The production of informality and everyday politics

Abstract

Urban informality is a complex phenomenon and recent literature points towards the need to develop a new theoretical framework to analyse and interpret empirical observations. This paper uses Bourdieu’s practice theory to conceptualize informality as a set of practices, analysing two case studies from Jagdamba Camp, Delhi (India), and its surrounding neighbourhoods. The first case centres on practices around a community-managed water supply system and the second on practices around solid waste management. The case studies, based on data collected through qualitative fieldwork in 2015 and 2016, point to multifaceted interactions between formal and informal practices that result in manifestations of in/formal practices in the locality’s everyday politics. The paper argues that informality is not linked to particular people or places in an essentialist way, but dependent on the field in which these actors operate.

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