Slums and the Informal Economy

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is often prevalent • Small-scale activity predominates • Production is labour intensive • Technology is outdated • Activity is largely unregulated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

27. http://www.pieterhugo.com

28. 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

29. 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