucault's notion of governmentality - operating through technocratic measures (such as benchmarks, indicators, etc) contingent on but also undermining the liberal order and rhetoric of ownership.
Paper short abstract:
The paper is concerned with informal collaborative exchanges between state and non-state actors engaged in biomedical research and the crucial role such informal networks play in the commodification of biomedical technologies and the creation of new bio-industries.
Paper long abstract:
The paper is concerned with informal collaborative engagements between state and non-state actors involved in biomedical research and the crucial role such informal networks play in the commodification of biomedical technologies. Drawing on ethnography on stem cell practices in Việt Nam, the paper examines the ways in which state strategies on scientific and medical research create the conditions for informal inter-organisational exchanges between public and private bodies with the view to developing biomedical innovation and commercially viable biotechnologies. In recent years, the Vietnamese state has seized upon stem cell science as a promising area of economic growth, and has sought to stimulate entrepreneurial engagements in this field by means of governing biomedical practices through light regulation, 'soft law' and no instruments to implement policy. Within this context, informal collaborative exchanges between state-funded science and medical institutions, regulatory agencies and industry have flourished. These informal networks play a key role in the scientific, clinical and commercial development of stem cell research, allowing access not only to various resources needed for research but crucially to formal approval mechanisms that allow turning clinical experiments into vetted therapies that can subsequently become commercially available.
The paper seeks to contribute to debates on the relations between formality and informality by presenting an ethnographic case whereby informal practices do not fall outside the realm of social and political institutions. Rather, fostering informal bionetworking activities constitute a means through which the postsocialist state seeks to unleash the economic potential of biomedical technologies.
Paper short abstract:
Beijing is among the most populated and polluted areas in China, in which waste are becoming a huge issue. During my research, it appears that in the city waste management there is a complex intersection between the governmental system and an “informal” one, related to the shadow market of materials
Paper long abstract:
In Beijing, the informal system related to waste management seems to represent an efficient alternative to the governmental one, which demonstrates large difficulties. It is considered useful to the city well-being: without this, Beijing would be probably covered by waste, since the governmental system doesn't collect the majority of waste materials because it cannot recycle them.
Despite this, the informal system represents a strong rival for regular businesses working on waste treatment, since it can keep lower prices and thus get more clients among the recycling centers.
In this situation, many regular waste platforms need to have governmental subsidies in order to keep the price of materials as low as the irregular market. According to Beijing environmental activists, this situation is due to the lack of a strong governmental legislation about waste trading. It seems that the strength of the shadow market is based on a kind of governmental approval. In fact, the informal spaces in which waste materials are separated and sold - the so called "waste transfer centers"- are dismantled only if working against the government's interests.
This kind of complex intersection between these two systems seems to bring to the creation of new professions and even a sort of sub-cultural group composed by two figures: the "small dealers" and the "sellers". These are migrants from Henan Province living in the "waste transfer centers". This group is socially and economically (in an informal way) recognized as part of the complex socio-cultural context of Beijing.
Paper short abstract:
In times of crisis informal economic activities are on the rise. This paper aims to assess the principles that guide informal economic activities and examine the various ways informality and formality interact.
Paper long abstract:
In times of crisis, as Wolf (1989) has argued, the organization of society becomes most visible. Following Wolf, I consider the informal economic sector as a deeply embedded social arrangement that has come to the surface. My field-site, Chalkida, Greece, a mid-sized city at the periphery of Athens is highly challenged by the effects of imposed austerity. It appears as an ideal case to analyze how the informal and the formal sector co-operate, compete, intersect and interact. Informal economic activities are very common among my informants because informality is a matter of life or death and/or because it is considered as an act of resistance. However, it is very common for these two driving forces of informality to coincide. Hence, observing ethnographically the interaction of subsistence and resistance both in practice and discourse can provide valuable insights and enhance our understanding of informality in the context of the persisting economic crisis. In this paper I will focus on the multiplicity of informal practices, on people's understandings of what acting informally is, on why they resist formalizing their activities, on policies and structures that aim to regulate informal economic practices and on the material and ideological motives the State facilitates in order to formalize informality.