Organizer: Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin DE); Christine Hentschel (University of Hamburg, DE); Suzi Hall (London School of Economics, UK)
Contacts: talja.blokland@sowi.hu-berlin.de
Informality has long been associated with marginalization, with the too-simplistic association of bottle collectors, street vendors and garbage collectors as key figures of the informal city. This stream proposes to widen our view of the informal city by taking seriously the fact that all urbanites design informal processes, that is ways not recognized or seen by the state and taking place outside of mainstream formal institutions, whether outside of institutions or in direct encounters with institutions or both, to make the city work for them. Rather than having another session of descriptions of the narrow, ‘traditional’ articulation of informal practices or bottom-up actions against ‘formal’ urban plans and interventions, this stream aims to develop three tiers of less well-researched and conceptually defined aspects of informal practices. First, based on the idea that middle class practices are inwardly oriented and highly informal, we invite papers that study these practices: like other social classes, their unplanned practices are not just taking shape within their own circles, but also vis-à-vis institutions they have to deal with. Second, we point to the fact that informal practices are often studied as the outcomes of durable social networks between people, close to how social capital has long been seen. We assume that absent ties are, however, at least as important as a concept to understand these practices as social networks. Third, linked to the overall theme of the conference, we start from the idea that the urbanites of the future – urban young citizens – can sharpen our understanding of the inclusions and exclusions that shape the context for ideals or utopias of the city of tomorrow. All these strands innovate the current discussions on informality and contribute to theory-development of how informal practices affect the city of tomorrow, thus we welcome in particular papers referring to such issues.
D3.1 Informal practices to get things done: inclusionary and exclusionary effects
Chairs: Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin) Christine Hentschel (University of Hamburg) Suzi Hall (London School of Economics)
Contacts: talja.blokland@sowi.hu-berlin.de christine.hentschel-2@uni-hamburg.de s.m.hall@lse.ac.uk
Indrawan Prabaharyaka Lusia Nini Purwajati
The Futurity of Inclusion and Exclusion of Urban Youth: Utopia/Dystopia
Mohammad Saeed Zokaei
ِYouth spaces and everyday life in Tehran
Abdou Maliq Simone Hannah Schilling
Practices within Precarity: Youth, Informality, and Life Making in the Contemporary City
Jacqueline Walubwa
‘CHAMAS ‘– The power of the invisible urban woman
Distributed papers
Gloria da Silva Campos
Dysfunctional contexts and the possibility of resourceful absent ties
Sarah Eldefrawi
“Informality as a bottom up movement”: Informality of Formal and Formality of informal, case City of Cairo, Egypt
D3.2 Informal practices to get things done: inclusionary and exclusionary effects
Chairs: Talja Blokland (Humboldt University, Berlin) Christine Hentschel (University of Hamburg) Suzi Hall (London School of Economics)
Contacts: talja.blokland@sowi.hu-berlin.de christine.hentschel-2@uni-hamburg.de s.m.hall@lse.ac.uk
Juliana Martins
Urban informality in Tech City, London? A study of the spatiality of informal practices in creative digital work
Sobia Ahmad Kaker
Informality in Karachi: Governing Everyday Life in a City in Crisis
Joanna Kusiak
(In)formal City of Legal Technicalities: Judicial Definitions of the Urban
Andrea Varriale
The usage of public space in Naples – Informality in the time of Commons
Laura Harper, Marika Neustupny
Speculation and procurement. The affect of informal practices of buying and selling on the city of Melbourne, Australia
Distributed papers
El Moussawi Hala
Informal Public Transport: Practices Towards Utopia in the Neoliberal City
Clara Rivas Alonso
Strategic mobilising of invisibility in everyday informal practices by dwellers evicted from Sulukule and Tarlabaşı.
