*REMINDER* - CALL FOR PAPERS (SANT-FAS CONFERENCE, UPPSALA, 19-21 APRIL
2018) for the panel "Prosperous vulnerabilities. The ambiguities of the
informal sector"



Dear colleagues,

I just wanted to remind you of the opportunity to send a paper proposal to
a panel on the informal sector that I am organizing together with Anna
Baral (Uppsala University) in the SANT (Sveriges Antropologförbund)/FAS
(Finnish Anthropological Society) conference that will take place in
Uppsala on 19-21 April 2018.

Information on the conference and on how to submit a paper proposal, and
the complete list of panels, can be found at the conference website:
http://www.sant.engagingvulnerability.se/


I copy down here the abstract of our panel. Deadline for paper proposals is *16
February*, i.e. tomorrow. Don't miss the chance if you are interested, we
look forward to receiving your paper proposals!


Cristiano Lanzano

Senior Researcher, The Nordic Africa Institute (Uppsala)




---



Panel 16

*Prosperous vulnerability: the ambiguities of the informal sector*

Organisers: Anna Baral, Uppsala University; Cristiano Lanzano, The Nordic
Africa Institute



*Abstract*

Despite its ambiguities, the concept of informality keeps being
ethnographically and theoretically productive. While Hart’s seminal work
(1972) clarified that the informal sector is not a reserve for the poor,
informality has often been used to evoke low productivity, unreliability
and insecurity. Irrespective of whether informal workers are victimized, or
romanticized as neoliberal heroes (De Soto, 1989), elements of
precariousness and unpredictability permeate the imaginary around the
informal economy. Urban petty trade, small-scale mining, domestic work (but
also smuggling, trafficking and other less legitimate or more remunerative
occupations): all these economic activities share an element of
vulnerability.

The informal sector is a multifaceted field, where structural relations
with the formal sphere are constantly rebuilt, while processes of
accumulation of capital and power produce various forms of inequality.
However, informal workers unite, mobilise or simply find ways to navigate
the uncertainties of their predicament (Lindell, 2010). Not only do they
survive, but some also prosper, constructing mechanism of social security
that shun the control of the state, or are variably related to it. Exposed
to economic and political fluctuations, these mechanisms remain vulnerable,
but they also create the precondition for productive relationships and
tactics.

The panel welcomes ethnographic contributions on informal economies and
their ambiguous connections with states and formal markets, on processes of
social differentiation and marginalization within the informal sector, and
on the ways in which informal workers create the conditions for their
prosperity in, and not against, vulnerability.

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