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Processes of Economic Informalization: Reconfigurations of Law, Labour, and the State book cover

1st Edition

Processes of Economic Informalization Reconfigurations of Law, Labour, and the State

By Ilona Steiler Copyright 2025
184 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Grounded on an analysis of informalized labour in the urban economy of Dar es Salaam, Processes of Economic Informalization explores the conceptual politics involved in the political construction of the informal economy – diverse economic activities that are not regulated or protected by the state, now estimated to make up more than sixty per cent of all employment worldwide. The author draws... Read more

1. A Contested Concept at Work
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled?
A process-oriented approach to informality as ontological commitment
The conceptual politics of informality
Law, intersectionality, and legitimacy Doing research on and in the ‘informal city’
Contribution and outline of the book

2. ‘Legitimate Lawlessness’: Legal and Political Constructions of Informality
The emergence of the ‘second economy’
‘Tug of war’: informal because of the law
Work like any or no other? Informal despite the law
“The informal sector should not be there”: views from the ‘formal city’
Conclusion

3. ‘At the Fringes of the Law’: Labour Relations and Intersectional (In)visibility
Labour and capital in small-scale trade
“Everyone can see me”: Visibility, informality, and the law
Tiered visibilities
“We must also give support”: Employment relations in domestic work
Facets of (in)visibility
Conclusion

4. Divisions of Labour: Class, Workers’ Power, and Strategies of Struggle
Structural power, class relations, and the formal-informal divide
Associational power in an informal sector
Associational power and the power of law
Shifting conceptions of informal work and new alliances
Conclusion

5. Setting Work to Rights: Legal Subjects, Rights, and Responsibilities
Decent work for domestic workers
Workers’ rights and public governance
Legal empowerment for entrepreneurs
Street Vendors Incorporated
Property rights and neoliberal responsibilization
Conclusion

6. The Art of ‘Eating With the Blind’: the Neoliberal State and Informalized Labour
Top-floor machingas: the marketization of small-small
Taxation in and against neoliberal restructuring: (il)licit transactions
Prescriptions for formalization
“You tell me, who is a thief?” The limits to moral economy
Conclusion

7. Concluding thoughts
Main arguments of the book
Furthering the findings
Goodbye - and good riddance? Working with and overcoming a problematic concept

References
Index

Biography

Ilona Steiler is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) at Tampere University, Finland. 

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