1 / 29

Slums and the Informal Economy

Slums and the Informal Economy. Researching Society and Culture Week 10 Alice Mah. Outline. Focus on informal work and workers Consider the growth of the informal economy, its scale and content Detail definitions of the informal economy

duscha
Download Presentation

Slums and the Informal Economy

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Slums and the Informal Economy Researching Society and Culture Week 10 Alice Mah

  2. Outline • Focus on informal work and workers • Consider the growth of the informal economy, its scale and content • Detail definitions of the informal economy • Outline major explanations for growth of informal economy • Examine ways of researching informal economy focusing especially on: • Activities of organisations of informal workers • Enumerations and surveys of slum dwellers

  3. The Decline of Decent Work? • ‘End of work’ debate – by end 20th century work had altered to the detriment of most workers (Strangleman 2007) • Profound and long-lasting change to the structure and organisation of work – e.g. under and unemployment • New forms of working defined by flexibility, insecurity, instability, low pay • New regimes of global capitalist development characterised as inter alia post-Fordist, the risk society, the precariat (RECAP FROM LAST WEEK…)

  4. Informal Work • The ‘end of work debate’ and rise of precarious work: understood as global phenomenon but their application and study is mainly directed to the west – North America and Western Europe • What do we know about changes in work and employment outside of this minority world view? • One example is growing attention to informal work and workers

  5. The Informal Economy • From 1970s attention to what was named the informal economy (Hart 1973) • Significant economic activity took place outside of normal (formal, western) rules and methods • Initially applied to Sub-Saharan Africa, term informality expanded to cover some types of economic activity in the developing world and then beyond (Portes and Haller 2005) • Now used to cover forms of work that occur in ALL economies – developed and developing • Applied to both rural and urban settings

  6. The Informal Economy (cont…) • Informality generally focused on self-employed but also those in wage employment • This refers to a diverse and extensive range of activities – not just petty trading – where: • Barriers to entry are low • Family ownership/activity is often prevalent • Small-scale activity predominates • Production is labour intensive • Technology is outdated • Activity is largely unregulated

  7. The Scale of Informality • Early analysis argued informality would decline as societies modernised • Industrialisation would bring (decent) waged employment and the (backward) informal sector would become progressively more marginal • Contrary to early predictions the magnitude and complexity of informal sector has grown • Globally, many – possibly a majority – work informally (48% North Africa, 51% Latin America, 72% SS Africa). In developed countries perhaps 15% (Leonard 2000) • Increasing number of new jobs are informal – e.g. 80% non-agricultural jobs, 60% urban employment and 90% plus new jobs in SSA • ‘The bulk of new employment in recent years, particularly in developing and transition countries, has been in the informal economy’ (ILO 2002a).

  8. Employment in Informal Sector Source: ILO (2002b)

  9. Informalism - Definitions • What is the informal economy? • Definitions include (Portes and Haller 2005; Harris-White 2003): • The actions of economic agents that fail to adhere to established institutional rules or are denied their protection • All income-earning activities not regulated by the state where similar activities are regulated • Activity outside of the formal regulative ambit of the state • Wageless life (Denning 2010) – the denial of regular wage labour

  10. Informal Workers • Informal activity includes illegal or unreported forms of economic activity • But mainly refers to licit (as opposed to illicit) forms of work • Employers, employees, full-time, part-time, casual and seasonal workers (Breman 2009) • Sub-contractors, own account workers, self-employed and piece rate workers • The old, women, young people and children • No homogenous zone of employment but complex and dynamic realm of economic life • No rigid separation between formal and informal sectors – e.g. close connection through sub-contracting

  11. Informalism - Explanations • There are three broad categories of explanation for the growth of informalism: • The eruption of the ‘true market’ otherwise stifled by state bureaucracy and self-serving elites (de Soto 2000) – the entrepreneurial zeal of the working poor is blocked by excessive regulation and official corruption • The survival strategies of the poor necessitated by failure of markets (ILO 2002) – the poor are forced into informal ways of working because the state has failed to regulate markets appropriately • Dispossession by neo-liberal capital accumulation and the active creation of an informal sector – a class strategy of exclusion in which the costs of capitalist crisis are exported onto the poor (Denning 2010; Meagher 1995)

  12. Researching Informality • Knowledge of informality is scant but increasing. It is dominated by familiar methods of investigation: • Labour Force and Household Surveys (ILO 2002a and b) • Qualitative interviews with informal employers (Meagher 2011) • Long-term observation with workers (Breman 1996; Hart 1973) • Ethnographies (of street and working children e.g. Hecht 1998; Kovats-Bernat 2006; Offit 2008)

  13. Different Ways of Knowing Informality • Let’s focus on innovative examples of research undertaken by and for informal workers • Knowledge (of informality) is power and control • Struggles over the acknowledgement and representation of informal work – i.e. what it is, who does it, under what conditions and why? • Organisations and associations of informal workers (trades unions, cooperatives, mutual assistance and self-help groups) have come together to try to contest dominant assumptions and remove conceptual blocks

  14. Example 1 Women Contest Their Invisibility ‘Some of our biggest battles have been over contesting preset ideas and attitudes of officials, bureaucrats and academics. Definitions are part of that battle … The hard-working chindi workers, embroiderers, cart pullers, rag pickers, midwives and forest-produce gatherers can contribute to the nation’s gross domestic product, but heaven forbid that they be acknowledged as workers!’ (SEWA quoted in Denning 2010)

