Interrogating informality
Informality is growing in a context of increasing inequity, and in many places becoming the norm. However, despite decades of studies and interventions, ‘recognising informality’ is still a key issue. … Continue reading
What does it mean to be poor?
Motivated by the siloed nature of much poverty research, as well as the challenge of finding inclusive operational definitions of poverty, this study reflects on the merits of seeking to … Continue reading
The effect of remittances on poverty reduction in Asia
This paper studies the effect of per capita remittances on poverty in 25 labour-sending countries of Asia between 1991 and 2015. The total remittance flows to this region has been … Continue reading
Food safety and nutrition for low-income urbanites
Equitable access to healthy food is a critical challenge in urban Asia. Food safety governance promotes modern supermarkets over more traditional markets, but supermarkets are associated with unequal access to … Continue reading
What’s in a Word? The Conceptual Politics of ‘Informal’ Street Trade in Dar es Salaam
Focussing on policies towards urban street trade in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in this paper I illustrate how despite the widely acknowledged limits to its analytical usefulness, the contested and … Continue reading
Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary
“Pluriverse: A Post-Development Dictionary” is a stimulating collection of over 100 essays on transformative alternatives to the currently dominant processes of globalized development, including its structural roots in modernity, capitalism, … Continue reading
The State and the Origins of Informal Economic Activity
Understanding the root causes of informal economic activity is crucial for the effective governance of the informal sphere. Precisely what these root causes are, however, is subject to significant debate. … Continue reading
Inequalities in the twenty-first century
We need to step back and ask: how are different kinds of inequality related and which matter most? What are the underlying forces that come together to create them? And … Continue reading
