Global Informality Project - User contributions [en]

Ne nash chelovek

2026-07-22T07:42:42Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Ne nash chelovek (Russia)
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = ''Ne nash chelovek'' (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle.
| location = Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Conformity|Conformity]] – [[:Category:Non-conformity|Non-conformity]] – [[:Category:Control|Control]] – [[:Category:Lock-in effect|Lock-in effect]]
| categories = [[:Category:Employment|Employment]] – [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Network|Network]] – [[:Category:Personal connections|Personal connections]] – [[:Category:Public service|Public service]]
| authorofpiece = Aleksandr Shchennikov
| authorinstitution = Independent researcher
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Aleksandr Shchennikov, Independent researcher'''</big>
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Conformity]]
[[Category:Non-conformity]]
[[Category:Control]]
[[Category:Lock-in effect]]
[[Category:Employment]]
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Network]]
[[Category:Personal connections]]
[[Category:Public service]]
[[Category:Entry]]
[[Category:2026 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| The concept of [[Nash chelovek (Russia and FSU)|''nash chelovek'']] (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ''ne [[nash chelovek]]'' (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.

The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word ''svoi'' (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of ''nashi'' (ours, more broadly). ''Svoi'' implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. ''Nash'' implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force.
|}

In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.

In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (''svoi lyudi'') (1849). In ''The Brothers Karamazov'', Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.

At the level of a municipal department, ''nash chelovek'' is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, ''nash chelovek'' can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933<ref>T. Veblen, ''The Engineers and the Price System'', (New York: Viking Press, 1933).</ref>), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.

The process of alienating ''ne nash chelovek'' begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.

Attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues across municipal departments often run into subtle but systematic resistance. Patrikeev documents these as follows: "I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming<ref>A. Patrikeev, ''Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti'' [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.</ref>).

According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947<ref>H. A. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization'', (New York: Macmillan, 1947).</ref>). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.

However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.

Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.

The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ''ne nash chelovek''. If ''nash chelovek'' refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ''ne nash chelovek'' within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.

For lawyers in local governance, the label of ''ne nash chelovek'' is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015<ref>A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.</ref>).

Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006<ref>A. V. Ledeneva, ''How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business'', (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).</ref>). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ''ne nash chelovek''.

The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013<ref name="ledeneva2013">A. V. Ledeneva, ''Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).</ref>) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.

To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941<ref>E. Frenkel, ''The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).</ref>), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011<ref>R. Sakwa, ''The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).</ref>), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.

''Ne nash chelovek'' has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.

==References==
<references />

Ne nash chelovek

2026-07-22T07:40:31Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Ne nash chelovek
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = ''Ne nash chelovek'' (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle.
| location = Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Conformity|Conformity]] – [[:Category:Non-conformity|Non-conformity]] – [[:Category:Control|Control]] – [[:Category:Lock-in effect|Lock-in effect]]
| categories = [[:Category:Employment|Employment]] – [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Network|Network]] – [[:Category:Personal connections|Personal connections]] – [[:Category:Public service|Public service]]
| authorofpiece = Aleksandr Shchennikov
| authorinstitution = Independent researcher
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Aleksandr Shchennikov, Independent researcher'''</big>
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Conformity]]
[[Category:Non-conformity]]
[[Category:Control]]
[[Category:Lock-in effect]]
[[Category:Employment]]
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Network]]
[[Category:Personal connections]]
[[Category:Public service]]
[[Category:Entry]]
[[Category:2026 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| The concept of [[Nash chelovek (Russia and FSU)|''nash chelovek'']] (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ''ne [[nash chelovek]]'' (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.

The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word ''svoi'' (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of ''nashi'' (ours, more broadly). ''Svoi'' implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. ''Nash'' implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force.
|}

In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.

In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (''svoi lyudi'') (1849). In ''The Brothers Karamazov'', Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.

At the level of a municipal department, ''nash chelovek'' is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, ''nash chelovek'' can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933<ref>T. Veblen, ''The Engineers and the Price System'', (New York: Viking Press, 1933).</ref>), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.

The process of alienating ''ne nash chelovek'' begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.

Attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues across municipal departments often run into subtle but systematic resistance. Patrikeev documents these as follows: "I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming<ref>A. Patrikeev, ''Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti'' [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.</ref>).

According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947<ref>H. A. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization'', (New York: Macmillan, 1947).</ref>). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.

However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.

Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.

The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ''ne nash chelovek''. If ''nash chelovek'' refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ''ne nash chelovek'' within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.

For lawyers in local governance, the label of ''ne nash chelovek'' is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015<ref>A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.</ref>).

Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006<ref>A. V. Ledeneva, ''How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business'', (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).</ref>). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ''ne nash chelovek''.

The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013<ref name="ledeneva2013">A. V. Ledeneva, ''Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).</ref>) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.

To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941<ref>E. Frenkel, ''The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).</ref>), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011<ref>R. Sakwa, ''The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).</ref>), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.

''Ne nash chelovek'' has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.

==References==
<references />

Ne nash chelovek

2026-07-22T07:38:38Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Ne nash chelovek
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = ''Ne nash chelovek'' (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle.
| location = Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Conformity|Conformity]] – [[:Category:Non-conformity|Non-conformity]] – [[:Category:Control|Control]] – [[:Category:Lock-in effect|Lock-in effect]]
| categories = [[:Category:Employment|Employment]] – [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Network|Network]] – [[:Category:Personal connections|Personal connections]] – [[:Category:Public service|Public service]]
| authorofpiece = Aleksandr Shchennikov
| authorinstitution = Independent researcher
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Aleksandr Shchennikov, Independent researcher'''</big>
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Conformity]]
[[Category:Non-conformity]]
[[Category:Control]]
[[Category:Lock-in effect]]
[[Category:Employment]]
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Network]]
[[Category:Personal connections]]
[[Category:Public service]]
[[Category:Entry]]
[[Category:2026 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| The concept of [[Nash chelovek (Russia and FSU)|''nash chelovek'']] (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ''ne [[nash chelovek]]'' (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.

The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word ''svoi'' (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of ''nashi'' (ours, more broadly). ''Svoi'' implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. ''Nash'' implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force.
|}

In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.

In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (''svoi lyudi'') (1849). In ''The Brothers Karamazov'', Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.

At the level of a municipal department, ''nash chelovek'' is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, ''nash chelovek'' can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933<ref>T. Veblen, ''The Engineers and the Price System'', (New York: Viking Press, 1933).</ref>), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.

The process of alienating ''ne nash chelovek'' begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.

Attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues from other departments often run into subtle but systematic resistance. Patrikeev documents these as follows: "I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming<ref>A. Patrikeev, ''Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti'' [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.</ref>).

According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947<ref>H. A. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization'', (New York: Macmillan, 1947).</ref>). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.

However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.

Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.

The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ''ne nash chelovek''. If ''nash chelovek'' refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ''ne nash chelovek'' within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.

For lawyers in local governance, the label of ''ne nash chelovek'' is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015<ref>A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.</ref>).

Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006<ref>A. V. Ledeneva, ''How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business'', (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).</ref>). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ''ne nash chelovek''.

The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013<ref name="ledeneva2013">A. V. Ledeneva, ''Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).</ref>) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.

To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941<ref>E. Frenkel, ''The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).</ref>), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011<ref>R. Sakwa, ''The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).</ref>), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.

''Ne nash chelovek'' has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.

==References==
<references />

Global Informality Project

2026-07-20T19:39:56Z

Admin:

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*The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3: A hitchhiker’s guide to informal problem-solving in human life is now available to download from the [https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232613 UCL Press website]. Book launch [[events]] for Volume 3 of the Encyclopaedia [https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Volume_3_Book_Launch_Events here]
* Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map]
* See our latest [https://us18.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=bdbd18a45ba967a81d864634a&id=471da135e4 Newsletter]
* See our new [https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Informal_Art Open Call on Informal Art]
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Ne nash chelovek

2026-07-20T19:36:57Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Ne nash chelovek
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = ''Ne nash chelovek'' (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle.
| location = Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Conformity|Conformity]] – [[:Category:Non-conformity|Non-conformity]] – [[:Category:Control|Control]] – [[:Category:Lock-in effect|Lock-in effect]]
| categories = [[:Category:Employment|Employment]] – [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Network|Network]] – [[:Category:Personal connections|Personal connections]] – [[:Category:Public service|Public service]]
| authorofpiece = Aleksandr Shchennikov
| authorinstitution = Independent researcher
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Aleksandr Shchennikov'''</big>
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Conformity]]
[[Category:Non-conformity]]
[[Category:Control]]
[[Category:Lock-in effect]]
[[Category:Employment]]
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Network]]
[[Category:Personal connections]]
[[Category:Public service]]
[[Category:Entry]]
[[Category:2026 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| The concept of [[Nash chelovek (Russia and FSU)|''nash chelovek'']] (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ''ne nash chelovek'' (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.

The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word ''svoi'' (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of ''nashi'' (ours, more broadly). ''Svoi'' implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. ''Nash'' implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force.
|}

In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.

In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (''svoi lyudi'') (1849). In ''The Brothers Karamazov'', Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.

At the level of a municipal department, ''nash chelovek'' is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, ''nash chelovek'' can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933<ref>T. Veblen, ''The Engineers and the Price System'', (New York: Viking Press, 1933).</ref>), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.

The process of alienating ''ne nash chelovek'' begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.

My own attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues from other departments ran into subtle but systematic resistance. I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. "They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming<ref>A. Patrikeev, ''Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti'' [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.</ref>).

According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947<ref>H. A. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization'', (New York: Macmillan, 1947).</ref>). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.

However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.

Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.

The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ''ne nash chelovek''. If ''nash chelovek'' refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ''ne nash chelovek'' within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.

For lawyers in local governance, the label of ''ne nash chelovek'' is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015<ref>A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.</ref>).

Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006<ref>A. V. Ledeneva, ''How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business'', (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).</ref>). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ''ne nash chelovek''.

The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013<ref name="ledeneva2013">A. V. Ledeneva, ''Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).</ref>) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.

To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941<ref>E. Frenkel, ''The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).</ref>), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011<ref>R. Sakwa, ''The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).</ref>), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.

''Ne nash chelovek'' has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.

==References==
<references />

Ne nash chelovek

2026-07-20T19:30:36Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Ne nash chelovek
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = [[Ne nash chelovek]] (lit., not our person) is a colloquial Russian term used within administrative environments to identify a professional whose adherence to formal rules and legal rationality makes them a systemic outlier and a threat to the informal comfort of the inner circle.
| location = Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Conformity|Conformity]] – [[:Category:Non-conformity|Non-conformity]] – [[:Category:Control|Control]] – [[:Category:Lock-in effect|Lock-in effect]]
| categories = [[:Category:Employment|Employment]] – [[:Category:Informal governance|Informal governance]] – [[:Category:Network|Network]] – [[:Category:Personal connections|Personal connections]] – [[:Category:Public service|Public service]]
| authorofpiece = Aleksandr Shchennikov
| authorinstitution = Independent researcher
| authorwebsite =
}}
<big>'''By Aleksandr Shchennikov'''</big>
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Conformity]]
[[Category:Non-conformity]]
[[Category:Control]]
[[Category:Lock-in effect]]
[[Category:Employment]]
[[Category:Informal governance]]
[[Category:Network]]
[[Category:Personal connections]]
[[Category:Public service]]
[[Category:Entry]]
[[Category:2026 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| The concept of [[Nash chelovek (Russia and FSU)|''nash chelovek'']] (our man) has traditionally referred to the core of informal solidarity in Russia. However, its mirror image — ''[[ne nash chelovek]]'' (not our man) — the systemic outsider — plays an equally important role: it maintains systemic equilibrium by excluding those who do not conform to informal codes.

The distinction between degrees of belonging is rooted in the very semantics of the Russian language. Linguistically, the use of the word ''svoi'' (one's own, or insiders) is more limited than that of ''nashi'' (ours, more broadly). ''Svoi'' implies belonging and even implies a degree of possession. It refers to an intimate, inner circle of a team, possibly tied together. ''Nash'' implies solidarity more generally, as opposed to outside idea, influence or force.
|}

In the context of governance at the municipal level, where this research took place, the difference between formal and informal belonging is essential. An employee can be considered one of us based on formal criteria (place of residence, department), yet remain an outsider in spirit, sticking to formalities, not making it to the inner circle of the team, or even made redundant on this basis.

In Russian classics, the playwright Aleksandr Ostrovsky has referred to family ties as "our people" (''svoi lyudi'') (1849). In ''The Brothers Karamazov'', Fyodor Dostoevsky described one of the brothers, the rationalist Ivan, as a man who 'is not one of us at heart.' In modern bureaucracy, rational behaviour triggers a similar reaction: a lawyer or expert who insists on following formal procedures is perceived as a bearer of "alien" rationalism.

At the level of a municipal department, ''nash chelovek'' is someone compliant, who shares the common views and is easy to get on with. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is an uncomfortable colleague, and a potential threat to the group's cohesion. At the level of the entire administrative system, ''nash chelovek'' can reach an agreement and resolve the issue. ''Ne nash chelovek'' is a thorny presence — someone who creates problems rather than solves them. The phenomenon can be described by Veblen's paradox of trained incapacity (Veblen 1933<ref>T. Veblen, ''The Engineers and the Price System'', (New York: Viking Press, 1933).</ref>), whereby, say, a lawyer's expertise and professionalism become an obstacle to the system.

The process of alienating ''ne nash chelovek'' begins with creating communication barriers. No order formalises the ban on communication — managers present it as friendly advice to protect the unit's atmosphere. Similar friendly advice would be to avoid any horizontal networking, perceived by the system as a risk of information leaks and disloyalty. Sticking to a vertically integrated chain of command transforms the municipal administration into a set of airtight compartments where practical norms are shielded from external legal oversight.

