Ilda Lindell

Informality and Collective Organising: identities, alliances and transnational activism in Africa

Abstract This paper is a conceptual exploration of the dimensions of the contemporary politics of informal economies, from the vantage point of collective organising by ‘informal workers’. It inquires into the formation of the political subjectivities and collective identities of informal actors. The importance of the relations between their organisations and other organised actors is illustrated with a discussion of emerging alliances with trade unions. The transnational scales of collective organising by ‘informal workers’ are addressed. The paper suggests an analytical approach that takes account of the diversity of organised actors, of a variety of governing powers and of the various spatial scales of social struggle involved in the politics of informal livelihoods today. The reflections are informed by the considerable social and economic differentiation contained in informal economies and emphasise the importance of the great diversity of actors, positions, agendas and identities for understanding the complex and contingent politics of informality. Empirical illustrations are drawn from the African continent, but the discussions in the paper address wider trends and theoretical debates of relevance for other developing regions.

The Politics of ‘Non-Planning’ Interventions in African Cities: Unravelling the International and Local Dimensions in Harare and Maputo

Urban planning bases its interventionist strategies on the reasoning that change has to be rationally managed and that control is necessary in the ‘public interest’. In Africa, for various bureaucratic and political reasons, urban planning has often been notoriously lax. In the face of uncontrolled urban development, many urban governments have abandoned comprehensive planning and increasingly resort to ad-hoc ‘sanitising’ measures of various kinds. This paper explores the forces and rationales that lie behind the intensified use of such ‘non-planning’ strategies. It draws on examples from Harare and Maputo, where urban authorities applied forceful measures to remove unplanned settlements and market places. In these cases the forces at work behind the scenes included the political strategies of elites seeking to maintain and strengthen political control over urban areas, rationalising and legitimising such unpopular interventions by appealing to ongoing efforts at ‘city marketing’ through international events, and referring to the imperative of upholding a modern city image. We discuss the tensions that arose from these decisions and the subsequent political processes among the intended ‘victims’, and between them and the authorities. In comparing and contrasting the cases of Harare and Maputo, we bring out the dilemmas of planning resorting to ‘non-planning’ and the complex politics triggered by such interventions.

‘GLOCAL’ MOVEMENTS: PLACE STRUGGLES AND TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZING BY INFORMAL WORKERS

Abstract. This paper investigates the scalar practices of collectively organized informal workers and the political implications of such practices. It illustrates how the studied group organizes across scales – hence, a ‘glocal movement’– and stresses the importance of an analysis that integrates these multiple scales of collective organizing, as they may have a bearing on each other. In so doing, it contests a common tendency to analytically privilege one or other scale of resistance and agency. In particular, I argue that networking across scales may be of significance for local struggles and thus play a role in local politics. The transnational activities of the studied group assist it in challenging local power relations and dominant place projects that repress informal livelihood activities. This paper comprises a conceptual discussion of notions of scale, of conceptions of the spatialities and scales of resistance as well as of place, followed by an empirical illustration that refers to an association of informal vendors in Maputo, Mozambique, and its international connections. The analysis is based on interviews with vendors, leaders of the association and with the international partners of the association.

The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City

This Article examines the ways in which market vendors in Kampala, Uganda, responded to plans to redevelop their markets through the concession of long-term leases to private investors. These plans met with massive resistance from the marketers, with significant outcomes. The Article uncovers how the marketers actively negotiated a “gray space” between legality and illegality and creatively used the law, with a view to asserting themselves as the legitimate rulers of their markets. It shows how the marketers engaged in highly diverse modalities of struggle, stretching across the legal/illegal boundary. They organized in multiple configurations which were flexible, hybrid and mutant in character, rather than being fixed in particular organizational categories. In their struggles, the marketers engaged in shifting alliances and with a disparate range of political allies. Their politics were fluid, untamed and pragmatic, but also contradictory and fractured. This flexibility and pragmatism enabled them to navigate a complex political landscape and to make instrumental use of a generally unfavorable legal environment