Revisiting policy epistemologies on urban informality: Towards a post-dualist view

Recio, Redento B.; Mateo-Babiano, Iderlina; Roitman, Sonia

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2016.08.018

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The tension between agency and structure therefore remains a significant, although often implicit, current in these debates ( cf . Recio et al ., ). Seeing informality as practice may offer a way of addressing this tension.…”

Section: Conceptual Debates Around Informality: Agency Structure Andmentioning

confidence: 97%

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Lombard¹

2019

Int J Urban Regional Res

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Recent attention to the phenomenon of ‘beds in sheds’—outbuildings used illegally for residential accommodation—suggests that shelter informality is increasing in the UK. Reflecting concerns about its apparent proliferation, the issue has been increasingly prominent on government and media agendas, framed in terms of illegal immigration and rogue landlordism, with policy announcements accompanied by high‐profile police and border agency raids. While little firm evidence exists on the scale, nature and causes of this type of informal shelter provision, this paper takes as its starting point the discursive construction of informality in the specific context of the UK, exploring the role of key agentic and structural factors therein. It suggests that an emphasis on agency in government and media accounts may risk obscuring the structural factors (including state policies) involved in the production of informality, as well as the interaction between agency and structure. The case of shed housing demonstrates how informality is produced by a complex interplay of structural and agentic factors characteristic of many global Northern cities, captured by the notion of ‘informality as practice’ which derives from debates focusing on Southern cities. At the same time, it shows how discourses around informality may be mobilized in the service of specifically context‐driven ideological agendas, in this case relating to immigration and welfare.

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Section: Conceptual Debates Around Informality: Agency Structure Andmentioning

confidence: 97%

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Lombard¹

2019

Int J Urban Regional Res

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“…The agency of diverse actors involved in processes of urban informality has been a recurring theme throughout debates on urban informality, but has only recently been addressed more systematically (for example Recio, Mateo-Babiano, & Roitman, 2017). It is particularly important to our framing of informality given the political implications of this perspective, which highlights the agency of lowincome groups (but also constraints to this), the importance of relations between different agents, and the significance of stigmatisation.…”

Section: The Significance Of Diverse Actors' Agencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Urban Informality as a Site of Critical Analysis

Banks

Lombard

Mitlin

2019

The Journal of Development Studies

180

108

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Across the Global South, the realities of urban informality are changing, with implications for how we understand this phenomenon across economic, spatial, and political domains. Recent accounts have attempted to recognise the diversity of informality across contexts and dimensions, as well as its everyday lived realities.Reviewing key debates in the sector, and drawing upon the new empirical studies in the papers presented here, we argue for a shift away from seeing urban informality narrowly as a setting, sector, or outcome. We suggest that reconsidering informality as a site of critical analysis offers a new perspective that draws on and extends political economy approaches, and helps us to understand processes of stratification and disadvantage. We seek to highlight the significance of the informal-formal continuum at the same time as challenging this dichotomy, and to explore emerging theoretical and empirical developments, including changing attitudes to informality; the increasing salience of agency; and informality as strategy both for elite and subaltern groups.

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“…Among others Crush (2016) points out that, for the first time in human history, there are currently more people living in urban than in rural areas. The appropriate management of informality by governments is critical for addressing the urban Sustainable Development Goal in the post-2015 United Nations Development Agenda (Chen et al, 2016;Recio et al, 2017). The latter constitutes "an important acknowledgement of the reality of global urbanization and the many social, economic, infrastructural and political challenges posed by the human transition to a predominantly urban world" (Crush, 2016: 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Informality and migrant entrepreneurs in Cape Town’s inner city

Rogerson

2018

Bulletin of Geography. Socio-Economic Series

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Informality is a defining characteristic of cities in the global South and most especially across the region of sub-Saharan Africa. Policy responses by governments towards the informal economy impact the livelihoods of informal entrepreneurs. In South Africa the informal economy is a critical source of livelihoods in urban areas. Many participants in the informal economy of South Africa’s major urban centres are international migrants, mostly drawn to the country from other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The objective in this paper is to examine the challenges faced by international migrant entrepreneurs in relation to policy development for the informal economy of the City of Cape Town. The analysis uses qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, documentary sources and secondary surveys. It is revealed that in Cape Town despite a pro-development rhetoric in the inner city there is evidence of a subtle but systematic exclusion of street traders, including of migrant entrepreneurs. Little evidence exists of a coherent analysis by city policy makers to understand and foreground the contributions made by migrant entrepreneurs for the urban economy.

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Revisiting policy epistemologies on urban informality: Towards a post-dualist view

Cited by 30 publications

References 40 publications

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Informality as Structure or Agency? Exploring Shed Housing in the UK as Informal Practice

Urban Informality as a Site of Critical Analysis

Informality and migrant entrepreneurs in Cape Town’s inner city

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