My own attempts to establish professional relationships with colleagues from other departments ran into subtle but systematic resistance. I was explicitly advised not to interact with employees from other departments. "You don't need to go there," they told me. "They have their own atmosphere there; we have ours." "They might think you're passing information to others" (Patrikeev forthcoming<ref>A. Patrikeev, ''Meria iznutri: 16 let v koridorax rossiskoi vlasti'' [Mayor's office from within: 16 years in the corridors of power in Russia], in Russian, forthcoming manuscript.</ref>).

According to Herbert Simon, an administrative structure functions effectively only when it is capable of imposing certain psychological attitudes and organizational loyalties on employees, compelling them to make decisions based not on personal convictions but on the goals and context of the organization itself (Simon 1947<ref>H. A. Simon, ''Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization'', (New York: Macmillan, 1947).</ref>). Simon points out that the organization effectively limits the individual's autonomy by creating a zone of acceptance within which the individual is willing to comply with established rules.

However, a critical disconnect between rules and norms operates within the Russian local government system. The behavioural code that the system attempts to instil in new employees is based on compliance with unwritten rules and the exercise of informal loyalties. For professional lawyers, such reprogramming often proves impossible. The so-called zone of acceptance is strictly limited by the framework of formal law. As a result, as Simon noted, if an individual cannot identify with the values offered by the organization, he becomes an ineffective element of the system.

Simon's ineffectiveness within the City Hall of an average Russian city manifests itself in several ways. Direct communication with employees from other departments without a supervisor's approval is viewed as suspicious activity. Employees are taught the importance of family ties (our department is a family), while all other departments are competitors for resources or potential sources of problems. When an employee attempts to discuss their position with colleagues from a neighbouring department, their own colleagues may interpret this as betrayal of the department's interests.

The insular mindset transforms the administrative system into an assemblage of isolated islands, each of which develops its own micro-code of informal norms, rendering a figure of professional integrity into ''ne nash chelovek''. If ''nash chelovek'' refers to someone who shares views and complies with the accepted way of thinking, a professional lawyer, ''ne nash chelovek'' within the local governance system, becomes a bearer of inconvenient truth and dissonant knowledge. Legal rationalism and adherence to formal procedures come into direct conflict with informal codes of solidarity, acting as sand in the wheels of informal governance.

For lawyers in local governance, the label of ''ne nash chelovek'' is not merely a subjective feeling or individual experience; it is a statistically confirmed fact. An analysis of staff turnover data collected between 2011 and 2015 — tracking recruits over a two-year retention window (year of recruitment plus the following year) — revealed a trend of rapid drainage of legal expertise from the system. Based on 184 personnel files, the recruitment statistics show that lawyers are in great demand and account for almost a third of the total number of recruits, but their retention rate is the lowest among all professional groups (60.4%) (Shchennikov 2011–2015<ref>A. Shchennikov, "Institutional Pitfalls of the Municipal Civil Service in Russia: Personnel Selection and Mechanisms for the Rejection of Specialists (2011–2015)", unpublished manuscript.</ref>).

Lawyers leave not because of incompetence, but because of their professional acumen. When confronted with unwritten rules, they perceive them not as a management tool, but as a direct risk of criminal prosecution — a situation of suspended punishment (Ledeneva 2006<ref>A. V. Ledeneva, ''How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business'', (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006).</ref>). Possessing hard skills, lawyers perceive the irreconcilable conflict between the legal rules and practical norms within the organisation more acutely than other groups. For the administrative system, a good lawyer is one who finds a way to legalize an informal decision. If, however, a lawyer chooses the role of a guardian of the law, he or she instantly falls into the category of ''ne nash chelovek''.

The drain of professionals described above exposes a fundamental ambivalence (Ledeneva 2013<ref name="ledeneva2013">A. V. Ledeneva, ''Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).</ref>) within the administrative environment. On the one hand, ridding the system of proponents of formal rationality is a rational act of self-preservation for informal networks. This creates a comfort zone, where the absence of alien elements of the law allows their own people to resolve issues unhindered. However, this very practice turns into a strategic vulnerability: in the long term, the administration is left without the internal expertise needed to identify legal risks and external challenges in a timely manner.

To paraphrase Ernst Frenkel's concept of the dual state (Frenkel 1941<ref>E. Frenkel, ''The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship'', (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941).</ref>), the state apparatus operates according to two interdependent yet antagonistic principles: the normative state — the sphere of laws, rules, and predictable procedures — and the prerogative state — the sphere of pure arbitrariness and expediency, unrestricted by law. As a representative of the normative order, a lawyer inevitably comes into conflict with the prerogative logic of informal governance. Richard Sakwa points out that every administrative regime possesses a high degree of adaptability and self-cleansing (Sakwa 2011<ref>R. Sakwa, ''The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession'', (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).</ref>), whereby the system squeezes out the bearer of normativity, restoring internal comfort zones.

''Ne nash chelovek'' has a choice between complying with the informal code of the organization and leaving, typically once administrative pressure makes it impossible to maintain professional identity. Thus, the departure of lawyers is not a failure of personnel management, but an indicator that, at the municipal level, the prerogative principle predominates.

==References==
<references />

Informal Art

2026-04-06T21:31:48Z

Admin: /* Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions to The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts */

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions to The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''==

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts Encyclopaedia volume''' that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, hidden practices and informal power shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes related to visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, decolonisation, self- and environmental care and many others. This is an opportunity to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team, led by Dzmitry Suslau and Diana Kudaibergen, on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL and Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome expression of interest from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on the loosely-defined as 'informal' themes.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you.<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250 words.<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, artistic performances, completed artworks (please include images as separate files).<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words).

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions (samples below)!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

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'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
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<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T12:14:18Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions to The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''==

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts Encyclopaedia volume''' that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, hidden practices and informal power shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes related to visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, decolonisation, self- and environmental care and many others. This is an opportunity to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team, led by Szmitry Suslau and Diana Kudaibergen, on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL and Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome expression of interest from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on the loosely-defined as 'informal' themes.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you.<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250 words.<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, artistic performances, completed artworks (please include images as separate files).<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words).

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions (samples below)!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T12:00:44Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions to The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''==

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts Encyclopaedia''' that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care and many others. This is an opportunity to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team, led by Szmitry Suslau and Diana Kudaibergen, on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL and Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome expression of interest from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on or related to the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, artistic performances, completed artworks (please include images as separate files).<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words).

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions (samples below)!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T11:56:47Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions to The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''==

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts Encyclopaedia''' that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care and many others. This is an opportunity to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team, led by Szmitry Suslau and Diana Kudaibergen, on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL and Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome submissions from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on or related to the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, artistic performances, completed artworks (please include images as separate files).<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words).

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions (samples below)!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T11:55:48Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions'''==

<big>'''Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''</big>

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts Encyclopaedia''' that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care and many others. This is an opportunity to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team, led by Szmitry Suslau and Diana Kudaibergen, on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL and Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome submissions from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on or related to the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, artistic performances, completed artworks (please include images as separate files).<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words).

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions (samples below)!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T11:46:54Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions'''==

<big>'''Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''</big>

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts''' Encyclopaedia that will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts and challenge conventional categorisation, '''<br>

An interdisciplinary research initiative since 2014, [[Global Informality Project]] is associated with the FRINGE Centre supported by the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies and the UCL Press FRINGE series. The three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' are in open access and available to download at https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/.''<br>

We welcome proposals of entries to the Encyclopaedia (papers and artistic contributions) exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care and many others This is your change to shape the future of the Informal Art field. The Encyclopaedia book proposal will be prepared by the editorial team on the basis of the 2026 inaugural conference, a co-creation by the UCL adn Pushkin House teams.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome submissions from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on or related to the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250-300 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, lecture performances, artistic interventions, and completed artworks (please include images as separate files<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words)

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Informal Art

2026-04-06T11:28:15Z

Admin: /* Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions */

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions'''==

<big>'''Global Encyclopaedia of Informality in the Arts'''</big>

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts''' conference, to be held at '''University College London (UCL) and Pushkin House, London, 15-16 January 2026.''' This conference will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

At the same time, the accompanying exhibition ''''The Impossible Encyclopaedia: Informality in the Arts', Pushkin House (January-February 2026, dates TBC)''', will showcase the artworks already realised that challenge conventional categorisation, exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care, among others.<br>

The conference and exhibition are organised as part of the interdisciplinary research initiative, [[Global Informality Project]], led by the FRINGE Centre with support from the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Since 2014, the project has explored the social and cultural complexity of informal practices worldwide, culminating in the publication of three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' (UCL Press, 2018, 2024). '''All accepted papers could be included in Volume 4.'''<br>

We welcome proposals for papers and artistic contributions to the following panels: '''Patterns of Informal Power; Informality and Creative Labour; Lecture Performance and the Edges of Performative Informality; (Secret) Art in the Workplace; Protest Art and Informality; Visibility/Invisibility; Collecting as Art.''' The Encyclopaedia book proposal is being prepareds by the editorial team and now is the beest time to help shape it. The first event exploring the possibility of the Encyclopaedia took place as collaboration of UCL adn Pushkin House.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<big>'''Watch The Global Informality in Arts themes brainstromed at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=global+informality+in+arts'''</big>

We welcome submissions from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on or related to the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' This is an ongoing project, do send us an expression of interest and state the deadline that would work for you<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250-300 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Conceptual entries, lecture performances, artistic interventions, and completed artworks (please include images as separate files<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>
Expression of interest should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, and a short biography (100 words)

For further information about the project, please browse [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:CoverPage.jpeg|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:InformalMuseumCoverPage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

</div>

</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div style="display: flex;">
<div style="width: 30%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; margin-right: 10px;">
[[File:As Beru - Coverpage.png|325px]]
</div>
<div style="width: 100%; border: 1px solid white; padding: 10px; text-align: justify;">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Play Informality Game

2026-03-23T12:55:09Z

Admin: Created page with "[https://buy.stripe.com/test_7sYdRa0srfRpd9F2Sd8bS00 To purchase access to the game, please follow the link]"

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Global Informality Project

2026-03-19T12:42:48Z

Admin:

<div class="mainpage_toprow">
<div class="mainpage_image_new">
[[File:mainpage_world_map.png|link=List of countries and regions]]
</div>
<div style="margin-right:20px">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle">
'''Discover the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices'''
</div>
The '''<nowiki>Global Informality Project</nowiki>''' publishes a leading online resource for 'ways of getting things done.' The [[Explore the Online Encyclopaedia|'''online encyclopaedia''']] and the [[Published Volumes and Analysis|'''published volumes''']] of invisible, yet powerful informal practices are made possible by a remarkable collaboration of scholars from five continents.
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox" style="width:33%">
<div class="mainpage_boxtitle_new">'''START HERE'''</div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="margin:1em">
<div id="mainpage-users">
<big>[[What is informality?]]</big><br>
<big>[[Main Findings|What have we learned so far?]]</big><br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<big>[[Explore the Online Encyclopaedia|Browse the online encyclopaedia]]</big><br>
<big>[[Published Volumes and Analysis|Download the published volumes]]</big>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<big>[[Joining_the_Global_Informality_Project|Contribute a new entry]]</big><br>
<big>[[Play_Informality_Game]]</big>
<br>
<big>[http://eepurl.com/dz86ZX Subscribe to our newsletter]</big>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox" style = "margin-left:1em">
<div class="mainpage_boxtitle_new">'''NEWS'''</div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents">
<div id="mainpage-users" style="margin:1em 1em 0 1em">
*Book launch [[events]] for Volume 3 of the Encyclopaedia [https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Volume_3_Book_Launch_Events here]
*The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume 3: A hitchhiker’s guide to informal problem-solving in human life is now available to download from the [https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232613 UCL Press website]
* Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map]
* Read the [[Related_Publications|latest publications from our authors]]
* See our latest [https://us18.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=bdbd18a45ba967a81d864634a&id=471da135e4 Newsletter]
* See our new [https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Informal_Art Open Call on Informal Art]
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<big>Read the most [[recent entries]] in the online encyclopaedia:</big>
<DynamicPageList>
category = Entry
addfirstcategorydate = true
count = 3
order = descending
mode = unordered
</DynamicPageList>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

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{|
| style="width: 5%" |
|<small>ANTICORRP EU’s FP7 Grant No. 290529, ‘Anticorruption Policies Revisited: Global Trends and European Responses to the Challenges of Corruption.’</small>
|-
|[[File:EU flag.jpg|x25px]]
|<small>INFORM has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693537.</small>
|-
|
|<small>MARKETS EU’s MSCA-ITN project 861034 ‘Mapping Uncertainties, Challenges and Future Opportunities of Emerging Markets: Informal Barriers, Business Environments and Future Trends in Eastern Europe, The Caucasus and Central Asia.’</small>
|}

<small>The authors have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988 to be identified as the authors of this work.</small>

<small>The content of [[Table of Contents|''The Global Encyclopadia of Informality'']] is published under a Creative Commons 4.0 International license ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC BY 4.0]). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work; to adapt the work and to make commercial use of the work providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). All rights are reserved for all other content on this website, including all [[Recent entries|new entries]].</small>

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'''[[Wiki_name:About#Acknowledgements|Acknowledgements]]'''
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|<p style="font-size:1.4vw;color:#2BAE66FF">'''We are currently looking for crowdsourcing and we will be very grateful if you are willing to support our Global Informality Project'''</p>
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Conceptual Entries

2026-03-11T23:21:26Z

Admin:

__TOC__
==[[Triangulating Ethnicity, Networks and Informality | Ethnicity: Triangulating Ethnicity, Networks and Informality]]==
<big>'''By Endre Sik, Center for Social Studies (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary'''</big>

==[[Social exclusion - The dark side of informal networks | Gender: Social exclusion - The dark side of informal networks]]==
<big>'''By Sven Horak, St. John’s University, New York, USA, and Fadi Alsarhan, ISC Paris Business School, Paris, France'''</big>

==[[Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) | Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory)]]==
<big>'''Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance; Associate Researcher, Center for Northeast Asian Studies Tohoku University; Vanemteadur, Tallinn University, Institute of Social Studies, Tallinn University; Research Associate, University of Helsinki, Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki, Finland. '''</big>

Conceptual Entries

2026-03-11T23:20:32Z

Admin:

__TOC__
==[[Triangulating Ethnicity, Networks and Informality | Ethnicity: Triangulating Ethnicity, Networks and Informality]]==
<big>'''By Endre Sik, Center for Social Studies (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) and ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary'''</big>

==[[Social exclusion - The dark side of informal networks | Gender: Social exclusion - The dark side of informal networks]]==
<big>'''By Sven Horak, St. John’s University, New York, USA, and Fadi Alsarhan, ISC Paris Business School, Paris, France'''</big>

==[[Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences | Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences]]==
<big>'''Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance; Associate Researcher, Center for Northeast Asian Studies Tohoku University; Vanemteadur, Tallinn University, Institute of Social Studies, Tallinn University; Research Associate, University of Helsinki, Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki, Finland. '''</big>

Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory)

2026-03-11T23:06:57Z

Admin:

==Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) ''Reflections about what informality is… and is not.''==
=== <big>By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance</big> ===

'''Everyone seems to know what informality is not'''

“...and, in that neighbourhood, many illegal things happen, people are poor... there’s a lot of dodgy... kinda... informal stuff”

This was part of a colleague’s presentation, and that’s when I thought, “Informality is indeed the dumping ground of social sciences.” If you do not know how to explain a social dynamic, throw in the magic word and you can’t go wrong.

