Political Informality in the City. 8 Scholars and 9 Cities Facing the Modes of Urban Government

Abstract

International audienc

Unpacking State Practices in City-Making,in Conversations with Ananya Roy

“…85-86), ranging from ad hoc street bureaucrats' discretion (à la Lipsky), the production of 'policy short circuits' to directly contradict existing legislation (à la Roy), and the laisser-faire, tolerance, or even reproduction of informal settlements and activities through temporary (turning permanent) arrangements, as a way to manage urban poverty (à la Chatterjee). There is a growing interest for rethinking the state through the concept of informality, as announced in the concluding sections of recent publications on urban governance (Boudreau, 2016;Davis, 2017;Morelle et al, 2016) or on the state (Radnitz, 2011). This interest is often, actually, inspired by Roy's work.…”

Living in the Intra-Urban Confines of Lima: A Precariousness of Geopolitical Origin

“…We will thus adopt "arrangement" as an operating concept and as a type of political informality (Collectif Inverses et al, 2016). From our point of view, an arrangement is an intermediate situation between conflict and compromise, defined by its contingent, local and circumstantial nature, often transitory, without reference to a general interest, since they concern, above all, the convergence between particular interest groups (Boltanski & Thevenot, 1991;Nachi, 2006).…”