Banks, N., Lombard, M.B. orcid.org/0000-0003-1660-1794 and Mitlin, D. (2019) Urban informality as a site of critical analysis. Journal of Development Studies, 56 (2). pp. 223-238. ISSN 0022-0388
Abstract
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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Urban Studies & Planning (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 04 Feb 2019 09:51 |
Last Modified: | 16 Nov 2021 12:13 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/00220388.2019.1577384 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:141493 |