Lately, a paper I reviewed read: “we use the word informality as an equivalent to corruption”. My question was, “Why don’t you just say corruption then?”

My guess: a) because using informality is fashionable and it is such an intuitive and flexible concept that nobody (well, except a few of us) will tell you that you’re using it in the wrong way; b) because the authors possibly felt that there was something beyond corruption that they were not able to grasp, but they hadn’t bothered reading anything about informality so they used it in a way I could use a term at a pub with my friends.

That’s no more or less than when I visit a place and someone tells me, “You are in the right country to study informality, we have a lot”. Well, I guess I am in the right country also to study food studies since you need to eat every day, or for gender studies since around half of your population are classified as women.

Living in a place with many cats and sporadically caring for them does not make you a vet. Acknowledging informality and understanding it are two separate things.

'''A love for food does not make you a good chef, it makes you a food lover and that’s all. Debunking informality myths (and misconceptions).'''

I sometimes miss the times when it was just five of us studying informality. Yes, everyone asked, “What is that odd thing you’re studying?”, but at least we did not get generalisations, we did not get people feeling as though they had expertise in informality because “there’s a lot of informality where I come from” or “I’ve not studied informality but I’ve seen a lot during my fieldwork so I am not an expert…but, you know, I guess I have something to contribute to scientific debates.”

So, here’s a first catch. Being born (or bred, or residing) in a place where a practice, any practice, is (visibly) widespread does not make you an expert on that practice. At best, it makes you an informant with a subjective viewpoint on the practice.

For now, think of food. Food is our everyday. Everybody needs to eat so we all know a bit about food. But the mere fact of eating does not make you an expert in food studies. You need to understand positionality, theories and abstract from your subjective lenses.

You were born somewhere, bred somewhere, have your comfort and native foods and you know how they should taste. However, not everyone who knows how these foods should taste can act as an advisor or a cooking expert.

If asked “what’s the most popular food in your country,” our response is likely to be subjective, linked to our own experience. An “objective” answer should take into account consumer preferences, statistics, surveys and production, among other things. It is one thing to understand something intuitively, another thing to produce knowledge about it (or taste). Informality is the same: it’s not because you’ve seen it or you’ve made a gift to access a service that you’re able to talk scientifically about it.

'''Native vs informal'''
'''Are you native in informality language?'''

Juxtaposing your experience as making you knowledgeable about informality in relation to those who are born in “non-informal countries” is inaccurate and a pleonastic romanticisation of informality.

In a Central Asian panel, a speaker suggested: “When entering the Uzbek market after liberalisation, Turkish entrepreneurs were the best placed to understand informality because, opposed to – say – the Swedish, they also had lots of informality in their country.”

I frowned. Let’s hold on for a moment. Can we claim this is even remotely scientific? Are we really suggesting that in Sweden, or elsewhere, everything is written down and people act by the book all the time? That parents and children sign a contract on how they have to behave? That the state regulates (e.g. formalises) all the possible aspects of social life? That if your line manager hates you, your promotion will not be hindered? That if you're a woman, you're not at risk of a salary gap? This risk is lower in Sweden, but still widely [https://www.mi.se/app/uploads/Gender_pay_gap_2024.pdf inexplicable]. Or that you don’t mind working with either A or B regardless of gossip or their reputation in the business environment?

Is it humanly possible that some places have no informality? And even if you do not want to define informality, can we stop and think then what formality (without the in-) is?

I agree that, intuitively, one would say “People in these countries tend to respect formal rules”. But, does this equate to a lack of informality? Formal rules are there exactly to overrule informality; they are an attempt to create processes that can be controlled formally by a regulating entity – replacing what before was regulated through interpersonal relations on the basis of unwritten but widely accepted rules. They usually appear because that kind of relationship is no longer viable (i.e. when relations become impersonal and there’s a need to standardise, to objectify and to explain to newcomers how things should work), or to prompt behavioural change. They are there to regulate what before was agreed using common sense, or unwritten rules but cannot, in any way, liquidate informality totally.

In places often perceived as having low levels of informality, informal (widespread and somehow socially accepted) practices do not often openly and overtly conflict with formal state rules. Yet, a lack of tension (or conflict) between the two realms, a somehow harmonious, and complementary relationship between the formal and the informal in no way means that there is no informality.

Both the Faroe Islands and Denmark score very low in the corruption index - that’s not informality, but it gives you a proxy for the quality of governance. But when Danish experts went to the Faroe Islands to help manage the COVID pandemic, there was a (peaceful) clash of civilisations between the Danes, used to a centralised management (and stricter sanitary rules), and the Faroese governance mechanisms that many have reported to me as quite informal, where word of mouth was sufficient to enforce sanitary measures. Using formal channels would be less effective, and probably slower, than using local message-conveying technology. The Danish colleague would then have to learn “the Faroe way” and tell trusted “information hubs” and key persons what needs to be achieved. Isn’t that the very essence of informality?

[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|These images of informal bicycle parking in Japan show signs that say “Bicycle parking is forbidden here. In case of violations, we will alert the police.” Beside the sign, bicycles are parked in a tidy and regular fashion, with the chain taken down to allow more bikes to park. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]
[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|There is a formal rule, but a tacit understanding that it will not be respected, and a social rule requesting you to park your bike (illegally) in a tidy and proper manner. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]

'''Natural vs normal?'''
'''Informal is the natural condition of social structures.'''

Informality is like the ocean: it occupies 70 percent of the earth, but some insist on seeing it as something out of our normality (life on dry surface), as the “not us” area.

Let’s debunk a further myth. Informality is not the opposite of formality. It’s the formal that is the opposite, the domestication, of the informal. In a common anthropocentric deception one would say “the sea is infested by sharks” (yeah, and the earth is infested by humans, where else would they live?) or that there are “wild” animals as opposed to domesticated (quite the opposite, the natural condition for an animal is wildness, then we’ve created exceptions).

What is wrong here is not the existence of opposite categories. It’s the claim that there is a “normal”, a “natural” condition, which usually overlaps with our understanding of the world, and that the rest is “abnormal”, unnatural.

The formal and the informal do not always collude. Sometimes they overlap, usually they co-exist, compete and complement one another in an asymmetric relationship. The informal is the green of forests. It is there until a house is constructed on top of it. And if left neglected, the green will return to the house and merge with it, like plants in holes in the wall or moss on the roof.

The informal is the natural condition of a society, the formal may take over but end up ineffective. And then the informal “returns”. If not in every single aspect, then at least in any aspect that the formal does not manage to regulate successfully.

But then, for some unknown reason, the attention given to the formal has gone as far as to claim that that’s the only thing worth studying. Well, I understand it’s easier to measure the formal, but that’s only the minority of human interactions.

'''Human vs informal'''
'''Human interactions are born informal. Only when it’s needed do they become regulated.'''

There are many unregulated (read: informal) relationships in our daily life, but we barely notice them because they are so embedded that they have become invisible. We breathe informality by the day, the hour, the minute, and we do not realise it.

Every human interaction is born informal, unregulated. You don’t write a contract with your friends about friendship; you don’t publish a booklet on brother to sister relations. You rely on understanding, guessing, on common sense. Ehm, common sense... what is it, if not the hope that people will guess the (informal) rules regulating a certain environment?

When informal relations fail, when too many people play dumb or ignorant (‘oops, I did not know that I could not take my neighbour’s lunch if I was hungry or beat up my coworker if they upset me’) then you need to regulate, to formalise.

So, we write down the rules of the game, we suggest how to measure, how much is too much. And those spaces become a no-brainer. There is no longer a need to think. Just like when you’re speaking your native language in a comfortable environment.

'''Language vs articulation'''
'''You are both native and foreign in informality language'''

Informality is a language. You learn the one of the environment where you were born. It looks natural to you. You know what your native people expect in a given situation. You anticipate their reaction if you do something aerodynamic, or reactionary to that environment. If you move to an environment where the informal rules are similar (usually where cultures and languages are close), you do not even reflect so it’s easier to understand a kind of informality that has a lot in common with your “native informality”. Like learning Spanish as a French speaker or Thai as a Lao speaker.

But informality without self-reflection is difficult to explain. You might understand better than non-natives, but can’t always explain your native informality, as some non-professional language teachers are unable to explain the “why” of some grammar rules.

Learning a foreign language exposes you to questions and prompts to question your own assumptions, idioms, sentences, grammar. Asking (or being asked) “stupid questions” becomes an opportunity for self-reflection for a native speaker of a given informality; “yes, I know if I do this the people in my hometown will react that or that way.” But why?

Once you compare your native reactions with other people’s reactions and are critical enough not to overlap otherness and wrong (those people do it “the wrong way”, because it’s different from my way), then you become even more aware of your own culture (and native informality).

Likewise, someone learning a foreign mode of informality will be amazed, flabbergasted, fascinated, and might notice nuances that a native informality speaker takes for granted. Both viewpoints are equally valuable, and neither of the two is objective. They are, though, parts of the same reality and can be complementary.

'''Ignorance is no longer ignorable
'''There’s theory, there’s a growing literature, read and engage!'''

So, I guess I am becoming less tolerant of the whataboutist use of “informality”. Like any other social theory concept, it will be abused by some politicians, journalists, or anyone who does not get acquainted with the literature and it will be understood by some others. But it’s a tool. As a scientist, if you use it, you should know what it’s about.

You take a pen, a book, a pan. They can have many alternative uses. The book can be used to prop up an unstable kitchen table; a pan can be used for self-defence or as a musical instrument. But you know, in theory, their primary purpose.

The mere fact that informality can be defined as the area beyond the formal does not mean you understand informality (or formality). It means that there are two realms in competition and that, to be able to say something scientifically meaningful about either, you need to base your reflections on theoretical foundations generated so far.

There is no need to study both the formal and the informal, but you need to be aware of the existence of both. Just as different doctors may train in different specialisations. A heart specialist does not need to know what knee surgery looks like but needs to know that their knowledge has limited applicability beyond their specialised domain, and that there’s a world beyond their world.

So, I understand it less and less every day when someone tries to publish a paper merely stating “look! There’s informality out there”. As if identifying an understudied practice automatically meant “discovering informality”.

Well, (un)fortunately, the times when one could claim to have discovered informality are long gone. You can say that this or that practice are unique to the country, or case, you are studying, and by force of this uniqueness your research is worth attention. Yet, such an argument was valid 20-30 years ago, but now that we have Volumes [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-1/ I], [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-2/ II] and [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-3/ III] of the Encyclopaedia of Informality, as well as the [[Global_Informality_Project|Global Informality Project]], with hundreds of entries and growing, the question to ask is not “is there informality” or “where is informality” but tackle the “so what” question: “what is the social meaning of that particular type of informality?”. How can informality engage in dialogue with major theories, from domination to structure-agency debate, from social stratification to conflict theory?

And yet, I encounter almost daily someone who, whenever they do not know how to explain something, just use the magic word to imply “it’s a bit illegal, a bit bad, but not as bad as criminal.”

Informality still remains, in many people’s perception, an intuitive and mouldable concept that somehow implies “there’s something I do not really understand, I am making a note that I will have to study it later, now I have no time, but for now I just flag it as informality, then we’ll see”.

When this happens, informality is treated as a residual category that is ignored until it finally can’t be ignored anymore. It is treated like a leftover of whatever is not fully understood or explainable, at least to some.

It’s like you feel you’re observing something beyond your scientific understanding (but intuitively graspable) and if you can’t be bothered to go deeper or simply do not have the time to do so. Just say “informality”, and you can’t go wrong. It is a way to signpost that there’s something, out there, in-between, something under-researched, under-explored, under-explained, under-conceptualised.

In such a case, with the informality project, we could produce an informality post-it that could be stuck to any sentence where there’s a concept, or a practice, that you would like to highlight but cannot explain, don’t bother studying, and postpone to later.

Well, not quite. There’s now a large literature on informality that is slowly converging into some kind of theory. The only “under” that applies here is under-reflected upon.