  15. Counting the Unseen • Self-Employed Women’s Association of India contesting representations of informality (Denning 2010; http://www.sewa.org) • SEWA rejects idea of informal sector as something peripheral, marginal, atypical or unorganised • Their aim is to make visible work otherwise invisible • Key methods are survey and census research detailing informal work by district, street and house • These have value as information, data and to campaign for better pay and conditions

  16. Counting the Unseen (cont…) • For India, SEWA research demonstrates that the informal sector: • Is complex and heterogeneous, divided by class, caste, gender, age, religion (see also Breman 1996) • Includes more than 80 occupations • Can be divided into 4 main categories: street vendors and hawkers, home-based producers, labourers and service providers, rural producers • Is growing rapidly as the number in each category/occupation expands • Is not dominated by self-employment but by casual labourers and service workers who work for others in contracted and piece-rate jobs i.e. disguised wage labourers

  17. ‘Thus, organisations of workers in the so-called informal sector have mapped their world less by its relation to a formal state-regulated economy than by its workplaces, particularly the street and the home’ (Denning 2010)

  18. Example 2 Hidden Cities • Growth of informal work paralleled by growth of informal cities • For first time in history now majority of global population are urban dwellers (UN-HABITAT 2005) • Population increase, movement off the land and rapid urban expansion • Development without jobs that pay wages workers can live on • Cities with economies that cannot support their populations

  19. The Rise of the Slums • A consequence is Planet of Slums (Davis 2006) • Slums are nothing new – e.g. Engel’s account of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 • But the scale is now unprecedented • Of 3 billion urban dwellers worldwide, approx. 1 billion (30%) live in slums (UH-HABITAT 2005) • A ‘slum’ dweller is defined by the UN as having one of more of the following: insecurity of tenure, overcrowding, poor quality housing, inadequate sanitation, inadequate safe water • The UN focus on conditions reminds us that we should not conflate physical characteristics of slums with the personal qualities of their residents (Gilbert 2007)

  20. Invisible Cities • Informal settlements, squatters, pavement dwellers, tent dwellers are, however, mainly invisible • Their presence is rarely acknowledged – it is often illegal, embarrassing, inconvenient • In asserting their claim to settlement they often experience violence, intimidation, extortion, exaction, corruption – by the state, capital (developers) and other groups of the poor • But they nevertheless seek to assert their claims, including through community research and assessment

  21. Being Counted • Growth of audits of slum dwellers organised and undertaken for and behalf of slum dwellers • Knowledge as power, even for slum dwellers • The emergence of an international movement to educate, train and equip slum dwellers with the knowledge, methodology and resources to assert their presence e.g. The People’s Dialogue on Human Settlement • Part of a movement to map, enumerate and survey informal settlements and cities (see the special issue of Environment and Urbanization, April 2012, Vol 24 (1) - http://eau.sagepub.com/content/24/1.toc)

  22. The Case of Old Fadama • Old Fadama first settled in 1981 • Rapid growth so that today it occupies 31 hectares (75 acres – about 35 football pitches; Warwick University is 750 acres) • Under threat of eviction since 2000 • Three enumerations of Old Fadamaundertaken by community members (Farouk and Owusu 2012) • These have become progressively more sophisticated in objectives and methods • They began simply by counting physical structures and estimating inhabitants but then moved on to count different building types, collect demographic data, catalogue occupational types, detail businesses and amenities • Their value goes beyond numbers – a visible presence and a campaigning force • And a challenge to their official invisibility

  23. Old Fadama Enumerations • 2004 estimate pointed to: • 24,000 residents living in 11,000 shacks • Children under 14 comprised 20% of population • Mosques, religious centres, entertainment zones 3000 water taps and 500 toilets • 2006-2007 estimate pointed to: • 48,000 residents • Many different structures, including toilets, schools, clinics, religious spaces • Many different types of businesses • 2009 enumeration more extensive (38 days): • 79,684 residents • Density of 2,562 people per ha (x10 Manhattan Island) • Included previously missed groups (e.g. 15,000 kayayo) • Most residents economic migrants • Most residents work (in informal sector) • 2/3 u18s did not go to school • High number of residents support family elsewhere in Ghana

  24. Kai Loffelbein http://www.unicef.de/en/aktionen/unicef-foto-des-jahres/1-preis-kai-loeffelbein/?L=1

  25. Andrew Mconnell http://andrewmcconnell.photoshelter.com/gallery/G0000oLuiBLHIsmM

  26. http://www.pieterhugo.com

  27. Conclusion • How do we research the unofficial and informal? • A question of categories – what is informality, how do we define it, what is its relationship to wider society and economy? • Traditional research methods can tell us much – surveys, interviews, ethnography etc • But new sources of data for and by those who comprise the object of study • And the contesting of official discourse on informal ways of living

  28. Key Texts • David, M. (2006), Planet of Slums, London: Verso • Denning, M. (2010), ‘Wageless Life’, New Left Review, 66, pp.79-98 • Farouk, B, R. and Owusu, M. (2012), ‘”If in Doubt Count”: The Role of Community-Driven Enumerations in Blocking Eviction in Old Fadama, Accra’, Environment and Urbanization, 24 (1), 2012 • Hart, K. (1973), ‘Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana’, Journal of Modern African Studies, 11 pp.61-89. • ILO(2002a), Decent Work and the Informal Economy, ILO: Geneva • ILO (2002b), Men and Women in the Informal Economy, ILO: Geneva • Patel, S. and Baptist, C. (eds), ‘Documenting the Undocumented’, Special Edition of Environment and Urbanization, 24 (1), 2012 • Portes, A. and Haller, W. (2005), ‘The Informal Economy’, in Smelser, N. and Swedberg, R. (eds.) The Economic Handbook of Sociology, Princeton: Princeton University Press

More Related