Reading Development

Random readings on society, politics and change – Jorge Carrillo

Homeworking in the Philippines: Bad job? Good job?

This report focuses on two categories of homeworkers in the Philippines: industrial homeworkers, who assemble or fabricate goods for factories, retailers or their agents under subcontracting arrangements; and online workers, … Continue reading

Friday, 26 November 2021 · Leave a comment

From Visible Informality to Splintered Informalities

Increasingly, scholarly works challenge the formal/informal dichotomy, stressing the multiple political practices of producing informality which go beyond state incapacity. In contrast, this article addresses a lack of research concerning … Continue reading

Saturday, 6 November 2021 · Leave a comment

Urban-to-rural labour transitions from the factory to the informal economy

The COVID-19 pandemic has escalated processes of labour transition from industrial work to the informal economy, which have always characterized the life of the working poor. Exploring urban-to-rural labour transitions … Continue reading

Monday, 1 November 2021 · Leave a comment

Sidewalk informality: Street vending regulation in China

Street vending represents a vital and growing aspect of the urban informal economy that is often the subject of municipal regulatory efforts that seek to control, confine or extinguish it. … Continue reading

Friday, 24 September 2021 · Leave a comment

Stripping back the mask: Working conditions on digital labour platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic

Digital labour platforms have been widely promoted as a solution to the unemployment crisis sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the pandemic has also highlighted the harms to gig workers—who … Continue reading

Sunday, 22 August 2021 · Leave a comment

A Value Theory of Inclusion: Informal Labour, the Homeworker, and the Social Reproduction of Value

Critically engaging with Marxist-Feminist debates, this article argues that only interpretations of social reproduction as value-producing capture the features of contemporary informalised labour relations. Building on early social reproduction analyses … Continue reading

Monday, 12 July 2021 · Leave a comment

Informality and pension reforms in Bolivia

How social protection programmes affect work choices is a question that has been at the centre of labour economics research for decades. More recently, a scant literature has focused on … Continue reading

Monday, 28 June 2021 · Leave a comment

On international solidarity in a resilient and sustainable urban food system

What does a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic mean for the transition to a sustainable food system for cities? Using the concrete Dutch initiative Support Your Locals that emerged in … Continue reading

Monday, 8 February 2021 · Leave a comment

The Role of Informal Work in Supplementing Americans’ Income

Data from the Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking indicate that, over the course of a month, more than one-quarter of adults engage in some informal work outside of a … Continue reading

Tuesday, 2 February 2021 · Leave a comment