'''If informality is everywhere, how can we understand it?'''
'''Suggestions for engagement with informality debates'''

So, please, don’t treat informality as your dumping ground. Don’t assume you know about it because you’ve seen a lot or experienced a lot on your skin. To make sure you use it properly, here you have my humble advice for new users:

1. Demoralise it: it is not because people are not abiding the law that they are bad. First, a law can be “bad” as well. There have been, and there are, formal laws discriminating against some segments of the society or simply ignoring their needs. People then have a choice: either they go against themselves or they ignore the law. Offering extra money to a doctor who saved your life because you know the state is underpaying them is formally illegal, but is it absolutely and objectively bad? I’ve argued that it’s a primitive attempt of healthcare privatisation since the practice exists also in some “less informal” countries. It’s just better regulated.

2. Use it as a proxy for the quality of governance. If rules are fair and they are constructed taking into account cultural settings and do not prompt any further imbalance or gap, then there is less need to resort to informal practices in a given environment. This is because the formal practices were actually constructed on a successful case of informal practices and then crystallised into rules. In some cases, therefore, informality is not about endangering the state or its social order but repossessing the societal harmony that applied before some ineffective rule was introduced.

3. This is not always the case everywhere. I am not asking you to romanticise informality. I am asking you to start from a “zero point” (not positive, not negative) and consider the pluses and minuses, the costs and benefits of an informal practice beyond what the authorities say. We are scientists, our job is to think and to advise the authorities, but this can be done only if we critically reflect on their work (and do not automatically abide by their description of morality, fairness, justice).

4. “Informality was there, there were attempts to wipe it out and they failed”: that’s a good topic for research in any direction. If a category is behind, protected or enhanced by a new rule, my question would be whether there’s anyone else losing from it. And, if so, what the long-term damage and the broad picture is. If you do this, informality is not necessarily a theory but an approach, a methodological and epistemological tool to approach knowledge from more than one angle and consider several options before jumping to solid conclusions.

'''Statements'''
The piece has been conceived as a provocative essay. As such, the author has chosen not to use any references to keep the reading fluid and let the reader finish it in one breath.

The article received support by the European Research Executive Agency (MSCA-SE PRELAB, GA: 101129940; MSCA-SE ORCA, GA: 101182752; MSCA-SE CARSI, GA: 101086415). The piece was initially conceived during the workshop Urban Politics and Negotiated Stateness organized by Jennifer Robinson (to whom the author is grateful for the invitation and the discussions that ignited the discussion here presented). Further discussions at Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, Chulalonghorn University and the University of Bucharest helped fine tuning the ideas so that the author wishes to thank Hiroki Takakura, Timur Dadabaev, Rodica Ianole, Jirayudh Sinthuphan and Alena Ledeneva for their help in reflecting upon and better formulating some of the concepts expressed here.

==If you want to learn more about informality and the sources that inspired this piece, you can refer to the Global Informality Project and the Global Encyclopedia of informality as well as to the following resources==

Scientific articles (open access)

1. Polese, A. and J. Helou (2025) “Everyday Informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations, and beyond”, Third World Quarterly 45(17-18): 2323-2333

2. Polese, A. (2024) “Alternative currencies, community support and social cohesion: why the Okinawan [[moai]] (模合) is closer to an informal social policy mechanism than to a standard ROSCA”, Kulturni Studia / Cultural Studies 22(1): 135-156

3. Polese, A. (2023) “[[What is informality?]] (Mapping) “the art of bypassing the state” in Eurasian spaces – and beyond”, Eurasian Geography and Economics 64(3): 322-364

4. Polese, A., G. Moise, T. Tokyzhanova, T. Aguzzi, T. Kerikmae, A. Sagynbaeva, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2023) “Informality vs shadow economy: Reflecting on the first results of a managers survey in Kyrgyzstan”, Central Asian Survey 42(1): 149-170 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2022.2093328

5. Polese, A., G. M. Moise, O. Lysa, T. Kerikmae, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2021) “Presenting the results of the shadow economy survey in Ukraine while reflecting on the future(s) of informality studies” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 30(1): 101-123

6. Polese, A. (2014) “Informal Payments in Ukrainian Hospitals: on the Boundary between Informal Payments, Gifts and Bribes”, Anthropological Forum 24(4): 381-395

7. Polese, A. (2009) “‘If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe’ on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine” Anthropology in Action 15(3): 47-60

Short articles
1. Polese, A. (2019) “Informality in Ukraine and beyond: one name, different flavours...with a cheer for the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality”, In-formality Wiki

2. Polese, A. and T. Stepurko (2016) “Informality and Corruption in Ukrainian Universities”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 28 November

Books (check if available on my academia profile, if not, email me to get a copy)
1. Helou, J. and A. Polese, (2025) Informal Governance and Crisis: How Invisible, Everyday Tactics of Survival Affect, Reshape and Redesign Policymaking and Governance. London and New York: Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/Informal-Governance-and-Crisis-How-Invisible-Everyday-Tactics-of-Survival-Affect-Reshape-and-Redesign-Policymaking-and-Governance/Helou-Polese/p/book/9781041086567

2. Polese, A., (ed.) (2022) Labour mobility and precariousness: why informality ends up replacing and supplementing the state for the invisible and the vulnerable. London: Palgrave
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030824983

3. Polese, A., A. Russo and F. Strazzari (eds.) (2019) Governance Beyond The Law: The Immoral, The Illegal, The Criminal. London: Palgrave

4. Polese, A., C. Williams, I. Ursachi and P. Bejakovic (eds.) (2017) The Informal Economy in Global Perspective: Varieties of Governance, London: Palgrave

5. Polese, A. (2016) Limits of a Post-Soviet State: How Informality Replaces, Renegotiates and Reshapes Governance in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag/Columbia University Press

6. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2015) Informal Economies in Post-Socialist Spaces: Practices, Institutions and Networks, London: Palgrave

7. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2014) The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London and New York: Routledge

Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory)

2026-03-11T23:06:13Z

Admin:

==Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) ''Reflections about what informality is… and is not.''==
=== <big>By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance</big> ===

'''Everyone seems to know what informality is not'''

“...and, in that neighbourhood, many illegal things happen, people are poor... there’s a lot of dodgy... kinda... informal stuff”

This was part of a colleague’s presentation, and that’s when I thought, “Informality is indeed the dumping ground of social sciences.” If you do not know how to explain a social dynamic, throw in the magic word and you can’t go wrong.

Lately, a paper I reviewed read: “we use the word informality as an equivalent to corruption”. My question was, “Why don’t you just say corruption then?”

My guess: a) because using informality is fashionable and it is such an intuitive and flexible concept that nobody (well, except a few of us) will tell you that you’re using it in the wrong way; b) because the authors possibly felt that there was something beyond corruption that they were not able to grasp, but they hadn’t bothered reading anything about informality so they used it in a way I could use a term at a pub with my friends.

That’s no more or less than when I visit a place and someone tells me, “You are in the right country to study informality, we have a lot”. Well, I guess I am in the right country also to study food studies since you need to eat every day, or for gender studies since around half of your population are classified as women.

Living in a place with many cats and sporadically caring for them does not make you a vet. Acknowledging informality and understanding it are two separate things.

'''A love for food does not make you a good chef, it makes you a food lover and that’s all. Debunking informality myths (and misconceptions).'''

I sometimes miss the times when it was just five of us studying informality. Yes, everyone asked, “What is that odd thing you’re studying?”, but at least we did not get generalisations, we did not get people feeling as though they had expertise in informality because “there’s a lot of informality where I come from” or “I’ve not studied informality but I’ve seen a lot during my fieldwork so I am not an expert…but, you know, I guess I have something to contribute to scientific debates.”

So, here’s a first catch. Being born (or bred, or residing) in a place where a practice, any practice, is (visibly) widespread does not make you an expert on that practice. At best, it makes you an informant with a subjective viewpoint on the practice.

For now, think of food. Food is our everyday. Everybody needs to eat so we all know a bit about food. But the mere fact of eating does not make you an expert in food studies. You need to understand positionality, theories and abstract from your subjective lenses.

You were born somewhere, bred somewhere, have your comfort and native foods and you know how they should taste. However, not everyone who knows how these foods should taste can act as an advisor or a cooking expert.

If asked “what’s the most popular food in your country,” our response is likely to be subjective, linked to our own experience. An “objective” answer should take into account consumer preferences, statistics, surveys and production, among other things. It is one thing to understand something intuitively, another thing to produce knowledge about it (or taste). Informality is the same: it’s not because you’ve seen it or you’ve made a gift to access a service that you’re able to talk scientifically about it.

'''Native vs informal'''
'''Are you native in informality language?'''

Juxtaposing your experience as making you knowledgeable about informality in relation to those who are born in “non-informal countries” is inaccurate and a pleonastic romanticisation of informality.

In a Central Asian panel, a speaker suggested: “When entering the Uzbek market after liberalisation, Turkish entrepreneurs were the best placed to understand informality because, opposed to – say – the Swedish, they also had lots of informality in their country.”

I frowned. Let’s hold on for a moment. Can we claim this is even remotely scientific? Are we really suggesting that in Sweden, or elsewhere, everything is written down and people act by the book all the time? That parents and children sign a contract on how they have to behave? That the state regulates (e.g. formalises) all the possible aspects of social life? That if your line manager hates you, your promotion will not be hindered? That if you're a woman, you're not at risk of a salary gap? This risk is lower in Sweden, but still widely [https://www.mi.se/app/uploads/Gender_pay_gap_2024.pdf inexplicable]. Or that you don’t mind working with either A or B regardless of gossip or their reputation in the business environment?

Is it humanly possible that some places have no informality? And even if you do not want to define informality, can we stop and think then what formality (without the in-) is?

I agree that, intuitively, one would say “People in these countries tend to respect formal rules”. But, does this equate to a lack of informality? Formal rules are there exactly to overrule informality; they are an attempt to create processes that can be controlled formally by a regulating entity – replacing what before was regulated through interpersonal relations on the basis of unwritten but widely accepted rules. They usually appear because that kind of relationship is no longer viable (i.e. when relations become impersonal and there’s a need to standardise, to objectify and to explain to newcomers how things should work), or to prompt behavioural change. They are there to regulate what before was agreed using common sense, or unwritten rules but cannot, in any way, liquidate informality totally.

In places often perceived as having low levels of informality, informal (widespread and somehow socially accepted) practices do not often openly and overtly conflict with formal state rules. Yet, a lack of tension (or conflict) between the two realms, a somehow harmonious, and complementary relationship between the formal and the informal in no way means that there is no informality.

Both the Faroe Islands and Denmark score very low in the corruption index - that’s not informality, but it gives you a proxy for the quality of governance. But when Danish experts went to the Faroe Islands to help manage the COVID pandemic, there was a (peaceful) clash of civilisations between the Danes, used to a centralised management (and stricter sanitary rules), and the Faroese governance mechanisms that many have reported to me as quite informal, where word of mouth was sufficient to enforce sanitary measures. Using formal channels would be less effective, and probably slower, than using local message-conveying technology. The Danish colleague would then have to learn “the Faroe way” and tell trusted “information hubs” and key persons what needs to be achieved. Isn’t that the very essence of informality?

[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|These images of informal bicycle parking in Japan show signs that say “Bicycle parking is forbidden here. In case of violations, we will alert the police.” Beside the sign, bicycles are parked in a tidy and regular fashion, with the chain taken down to allow more bikes to park. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]
[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|There is a formal rule, but a tacit understanding that it will not be respected, and a social rule requesting you to park your bike (illegally) in a tidy and proper manner. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]

'''Natural vs normal?'''
'''Informal is the natural condition of social structures.'''

Informality is like the ocean: it occupies 70 percent of the earth, but some insist on seeing it as something out of our normality (life on dry surface), as the “not us” area.

Let’s debunk a further myth. Informality is not the opposite of formality. It’s the formal that is the opposite, the domestication, of the informal. In a common anthropocentric deception one would say “the sea is infested by sharks” (yeah, and the earth is infested by humans, where else would they live?) or that there are “wild” animals as opposed to domesticated (quite the opposite, the natural condition for an animal is wildness, then we’ve created exceptions).

What is wrong here is not the existence of opposite categories. It’s the claim that there is a “normal”, a “natural” condition, which usually overlaps with our understanding of the world, and that the rest is “abnormal”, unnatural.

The formal and the informal do not always collude. Sometimes they overlap, usually they co-exist, compete and complement one another in an asymmetric relationship. The informal is the green of forests. It is there until a house is constructed on top of it. And if left neglected, the green will return to the house and merge with it, like plants in holes in the wall or moss on the roof.

The informal is the natural condition of a society, the formal may take over but end up ineffective. And then the informal “returns”. If not in every single aspect, then at least in any aspect that the formal does not manage to regulate successfully.

But then, for some unknown reason, the attention given to the formal has gone as far as to claim that that’s the only thing worth studying. Well, I understand it’s easier to measure the formal, but that’s only the minority of human interactions.

'''Human vs informal'''
'''Human interactions are born informal. Only when it’s needed do they become regulated.'''

There are many unregulated (read: informal) relationships in our daily life, but we barely notice them because they are so embedded that they have become invisible. We breathe informality by the day, the hour, the minute, and we do not realise it.

Every human interaction is born informal, unregulated. You don’t write a contract with your friends about friendship; you don’t publish a booklet on brother to sister relations. You rely on understanding, guessing, on common sense. Ehm, common sense... what is it, if not the hope that people will guess the (informal) rules regulating a certain environment?

When informal relations fail, when too many people play dumb or ignorant (‘oops, I did not know that I could not take my neighbour’s lunch if I was hungry or beat up my coworker if they upset me’) then you need to regulate, to formalise.

So, we write down the rules of the game, we suggest how to measure, how much is too much. And those spaces become a no-brainer. There is no longer a need to think. Just like when you’re speaking your native language in a comfortable environment.

'''Language vs articulation'''
'''You are both native and foreign in informality language'''

Informality is a language. You learn the one of the environment where you were born. It looks natural to you. You know what your native people expect in a given situation. You anticipate their reaction if you do something aerodynamic, or reactionary to that environment. If you move to an environment where the informal rules are similar (usually where cultures and languages are close), you do not even reflect so it’s easier to understand a kind of informality that has a lot in common with your “native informality”. Like learning Spanish as a French speaker or Thai as a Lao speaker.

But informality without self-reflection is difficult to explain. You might understand better than non-natives, but can’t always explain your native informality, as some non-professional language teachers are unable to explain the “why” of some grammar rules.

Learning a foreign language exposes you to questions and prompts to question your own assumptions, idioms, sentences, grammar. Asking (or being asked) “stupid questions” becomes an opportunity for self-reflection for a native speaker of a given informality; “yes, I know if I do this the people in my hometown will react that or that way.” But why?

Once you compare your native reactions with other people’s reactions and are critical enough not to overlap otherness and wrong (those people do it “the wrong way”, because it’s different from my way), then you become even more aware of your own culture (and native informality).

Likewise, someone learning a foreign mode of informality will be amazed, flabbergasted, fascinated, and might notice nuances that a native informality speaker takes for granted. Both viewpoints are equally valuable, and neither of the two is objective. They are, though, parts of the same reality and can be complementary.

'''Ignorance is no longer ignorable
'''There’s theory, there’s a growing literature, read and engage!'''

So, I guess I am becoming less tolerant of the whataboutist use of “informality”. Like any other social theory concept, it will be abused by some politicians, journalists, or anyone who does not get acquainted with the literature and it will be understood by some others. But it’s a tool. As a scientist, if you use it, you should know what it’s about.

You take a pen, a book, a pan. They can have many alternative uses. The book can be used to prop up an unstable kitchen table; a pan can be used for self-defence or as a musical instrument. But you know, in theory, their primary purpose.

The mere fact that informality can be defined as the area beyond the formal does not mean you understand informality (or formality). It means that there are two realms in competition and that, to be able to say something scientifically meaningful about either, you need to base your reflections on theoretical foundations generated so far.

There is no need to study both the formal and the informal, but you need to be aware of the existence of both. Just as different doctors may train in different specialisations. A heart specialist does not need to know what knee surgery looks like but needs to know that their knowledge has limited applicability beyond their specialised domain, and that there’s a world beyond their world.

So, I understand it less and less every day when someone tries to publish a paper merely stating “look! There’s informality out there”. As if identifying an understudied practice automatically meant “discovering informality”.

Well, (un)fortunately, the times when one could claim to have discovered informality are long gone. You can say that this or that practice are unique to the country, or case, you are studying, and by force of this uniqueness your research is worth attention. Yet, such an argument was valid 20-30 years ago, but now that we have Volumes [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-1/ I], [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-2/ II] and [[https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-3/|III]] of the Encyclopaedia of Informality, as well as the [[Global_Informality_Project|Global Informality Project]], with hundreds of entries and growing, the question to ask is not “is there informality” or “where is informality” but tackle the “so what” question: “what is the social meaning of that particular type of informality?”. How can informality engage in dialogue with major theories, from domination to structure-agency debate, from social stratification to conflict theory?

And yet, I encounter almost daily someone who, whenever they do not know how to explain something, just use the magic word to imply “it’s a bit illegal, a bit bad, but not as bad as criminal.”

Informality still remains, in many people’s perception, an intuitive and mouldable concept that somehow implies “there’s something I do not really understand, I am making a note that I will have to study it later, now I have no time, but for now I just flag it as informality, then we’ll see”.

When this happens, informality is treated as a residual category that is ignored until it finally can’t be ignored anymore. It is treated like a leftover of whatever is not fully understood or explainable, at least to some.

It’s like you feel you’re observing something beyond your scientific understanding (but intuitively graspable) and if you can’t be bothered to go deeper or simply do not have the time to do so. Just say “informality”, and you can’t go wrong. It is a way to signpost that there’s something, out there, in-between, something under-researched, under-explored, under-explained, under-conceptualised.

In such a case, with the informality project, we could produce an informality post-it that could be stuck to any sentence where there’s a concept, or a practice, that you would like to highlight but cannot explain, don’t bother studying, and postpone to later.

Well, not quite. There’s now a large literature on informality that is slowly converging into some kind of theory. The only “under” that applies here is under-reflected upon.

'''If informality is everywhere, how can we understand it?'''
'''Suggestions for engagement with informality debates'''

So, please, don’t treat informality as your dumping ground. Don’t assume you know about it because you’ve seen a lot or experienced a lot on your skin. To make sure you use it properly, here you have my humble advice for new users:

1. Demoralise it: it is not because people are not abiding the law that they are bad. First, a law can be “bad” as well. There have been, and there are, formal laws discriminating against some segments of the society or simply ignoring their needs. People then have a choice: either they go against themselves or they ignore the law. Offering extra money to a doctor who saved your life because you know the state is underpaying them is formally illegal, but is it absolutely and objectively bad? I’ve argued that it’s a primitive attempt of healthcare privatisation since the practice exists also in some “less informal” countries. It’s just better regulated.

2. Use it as a proxy for the quality of governance. If rules are fair and they are constructed taking into account cultural settings and do not prompt any further imbalance or gap, then there is less need to resort to informal practices in a given environment. This is because the formal practices were actually constructed on a successful case of informal practices and then crystallised into rules. In some cases, therefore, informality is not about endangering the state or its social order but repossessing the societal harmony that applied before some ineffective rule was introduced.

3. This is not always the case everywhere. I am not asking you to romanticise informality. I am asking you to start from a “zero point” (not positive, not negative) and consider the pluses and minuses, the costs and benefits of an informal practice beyond what the authorities say. We are scientists, our job is to think and to advise the authorities, but this can be done only if we critically reflect on their work (and do not automatically abide by their description of morality, fairness, justice).

4. “Informality was there, there were attempts to wipe it out and they failed”: that’s a good topic for research in any direction. If a category is behind, protected or enhanced by a new rule, my question would be whether there’s anyone else losing from it. And, if so, what the long-term damage and the broad picture is. If you do this, informality is not necessarily a theory but an approach, a methodological and epistemological tool to approach knowledge from more than one angle and consider several options before jumping to solid conclusions.

'''Statements'''
The piece has been conceived as a provocative essay. As such, the author has chosen not to use any references to keep the reading fluid and let the reader finish it in one breath.

The article received support by the European Research Executive Agency (MSCA-SE PRELAB, GA: 101129940; MSCA-SE ORCA, GA: 101182752; MSCA-SE CARSI, GA: 101086415). The piece was initially conceived during the workshop Urban Politics and Negotiated Stateness organized by Jennifer Robinson (to whom the author is grateful for the invitation and the discussions that ignited the discussion here presented). Further discussions at Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, Chulalonghorn University and the University of Bucharest helped fine tuning the ideas so that the author wishes to thank Hiroki Takakura, Timur Dadabaev, Rodica Ianole, Jirayudh Sinthuphan and Alena Ledeneva for their help in reflecting upon and better formulating some of the concepts expressed here.

==If you want to learn more about informality and the sources that inspired this piece, you can refer to the Global Informality Project and the Global Encyclopedia of informality as well as to the following resources==

Scientific articles (open access)

1. Polese, A. and J. Helou (2025) “Everyday Informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations, and beyond”, Third World Quarterly 45(17-18): 2323-2333

2. Polese, A. (2024) “Alternative currencies, community support and social cohesion: why the Okinawan [[moai]] (模合) is closer to an informal social policy mechanism than to a standard ROSCA”, Kulturni Studia / Cultural Studies 22(1): 135-156

3. Polese, A. (2023) “[[What is informality?]] (Mapping) “the art of bypassing the state” in Eurasian spaces – and beyond”, Eurasian Geography and Economics 64(3): 322-364

4. Polese, A., G. Moise, T. Tokyzhanova, T. Aguzzi, T. Kerikmae, A. Sagynbaeva, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2023) “Informality vs shadow economy: Reflecting on the first results of a managers survey in Kyrgyzstan”, Central Asian Survey 42(1): 149-170 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2022.2093328

5. Polese, A., G. M. Moise, O. Lysa, T. Kerikmae, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2021) “Presenting the results of the shadow economy survey in Ukraine while reflecting on the future(s) of informality studies” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 30(1): 101-123

6. Polese, A. (2014) “Informal Payments in Ukrainian Hospitals: on the Boundary between Informal Payments, Gifts and Bribes”, Anthropological Forum 24(4): 381-395

7. Polese, A. (2009) “‘If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe’ on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine” Anthropology in Action 15(3): 47-60

Short articles
1. Polese, A. (2019) “Informality in Ukraine and beyond: one name, different flavours...with a cheer for the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality”, In-formality Wiki

2. Polese, A. and T. Stepurko (2016) “Informality and Corruption in Ukrainian Universities”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 28 November

Books (check if available on my academia profile, if not, email me to get a copy)
1. Helou, J. and A. Polese, (2025) Informal Governance and Crisis: How Invisible, Everyday Tactics of Survival Affect, Reshape and Redesign Policymaking and Governance. London and New York: Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/Informal-Governance-and-Crisis-How-Invisible-Everyday-Tactics-of-Survival-Affect-Reshape-and-Redesign-Policymaking-and-Governance/Helou-Polese/p/book/9781041086567

2. Polese, A., (ed.) (2022) Labour mobility and precariousness: why informality ends up replacing and supplementing the state for the invisible and the vulnerable. London: Palgrave
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030824983

3. Polese, A., A. Russo and F. Strazzari (eds.) (2019) Governance Beyond The Law: The Immoral, The Illegal, The Criminal. London: Palgrave

4. Polese, A., C. Williams, I. Ursachi and P. Bejakovic (eds.) (2017) The Informal Economy in Global Perspective: Varieties of Governance, London: Palgrave

5. Polese, A. (2016) Limits of a Post-Soviet State: How Informality Replaces, Renegotiates and Reshapes Governance in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag/Columbia University Press

6. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2015) Informal Economies in Post-Socialist Spaces: Practices, Institutions and Networks, London: Palgrave

7. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2014) The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London and New York: Routledge

Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory)

2026-03-11T23:05:06Z

Admin:

==Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) ''Reflections about what informality is… and is not.''==
=== <big>By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance</big> ===

'''Everyone seems to know what informality is not'''

“...and, in that neighbourhood, many illegal things happen, people are poor... there’s a lot of dodgy... kinda... informal stuff”

This was part of a colleague’s presentation, and that’s when I thought, “Informality is indeed the dumping ground of social sciences.” If you do not know how to explain a social dynamic, throw in the magic word and you can’t go wrong.

Lately, a paper I reviewed read: “we use the word informality as an equivalent to corruption”. My question was, “Why don’t you just say corruption then?”

My guess: a) because using informality is fashionable and it is such an intuitive and flexible concept that nobody (well, except a few of us) will tell you that you’re using it in the wrong way; b) because the authors possibly felt that there was something beyond corruption that they were not able to grasp, but they hadn’t bothered reading anything about informality so they used it in a way I could use a term at a pub with my friends.

That’s no more or less than when I visit a place and someone tells me, “You are in the right country to study informality, we have a lot”. Well, I guess I am in the right country also to study food studies since you need to eat every day, or for gender studies since around half of your population are classified as women.

Living in a place with many cats and sporadically caring for them does not make you a vet. Acknowledging informality and understanding it are two separate things.

'''A love for food does not make you a good chef, it makes you a food lover and that’s all. Debunking informality myths (and misconceptions).'''

I sometimes miss the times when it was just five of us studying informality. Yes, everyone asked, “What is that odd thing you’re studying?”, but at least we did not get generalisations, we did not get people feeling as though they had expertise in informality because “there’s a lot of informality where I come from” or “I’ve not studied informality but I’ve seen a lot during my fieldwork so I am not an expert…but, you know, I guess I have something to contribute to scientific debates.”

So, here’s a first catch. Being born (or bred, or residing) in a place where a practice, any practice, is (visibly) widespread does not make you an expert on that practice. At best, it makes you an informant with a subjective viewpoint on the practice.

For now, think of food. Food is our everyday. Everybody needs to eat so we all know a bit about food. But the mere fact of eating does not make you an expert in food studies. You need to understand positionality, theories and abstract from your subjective lenses.

You were born somewhere, bred somewhere, have your comfort and native foods and you know how they should taste. However, not everyone who knows how these foods should taste can act as an advisor or a cooking expert.

If asked “what’s the most popular food in your country,” our response is likely to be subjective, linked to our own experience. An “objective” answer should take into account consumer preferences, statistics, surveys and production, among other things. It is one thing to understand something intuitively, another thing to produce knowledge about it (or taste). Informality is the same: it’s not because you’ve seen it or you’ve made a gift to access a service that you’re able to talk scientifically about it.

'''Native vs informal'''
'''Are you native in informality language?'''

Juxtaposing your experience as making you knowledgeable about informality in relation to those who are born in “non-informal countries” is inaccurate and a pleonastic romanticisation of informality.

In a Central Asian panel, a speaker suggested: “When entering the Uzbek market after liberalisation, Turkish entrepreneurs were the best placed to understand informality because, opposed to – say – the Swedish, they also had lots of informality in their country.”

I frowned. Let’s hold on for a moment. Can we claim this is even remotely scientific? Are we really suggesting that in Sweden, or elsewhere, everything is written down and people act by the book all the time? That parents and children sign a contract on how they have to behave? That the state regulates (e.g. formalises) all the possible aspects of social life? That if your line manager hates you, your promotion will not be hindered? That if you're a woman, you're not at risk of a salary gap? This risk is lower in Sweden, but still widely [https://www.mi.se/app/uploads/Gender_pay_gap_2024.pdf inexplicable]. Or that you don’t mind working with either A or B regardless of gossip or their reputation in the business environment?

Is it humanly possible that some places have no informality? And even if you do not want to define informality, can we stop and think then what formality (without the in-) is?

I agree that, intuitively, one would say “People in these countries tend to respect formal rules”. But, does this equate to a lack of informality? Formal rules are there exactly to overrule informality; they are an attempt to create processes that can be controlled formally by a regulating entity – replacing what before was regulated through interpersonal relations on the basis of unwritten but widely accepted rules. They usually appear because that kind of relationship is no longer viable (i.e. when relations become impersonal and there’s a need to standardise, to objectify and to explain to newcomers how things should work), or to prompt behavioural change. They are there to regulate what before was agreed using common sense, or unwritten rules but cannot, in any way, liquidate informality totally.

In places often perceived as having low levels of informality, informal (widespread and somehow socially accepted) practices do not often openly and overtly conflict with formal state rules. Yet, a lack of tension (or conflict) between the two realms, a somehow harmonious, and complementary relationship between the formal and the informal in no way means that there is no informality.

Both the Faroe Islands and Denmark score very low in the corruption index - that’s not informality, but it gives you a proxy for the quality of governance. But when Danish experts went to the Faroe Islands to help manage the COVID pandemic, there was a (peaceful) clash of civilisations between the Danes, used to a centralised management (and stricter sanitary rules), and the Faroese governance mechanisms that many have reported to me as quite informal, where word of mouth was sufficient to enforce sanitary measures. Using formal channels would be less effective, and probably slower, than using local message-conveying technology. The Danish colleague would then have to learn “the Faroe way” and tell trusted “information hubs” and key persons what needs to be achieved. Isn’t that the very essence of informality?

[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|These images of informal bicycle parking in Japan show signs that say “Bicycle parking is forbidden here. In case of violations, we will alert the police.” Beside the sign, bicycles are parked in a tidy and regular fashion, with the chain taken down to allow more bikes to park. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]
[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|There is a formal rule, but a tacit understanding that it will not be respected, and a social rule requesting you to park your bike (illegally) in a tidy and proper manner. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]

'''Natural vs normal?'''
'''Informal is the natural condition of social structures.'''

Informality is like the ocean: it occupies 70 percent of the earth, but some insist on seeing it as something out of our normality (life on dry surface), as the “not us” area.

Let’s debunk a further myth. Informality is not the opposite of formality. It’s the formal that is the opposite, the domestication, of the informal. In a common anthropocentric deception one would say “the sea is infested by sharks” (yeah, and the earth is infested by humans, where else would they live?) or that there are “wild” animals as opposed to domesticated (quite the opposite, the natural condition for an animal is wildness, then we’ve created exceptions).

What is wrong here is not the existence of opposite categories. It’s the claim that there is a “normal”, a “natural” condition, which usually overlaps with our understanding of the world, and that the rest is “abnormal”, unnatural.

The formal and the informal do not always collude. Sometimes they overlap, usually they co-exist, compete and complement one another in an asymmetric relationship. The informal is the green of forests. It is there until a house is constructed on top of it. And if left neglected, the green will return to the house and merge with it, like plants in holes in the wall or moss on the roof.

The informal is the natural condition of a society, the formal may take over but end up ineffective. And then the informal “returns”. If not in every single aspect, then at least in any aspect that the formal does not manage to regulate successfully.

But then, for some unknown reason, the attention given to the formal has gone as far as to claim that that’s the only thing worth studying. Well, I understand it’s easier to measure the formal, but that’s only the minority of human interactions.

'''Human vs informal'''
'''Human interactions are born informal. Only when it’s needed do they become regulated.'''

There are many unregulated (read: informal) relationships in our daily life, but we barely notice them because they are so embedded that they have become invisible. We breathe informality by the day, the hour, the minute, and we do not realise it.

Every human interaction is born informal, unregulated. You don’t write a contract with your friends about friendship; you don’t publish a booklet on brother to sister relations. You rely on understanding, guessing, on common sense. Ehm, common sense... what is it, if not the hope that people will guess the (informal) rules regulating a certain environment?

When informal relations fail, when too many people play dumb or ignorant (‘oops, I did not know that I could not take my neighbour’s lunch if I was hungry or beat up my coworker if they upset me’) then you need to regulate, to formalise.

So, we write down the rules of the game, we suggest how to measure, how much is too much. And those spaces become a no-brainer. There is no longer a need to think. Just like when you’re speaking your native language in a comfortable environment.

'''Language vs articulation'''
'''You are both native and foreign in informality language'''

Informality is a language. You learn the one of the environment where you were born. It looks natural to you. You know what your native people expect in a given situation. You anticipate their reaction if you do something aerodynamic, or reactionary to that environment. If you move to an environment where the informal rules are similar (usually where cultures and languages are close), you do not even reflect so it’s easier to understand a kind of informality that has a lot in common with your “native informality”. Like learning Spanish as a French speaker or Thai as a Lao speaker.

But informality without self-reflection is difficult to explain. You might understand better than non-natives, but can’t always explain your native informality, as some non-professional language teachers are unable to explain the “why” of some grammar rules.

Learning a foreign language exposes you to questions and prompts to question your own assumptions, idioms, sentences, grammar. Asking (or being asked) “stupid questions” becomes an opportunity for self-reflection for a native speaker of a given informality; “yes, I know if I do this the people in my hometown will react that or that way.” But why?

Once you compare your native reactions with other people’s reactions and are critical enough not to overlap otherness and wrong (those people do it “the wrong way”, because it’s different from my way), then you become even more aware of your own culture (and native informality).

Likewise, someone learning a foreign mode of informality will be amazed, flabbergasted, fascinated, and might notice nuances that a native informality speaker takes for granted. Both viewpoints are equally valuable, and neither of the two is objective. They are, though, parts of the same reality and can be complementary.

'''Ignorance is no longer ignorable
'''There’s theory, there’s a growing literature, read and engage!'''

So, I guess I am becoming less tolerant of the whataboutist use of “informality”. Like any other social theory concept, it will be abused by some politicians, journalists, or anyone who does not get acquainted with the literature and it will be understood by some others. But it’s a tool. As a scientist, if you use it, you should know what it’s about.

You take a pen, a book, a pan. They can have many alternative uses. The book can be used to prop up an unstable kitchen table; a pan can be used for self-defence or as a musical instrument. But you know, in theory, their primary purpose.

The mere fact that informality can be defined as the area beyond the formal does not mean you understand informality (or formality). It means that there are two realms in competition and that, to be able to say something scientifically meaningful about either, you need to base your reflections on theoretical foundations generated so far.

There is no need to study both the formal and the informal, but you need to be aware of the existence of both. Just as different doctors may train in different specialisations. A heart specialist does not need to know what knee surgery looks like but needs to know that their knowledge has limited applicability beyond their specialised domain, and that there’s a world beyond their world.

So, I understand it less and less every day when someone tries to publish a paper merely stating “look! There’s informality out there”. As if identifying an understudied practice automatically meant “discovering informality”.

Well, (un)fortunately, the times when one could claim to have discovered informality are long gone. You can say that this or that practice are unique to the country, or case, you are studying, and by force of this uniqueness your research is worth attention. Yet, such an argument was valid 20-30 years ago, but now that we have Volumes [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-1/ I], [Ihttps://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-2/|II] and [IIhttps://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-3/|III] of the Encyclopaedia of Informality, as well as the [[Global_Informality_Project|Global Informality Project]], with hundreds of entries and growing, the question to ask is not “is there informality” or “where is informality” but tackle the “so what” question: “what is the social meaning of that particular type of informality?”. How can informality engage in dialogue with major theories, from domination to structure-agency debate, from social stratification to conflict theory?

And yet, I encounter almost daily someone who, whenever they do not know how to explain something, just use the magic word to imply “it’s a bit illegal, a bit bad, but not as bad as criminal.”

Informality still remains, in many people’s perception, an intuitive and mouldable concept that somehow implies “there’s something I do not really understand, I am making a note that I will have to study it later, now I have no time, but for now I just flag it as informality, then we’ll see”.

When this happens, informality is treated as a residual category that is ignored until it finally can’t be ignored anymore. It is treated like a leftover of whatever is not fully understood or explainable, at least to some.

It’s like you feel you’re observing something beyond your scientific understanding (but intuitively graspable) and if you can’t be bothered to go deeper or simply do not have the time to do so. Just say “informality”, and you can’t go wrong. It is a way to signpost that there’s something, out there, in-between, something under-researched, under-explored, under-explained, under-conceptualised.

In such a case, with the informality project, we could produce an informality post-it that could be stuck to any sentence where there’s a concept, or a practice, that you would like to highlight but cannot explain, don’t bother studying, and postpone to later.

Well, not quite. There’s now a large literature on informality that is slowly converging into some kind of theory. The only “under” that applies here is under-reflected upon.

'''If informality is everywhere, how can we understand it?'''
'''Suggestions for engagement with informality debates'''

So, please, don’t treat informality as your dumping ground. Don’t assume you know about it because you’ve seen a lot or experienced a lot on your skin. To make sure you use it properly, here you have my humble advice for new users:

1. Demoralise it: it is not because people are not abiding the law that they are bad. First, a law can be “bad” as well. There have been, and there are, formal laws discriminating against some segments of the society or simply ignoring their needs. People then have a choice: either they go against themselves or they ignore the law. Offering extra money to a doctor who saved your life because you know the state is underpaying them is formally illegal, but is it absolutely and objectively bad? I’ve argued that it’s a primitive attempt of healthcare privatisation since the practice exists also in some “less informal” countries. It’s just better regulated.

2. Use it as a proxy for the quality of governance. If rules are fair and they are constructed taking into account cultural settings and do not prompt any further imbalance or gap, then there is less need to resort to informal practices in a given environment. This is because the formal practices were actually constructed on a successful case of informal practices and then crystallised into rules. In some cases, therefore, informality is not about endangering the state or its social order but repossessing the societal harmony that applied before some ineffective rule was introduced.

3. This is not always the case everywhere. I am not asking you to romanticise informality. I am asking you to start from a “zero point” (not positive, not negative) and consider the pluses and minuses, the costs and benefits of an informal practice beyond what the authorities say. We are scientists, our job is to think and to advise the authorities, but this can be done only if we critically reflect on their work (and do not automatically abide by their description of morality, fairness, justice).

4. “Informality was there, there were attempts to wipe it out and they failed”: that’s a good topic for research in any direction. If a category is behind, protected or enhanced by a new rule, my question would be whether there’s anyone else losing from it. And, if so, what the long-term damage and the broad picture is. If you do this, informality is not necessarily a theory but an approach, a methodological and epistemological tool to approach knowledge from more than one angle and consider several options before jumping to solid conclusions.

'''Statements'''
The piece has been conceived as a provocative essay. As such, the author has chosen not to use any references to keep the reading fluid and let the reader finish it in one breath.

The article received support by the European Research Executive Agency (MSCA-SE PRELAB, GA: 101129940; MSCA-SE ORCA, GA: 101182752; MSCA-SE CARSI, GA: 101086415). The piece was initially conceived during the workshop Urban Politics and Negotiated Stateness organized by Jennifer Robinson (to whom the author is grateful for the invitation and the discussions that ignited the discussion here presented). Further discussions at Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, Chulalonghorn University and the University of Bucharest helped fine tuning the ideas so that the author wishes to thank Hiroki Takakura, Timur Dadabaev, Rodica Ianole, Jirayudh Sinthuphan and Alena Ledeneva for their help in reflecting upon and better formulating some of the concepts expressed here.

==If you want to learn more about informality and the sources that inspired this piece, you can refer to the Global Informality Project and the Global Encyclopedia of informality as well as to the following resources==

Scientific articles (open access)

1. Polese, A. and J. Helou (2025) “Everyday Informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations, and beyond”, Third World Quarterly 45(17-18): 2323-2333

2. Polese, A. (2024) “Alternative currencies, community support and social cohesion: why the Okinawan [[moai]] (模合) is closer to an informal social policy mechanism than to a standard ROSCA”, Kulturni Studia / Cultural Studies 22(1): 135-156

3. Polese, A. (2023) “[[What is informality?]] (Mapping) “the art of bypassing the state” in Eurasian spaces – and beyond”, Eurasian Geography and Economics 64(3): 322-364

4. Polese, A., G. Moise, T. Tokyzhanova, T. Aguzzi, T. Kerikmae, A. Sagynbaeva, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2023) “Informality vs shadow economy: Reflecting on the first results of a managers survey in Kyrgyzstan”, Central Asian Survey 42(1): 149-170 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2022.2093328

5. Polese, A., G. M. Moise, O. Lysa, T. Kerikmae, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2021) “Presenting the results of the shadow economy survey in Ukraine while reflecting on the future(s) of informality studies” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 30(1): 101-123

6. Polese, A. (2014) “Informal Payments in Ukrainian Hospitals: on the Boundary between Informal Payments, Gifts and Bribes”, Anthropological Forum 24(4): 381-395

7. Polese, A. (2009) “‘If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe’ on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine” Anthropology in Action 15(3): 47-60

Short articles
1. Polese, A. (2019) “Informality in Ukraine and beyond: one name, different flavours...with a cheer for the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality”, In-formality Wiki

2. Polese, A. and T. Stepurko (2016) “Informality and Corruption in Ukrainian Universities”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 28 November

Books (check if available on my academia profile, if not, email me to get a copy)
1. Helou, J. and A. Polese, (2025) Informal Governance and Crisis: How Invisible, Everyday Tactics of Survival Affect, Reshape and Redesign Policymaking and Governance. London and New York: Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/Informal-Governance-and-Crisis-How-Invisible-Everyday-Tactics-of-Survival-Affect-Reshape-and-Redesign-Policymaking-and-Governance/Helou-Polese/p/book/9781041086567

2. Polese, A., (ed.) (2022) Labour mobility and precariousness: why informality ends up replacing and supplementing the state for the invisible and the vulnerable. London: Palgrave
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030824983

3. Polese, A., A. Russo and F. Strazzari (eds.) (2019) Governance Beyond The Law: The Immoral, The Illegal, The Criminal. London: Palgrave

4. Polese, A., C. Williams, I. Ursachi and P. Bejakovic (eds.) (2017) The Informal Economy in Global Perspective: Varieties of Governance, London: Palgrave

5. Polese, A. (2016) Limits of a Post-Soviet State: How Informality Replaces, Renegotiates and Reshapes Governance in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag/Columbia University Press

6. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2015) Informal Economies in Post-Socialist Spaces: Practices, Institutions and Networks, London: Palgrave

7. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2014) The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London and New York: Routledge

Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory)

2026-03-11T23:03:42Z

Admin: Created page with "==Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) ''Reflections about what informality is… and is not.''== === <big>By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, Sch..."

==Informality as the dumping ground of social sciences (theory) ''Reflections about what informality is… and is not.''==
=== <big>By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, School of Law and Governance</big> ===

'''Everyone seems to know what informality is not'''

“...and, in that neighbourhood, many illegal things happen, people are poor... there’s a lot of dodgy... kinda... informal stuff”

This was part of a colleague’s presentation, and that’s when I thought, “Informality is indeed the dumping ground of social sciences.” If you do not know how to explain a social dynamic, throw in the magic word and you can’t go wrong.

Lately, a paper I reviewed read: “we use the word informality as an equivalent to corruption”. My question was, “Why don’t you just say corruption then?”

My guess: a) because using informality is fashionable and it is such an intuitive and flexible concept that nobody (well, except a few of us) will tell you that you’re using it in the wrong way; b) because the authors possibly felt that there was something beyond corruption that they were not able to grasp, but they hadn’t bothered reading anything about informality so they used it in a way I could use a term at a pub with my friends.

That’s no more or less than when I visit a place and someone tells me, “You are in the right country to study informality, we have a lot”. Well, I guess I am in the right country also to study food studies since you need to eat every day, or for gender studies since around half of your population are classified as women.

Living in a place with many cats and sporadically caring for them does not make you a vet. Acknowledging informality and understanding it are two separate things.

'''A love for food does not make you a good chef, it makes you a food lover and that’s all. Debunking informality myths (and misconceptions).'''

I sometimes miss the times when it was just five of us studying informality. Yes, everyone asked, “What is that odd thing you’re studying?”, but at least we did not get generalisations, we did not get people feeling as though they had expertise in informality because “there’s a lot of informality where I come from” or “I’ve not studied informality but I’ve seen a lot during my fieldwork so I am not an expert…but, you know, I guess I have something to contribute to scientific debates.”

So, here’s a first catch. Being born (or bred, or residing) in a place where a practice, any practice, is (visibly) widespread does not make you an expert on that practice. At best, it makes you an informant with a subjective viewpoint on the practice.

For now, think of food. Food is our everyday. Everybody needs to eat so we all know a bit about food. But the mere fact of eating does not make you an expert in food studies. You need to understand positionality, theories and abstract from your subjective lenses.

You were born somewhere, bred somewhere, have your comfort and native foods and you know how they should taste. However, not everyone who knows how these foods should taste can act as an advisor or a cooking expert.

If asked “what’s the most popular food in your country,” our response is likely to be subjective, linked to our own experience. An “objective” answer should take into account consumer preferences, statistics, surveys and production, among other things. It is one thing to understand something intuitively, another thing to produce knowledge about it (or taste). Informality is the same: it’s not because you’ve seen it or you’ve made a gift to access a service that you’re able to talk scientifically about it.

'''Native vs informal'''
'''Are you native in informality language?'''

Juxtaposing your experience as making you knowledgeable about informality in relation to those who are born in “non-informal countries” is inaccurate and a pleonastic romanticisation of informality.

In a Central Asian panel, a speaker suggested: “When entering the Uzbek market after liberalisation, Turkish entrepreneurs were the best placed to understand informality because, opposed to – say – the Swedish, they also had lots of informality in their country.”

I frowned. Let’s hold on for a moment. Can we claim this is even remotely scientific? Are we really suggesting that in Sweden, or elsewhere, everything is written down and people act by the book all the time? That parents and children sign a contract on how they have to behave? That the state regulates (e.g. formalises) all the possible aspects of social life? That if your line manager hates you, your promotion will not be hindered? That if you're a woman, you're not at risk of a salary gap? This risk is lower in Sweden, but still widely [https://www.mi.se/app/uploads/Gender_pay_gap_2024.pdf inexplicable]. Or that you don’t mind working with either A or B regardless of gossip or their reputation in the business environment?

Is it humanly possible that some places have no informality? And even if you do not want to define informality, can we stop and think then what formality (without the in-) is?

I agree that, intuitively, one would say “People in these countries tend to respect formal rules”. But, does this equate to a lack of informality? Formal rules are there exactly to overrule informality; they are an attempt to create processes that can be controlled formally by a regulating entity – replacing what before was regulated through interpersonal relations on the basis of unwritten but widely accepted rules. They usually appear because that kind of relationship is no longer viable (i.e. when relations become impersonal and there’s a need to standardise, to objectify and to explain to newcomers how things should work), or to prompt behavioural change. They are there to regulate what before was agreed using common sense, or unwritten rules but cannot, in any way, liquidate informality totally.

In places often perceived as having low levels of informality, informal (widespread and somehow socially accepted) practices do not often openly and overtly conflict with formal state rules. Yet, a lack of tension (or conflict) between the two realms, a somehow harmonious, and complementary relationship between the formal and the informal in no way means that there is no informality.

Both the Faroe Islands and Denmark score very low in the corruption index - that’s not informality, but it gives you a proxy for the quality of governance. But when Danish experts went to the Faroe Islands to help manage the COVID pandemic, there was a (peaceful) clash of civilisations between the Danes, used to a centralised management (and stricter sanitary rules), and the Faroese governance mechanisms that many have reported to me as quite informal, where word of mouth was sufficient to enforce sanitary measures. Using formal channels would be less effective, and probably slower, than using local message-conveying technology. The Danish colleague would then have to learn “the Faroe way” and tell trusted “information hubs” and key persons what needs to be achieved. Isn’t that the very essence of informality?

[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|These images of informal bicycle parking in Japan show signs that say “Bicycle parking is forbidden here. In case of violations, we will alert the police.” Beside the sign, bicycles are parked in a tidy and regular fashion, with the chain taken down to allow more bikes to park. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]
[[File:Abel1.png|thumb|300px|left|There is a formal rule, but a tacit understanding that it will not be respected, and a social rule requesting you to park your bike (illegally) in a tidy and proper manner. . Source: Abel Polese. © Abel Polese.]]

'''Natural vs normal?'''
'''Informal is the natural condition of social structures.'''

Informality is like the ocean: it occupies 70 percent of the earth, but some insist on seeing it as something out of our normality (life on dry surface), as the “not us” area.

Let’s debunk a further myth. Informality is not the opposite of formality. It’s the formal that is the opposite, the domestication, of the informal. In a common anthropocentric deception one would say “the sea is infested by sharks” (yeah, and the earth is infested by humans, where else would they live?) or that there are “wild” animals as opposed to domesticated (quite the opposite, the natural condition for an animal is wildness, then we’ve created exceptions).

What is wrong here is not the existence of opposite categories. It’s the claim that there is a “normal”, a “natural” condition, which usually overlaps with our understanding of the world, and that the rest is “abnormal”, unnatural.

The formal and the informal do not always collude. Sometimes they overlap, usually they co-exist, compete and complement one another in an asymmetric relationship. The informal is the green of forests. It is there until a house is constructed on top of it. And if left neglected, the green will return to the house and merge with it, like plants in holes in the wall or moss on the roof.

The informal is the natural condition of a society, the formal may take over but end up ineffective. And then the informal “returns”. If not in every single aspect, then at least in any aspect that the formal does not manage to regulate successfully.

But then, for some unknown reason, the attention given to the formal has gone as far as to claim that that’s the only thing worth studying. Well, I understand it’s easier to measure the formal, but that’s only the minority of human interactions.

'''Human vs informal'''
'''Human interactions are born informal. Only when it’s needed do they become regulated.'''

There are many unregulated (read: informal) relationships in our daily life, but we barely notice them because they are so embedded that they have become invisible. We breathe informality by the day, the hour, the minute, and we do not realise it.

Every human interaction is born informal, unregulated. You don’t write a contract with your friends about friendship; you don’t publish a booklet on brother to sister relations. You rely on understanding, guessing, on common sense. Ehm, common sense... what is it, if not the hope that people will guess the (informal) rules regulating a certain environment?

When informal relations fail, when too many people play dumb or ignorant (‘oops, I did not know that I could not take my neighbour’s lunch if I was hungry or beat up my coworker if they upset me’) then you need to regulate, to formalise.

So, we write down the rules of the game, we suggest how to measure, how much is too much. And those spaces become a no-brainer. There is no longer a need to think. Just like when you’re speaking your native language in a comfortable environment.

'''Language vs articulation'''
'''You are both native and foreign in informality language'''

Informality is a language. You learn the one of the environment where you were born. It looks natural to you. You know what your native people expect in a given situation. You anticipate their reaction if you do something aerodynamic, or reactionary to that environment. If you move to an environment where the informal rules are similar (usually where cultures and languages are close), you do not even reflect so it’s easier to understand a kind of informality that has a lot in common with your “native informality”. Like learning Spanish as a French speaker or Thai as a Lao speaker.

But informality without self-reflection is difficult to explain. You might understand better than non-natives, but can’t always explain your native informality, as some non-professional language teachers are unable to explain the “why” of some grammar rules.

Learning a foreign language exposes you to questions and prompts to question your own assumptions, idioms, sentences, grammar. Asking (or being asked) “stupid questions” becomes an opportunity for self-reflection for a native speaker of a given informality; “yes, I know if I do this the people in my hometown will react that or that way.” But why?

Once you compare your native reactions with other people’s reactions and are critical enough not to overlap otherness and wrong (those people do it “the wrong way”, because it’s different from my way), then you become even more aware of your own culture (and native informality).

Likewise, someone learning a foreign mode of informality will be amazed, flabbergasted, fascinated, and might notice nuances that a native informality speaker takes for granted. Both viewpoints are equally valuable, and neither of the two is objective. They are, though, parts of the same reality and can be complementary.

'''Ignorance is no longer ignorable
'''There’s theory, there’s a growing literature, read and engage!'''

So, I guess I am becoming less tolerant of the whataboutist use of “informality”. Like any other social theory concept, it will be abused by some politicians, journalists, or anyone who does not get acquainted with the literature and it will be understood by some others. But it’s a tool. As a scientist, if you use it, you should know what it’s about.

You take a pen, a book, a pan. They can have many alternative uses. The book can be used to prop up an unstable kitchen table; a pan can be used for self-defence or as a musical instrument. But you know, in theory, their primary purpose.

The mere fact that informality can be defined as the area beyond the formal does not mean you understand informality (or formality). It means that there are two realms in competition and that, to be able to say something scientifically meaningful about either, you need to base your reflections on theoretical foundations generated so far.

There is no need to study both the formal and the informal, but you need to be aware of the existence of both. Just as different doctors may train in different specialisations. A heart specialist does not need to know what knee surgery looks like but needs to know that their knowledge has limited applicability beyond their specialised domain, and that there’s a world beyond their world.

So, I understand it less and less every day when someone tries to publish a paper merely stating “look! There’s informality out there”. As if identifying an understudied practice automatically meant “discovering informality”.

Well, (un)fortunately, the times when one could claim to have discovered informality are long gone. You can say that this or that practice are unique to the country, or case, you are studying, and by force of this uniqueness your research is worth attention. Yet, such an argument was valid 20-30 years ago, but now that we have Volumes [https://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-1/ I], [[Ihttps://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-2/|II]] and [[IIhttps://uclpress.co.uk/book/the-global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-volume-3/|III]] of the Encyclopaedia of Informality, as well as the [[Global_Informality_Project|Global Informality Project]], with hundreds of entries and growing, the question to ask is not “is there informality” or “where is informality” but tackle the “so what” question: “what is the social meaning of that particular type of informality?”. How can informality engage in dialogue with major theories, from domination to structure-agency debate, from social stratification to conflict theory?

And yet, I encounter almost daily someone who, whenever they do not know how to explain something, just use the magic word to imply “it’s a bit illegal, a bit bad, but not as bad as criminal.”

Informality still remains, in many people’s perception, an intuitive and mouldable concept that somehow implies “there’s something I do not really understand, I am making a note that I will have to study it later, now I have no time, but for now I just flag it as informality, then we’ll see”.

When this happens, informality is treated as a residual category that is ignored until it finally can’t be ignored anymore. It is treated like a leftover of whatever is not fully understood or explainable, at least to some.

It’s like you feel you’re observing something beyond your scientific understanding (but intuitively graspable) and if you can’t be bothered to go deeper or simply do not have the time to do so. Just say “informality”, and you can’t go wrong. It is a way to signpost that there’s something, out there, in-between, something under-researched, under-explored, under-explained, under-conceptualised.

In such a case, with the informality project, we could produce an informality post-it that could be stuck to any sentence where there’s a concept, or a practice, that you would like to highlight but cannot explain, don’t bother studying, and postpone to later.

Well, not quite. There’s now a large literature on informality that is slowly converging into some kind of theory. The only “under” that applies here is under-reflected upon.

'''If informality is everywhere, how can we understand it?'''
'''Suggestions for engagement with informality debates'''

So, please, don’t treat informality as your dumping ground. Don’t assume you know about it because you’ve seen a lot or experienced a lot on your skin. To make sure you use it properly, here you have my humble advice for new users:

1. Demoralise it: it is not because people are not abiding the law that they are bad. First, a law can be “bad” as well. There have been, and there are, formal laws discriminating against some segments of the society or simply ignoring their needs. People then have a choice: either they go against themselves or they ignore the law. Offering extra money to a doctor who saved your life because you know the state is underpaying them is formally illegal, but is it absolutely and objectively bad? I’ve argued that it’s a primitive attempt of healthcare privatisation since the practice exists also in some “less informal” countries. It’s just better regulated.

2. Use it as a proxy for the quality of governance. If rules are fair and they are constructed taking into account cultural settings and do not prompt any further imbalance or gap, then there is less need to resort to informal practices in a given environment. This is because the formal practices were actually constructed on a successful case of informal practices and then crystallised into rules. In some cases, therefore, informality is not about endangering the state or its social order but repossessing the societal harmony that applied before some ineffective rule was introduced.

3. This is not always the case everywhere. I am not asking you to romanticise informality. I am asking you to start from a “zero point” (not positive, not negative) and consider the pluses and minuses, the costs and benefits of an informal practice beyond what the authorities say. We are scientists, our job is to think and to advise the authorities, but this can be done only if we critically reflect on their work (and do not automatically abide by their description of morality, fairness, justice).

4. “Informality was there, there were attempts to wipe it out and they failed”: that’s a good topic for research in any direction. If a category is behind, protected or enhanced by a new rule, my question would be whether there’s anyone else losing from it. And, if so, what the long-term damage and the broad picture is. If you do this, informality is not necessarily a theory but an approach, a methodological and epistemological tool to approach knowledge from more than one angle and consider several options before jumping to solid conclusions.

'''Statements'''
The piece has been conceived as a provocative essay. As such, the author has chosen not to use any references to keep the reading fluid and let the reader finish it in one breath.

The article received support by the European Research Executive Agency (MSCA-SE PRELAB, GA: 101129940; MSCA-SE ORCA, GA: 101182752; MSCA-SE CARSI, GA: 101086415). The piece was initially conceived during the workshop Urban Politics and Negotiated Stateness organized by Jennifer Robinson (to whom the author is grateful for the invitation and the discussions that ignited the discussion here presented). Further discussions at Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, Chulalonghorn University and the University of Bucharest helped fine tuning the ideas so that the author wishes to thank Hiroki Takakura, Timur Dadabaev, Rodica Ianole, Jirayudh Sinthuphan and Alena Ledeneva for their help in reflecting upon and better formulating some of the concepts expressed here.

==If you want to learn more about informality and the sources that inspired this piece, you can refer to the Global Informality Project and the Global Encyclopedia of informality as well as to the following resources==

Scientific articles (open access)

1. Polese, A. and J. Helou (2025) “Everyday Informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations, and beyond”, Third World Quarterly 45(17-18): 2323-2333

2. Polese, A. (2024) “Alternative currencies, community support and social cohesion: why the Okinawan [[moai]] (模合) is closer to an informal social policy mechanism than to a standard ROSCA”, Kulturni Studia / Cultural Studies 22(1): 135-156

3. Polese, A. (2023) “[[What is informality?]] (Mapping) “the art of bypassing the state” in Eurasian spaces – and beyond”, Eurasian Geography and Economics 64(3): 322-364

4. Polese, A., G. Moise, T. Tokyzhanova, T. Aguzzi, T. Kerikmae, A. Sagynbaeva, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2023) “Informality vs shadow economy: Reflecting on the first results of a managers survey in Kyrgyzstan”, Central Asian Survey 42(1): 149-170 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02634937.2022.2093328

5. Polese, A., G. M. Moise, O. Lysa, T. Kerikmae, A. Sauka, O. Seliverstova (2021) “Presenting the results of the shadow economy survey in Ukraine while reflecting on the future(s) of informality studies” Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 30(1): 101-123

6. Polese, A. (2014) “Informal Payments in Ukrainian Hospitals: on the Boundary between Informal Payments, Gifts and Bribes”, Anthropological Forum 24(4): 381-395

7. Polese, A. (2009) “‘If I Receive it, it is a Gift; if I Demand it, then it is a Bribe’ on the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-soviet Ukraine” Anthropology in Action 15(3): 47-60

Short articles
1. Polese, A. (2019) “Informality in Ukraine and beyond: one name, different flavours...with a cheer for the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality”, In-formality Wiki

2. Polese, A. and T. Stepurko (2016) “Informality and Corruption in Ukrainian Universities”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, 28 November

Books (check if available on my academia profile, if not, email me to get a copy)
1. Helou, J. and A. Polese, (2025) Informal Governance and Crisis: How Invisible, Everyday Tactics of Survival Affect, Reshape and Redesign Policymaking and Governance. London and New York: Routledge
https://www.routledge.com/Informal-Governance-and-Crisis-How-Invisible-Everyday-Tactics-of-Survival-Affect-Reshape-and-Redesign-Policymaking-and-Governance/Helou-Polese/p/book/9781041086567

2. Polese, A., (ed.) (2022) Labour mobility and precariousness: why informality ends up replacing and supplementing the state for the invisible and the vulnerable. London: Palgrave
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030824983

3. Polese, A., A. Russo and F. Strazzari (eds.) (2019) Governance Beyond The Law: The Immoral, The Illegal, The Criminal. London: Palgrave

4. Polese, A., C. Williams, I. Ursachi and P. Bejakovic (eds.) (2017) The Informal Economy in Global Perspective: Varieties of Governance, London: Palgrave

5. Polese, A. (2016) Limits of a Post-Soviet State: How Informality Replaces, Renegotiates and Reshapes Governance in Post-Soviet Ukraine, Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag/Columbia University Press

6. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2015) Informal Economies in Post-Socialist Spaces: Practices, Institutions and Networks, London: Palgrave

7. Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds.) (2014) The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. London and New York: Routledge

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Admin: abel2

== Summary ==
abel2

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Admin: abel 1

== Summary ==
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Events

2026-03-04T13:41:50Z

Admin: /* Global Informality in the Arts Conference */

__NOTOC__
See our past [[events]] from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

==Global Informality in the Arts Conference==

'''January 2026'''

The conference examined informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour and cultural production. It was organised by the UCL FRINGE Centre in partnership with Pushkin House London and SSEES.

</div>
[[File:PH1501261.jpg|border|x250px]]

Credentials:
Kitty Brandon-James©
Patricia Gabalova©

==Volume 3 Global Book Launch==

'''February 2024'''

The Volume 3 Global Book Launch is an international event marking the release of the third volume in FRINGE series. For photo and video reports click [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|here]].

==World Economic Forum Informality Map==

'''July 2022'''

Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map].

==Interview for the Mint Magazine==

'''28 March 2021'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the Mint Magazine on informality, corruption, and the unwritten rule of Russian politics.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://www.themintmagazine.com/steppes-in-a-journey link].

==Interview for the portal European Western Balkans (EWB)==

'''26 October 2020'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the portal Western Balkans on the nature of informal practices in the region.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/10/26/ewb-interview-ledeneva-the-limits-in-the-checks-and-balances-system-enables-informal-governance-to-be-effective-in-the-wb/ link].

==Virtual event==

'''15 July 2020'''

Alena participated in [https://www.pirammmida.life (Cyber)PiraMMMida], a transdisciplinary and transmedia project, with [https://www.pirammmida.life/alena-ledeneva three new art pieces] – ''Straw Man'', ''Double-edged'' and ''Incriminating Evidence'' that all use the pyramid as a shape and concept to reflect on the nature of informal power. The project that brings together artists, architects, scholars and activists was curated by Denis Maksimov, Masha Mileeva, Michał Murawski and David Roberts, conceived by the [https://www.ppv.life PPV] collective, co-realised by the [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute] and co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/ UCL European Institute], among others.

==Moscow, Russia==
'''3 July 2020: Moscow, Russia'''

Alena has given a virtual keynote lecture entitled [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw ''Silence of Systems: Invisible Domination or Motivational Ambivalence''] at the workshop organised by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE). The workshop on [https://ecsoclab.hse.ru/en/ecsocworkshop/ ''The Varieties of Power in the Economy''] took place from 3–4 July 2020. A [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw recording of the talk] is available.

==Stanford, USA==
'''2 March 2020: Stanford, USA'''

Alena has given a talk on [https://sgs.stanford.edu/events/global-corruption-versus-national-isolationism ''Global Corruption versus National Isolationism''] at the University of Stanford, Global Studies Division. The talk addressed the multiple challenges that corruption presents to governments, businesses, academics, and the public and the EU policy's shift away from perception-based measurement methodologies and top-down policy design and toward approaches integrating complexity, big data, and context-sensitive policy advice.

[[File:Stanford1.JPG|x250px]]
[[File:Event Stranford 2.JPG|x250px|]]<br>
''With Veronica Anghel, Fulbright Fellow, Stanford University & Associate Fellow, Johns Hopkins University - SAIS Bologna''

==Santa Barbara, USA==
'''26 February 2020: Santa Barbara, USA'''

Alena has [https://campuscalendar.ucsb.edu/event/global_studies_the_global_informality_project presented the Global Informality Project] at the Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[[File:santa barbara poster.jpg|border|x300px]]
[[File:Stanford2.JPG|border|x300px]]

''Photo on the right: With Mayfair Yang, author of [[guanxi]] entry.''

==Venice, Italy==

'''9-11 May 2019: Venice, Italy'''

The patterns of informal power acquired a non-textual mode in Alena's art displayed at the Palace of Ritual exhibition on the fringes of the 58th Venice Biennale. Three art pieces – ''Inner Circle, Scapegoat'' and ''Suspended Punishment'' – supported the dissemination of the Encyclopaedia. The exhibition was organised by [http://artsterritory.org/events/palace Arts Territory], together with [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute], co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and co-curated by FRINGEr Michał Murawski.

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_6.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_7.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_11.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_12.jpg|border|x250px]]

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_8.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_9.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_1.JPG|border|x250px]]

==Past events==

See our past events from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

Events

2026-03-04T13:23:03Z

Admin: /* Global Informality in the Arts Conference */

__NOTOC__
See our past [[events]] from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

==Global Informality in the Arts Conference==

'''January 2026'''

The conference examined informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour and cultural production. It was organised by the UCL FRINGE Centre in partnership with Pushkin House London and SSEES.

<gallery>
[[File:PH1501261.jpeg|200px|thumb|left|alt text]]

</gallery>

Credentials:
Kitty Brandon-James©
Patricia Gabalova©

==Volume 3 Global Book Launch==

'''February 2024'''

The Volume 3 Global Book Launch is an international event marking the release of the third volume in FRINGE series. For photo and video reports click [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|here]].

==World Economic Forum Informality Map==

'''July 2022'''

Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map].

==Interview for the Mint Magazine==

'''28 March 2021'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the Mint Magazine on informality, corruption, and the unwritten rule of Russian politics.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://www.themintmagazine.com/steppes-in-a-journey link].

==Interview for the portal European Western Balkans (EWB)==

'''26 October 2020'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the portal Western Balkans on the nature of informal practices in the region.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/10/26/ewb-interview-ledeneva-the-limits-in-the-checks-and-balances-system-enables-informal-governance-to-be-effective-in-the-wb/ link].

==Virtual event==

'''15 July 2020'''

Alena participated in [https://www.pirammmida.life (Cyber)PiraMMMida], a transdisciplinary and transmedia project, with [https://www.pirammmida.life/alena-ledeneva three new art pieces] – ''Straw Man'', ''Double-edged'' and ''Incriminating Evidence'' that all use the pyramid as a shape and concept to reflect on the nature of informal power. The project that brings together artists, architects, scholars and activists was curated by Denis Maksimov, Masha Mileeva, Michał Murawski and David Roberts, conceived by the [https://www.ppv.life PPV] collective, co-realised by the [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute] and co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/ UCL European Institute], among others.

==Moscow, Russia==
'''3 July 2020: Moscow, Russia'''

Alena has given a virtual keynote lecture entitled [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw ''Silence of Systems: Invisible Domination or Motivational Ambivalence''] at the workshop organised by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE). The workshop on [https://ecsoclab.hse.ru/en/ecsocworkshop/ ''The Varieties of Power in the Economy''] took place from 3–4 July 2020. A [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw recording of the talk] is available.

==Stanford, USA==
'''2 March 2020: Stanford, USA'''

Alena has given a talk on [https://sgs.stanford.edu/events/global-corruption-versus-national-isolationism ''Global Corruption versus National Isolationism''] at the University of Stanford, Global Studies Division. The talk addressed the multiple challenges that corruption presents to governments, businesses, academics, and the public and the EU policy's shift away from perception-based measurement methodologies and top-down policy design and toward approaches integrating complexity, big data, and context-sensitive policy advice.

[[File:Stanford1.JPG|x250px]]
[[File:Event Stranford 2.JPG|x250px|]]<br>
''With Veronica Anghel, Fulbright Fellow, Stanford University & Associate Fellow, Johns Hopkins University - SAIS Bologna''

==Santa Barbara, USA==
'''26 February 2020: Santa Barbara, USA'''

Alena has [https://campuscalendar.ucsb.edu/event/global_studies_the_global_informality_project presented the Global Informality Project] at the Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[[File:santa barbara poster.jpg|border|x300px]]
[[File:Stanford2.JPG|border|x300px]]

''Photo on the right: With Mayfair Yang, author of [[guanxi]] entry.''

==Venice, Italy==

'''9-11 May 2019: Venice, Italy'''

The patterns of informal power acquired a non-textual mode in Alena's art displayed at the Palace of Ritual exhibition on the fringes of the 58th Venice Biennale. Three art pieces – ''Inner Circle, Scapegoat'' and ''Suspended Punishment'' – supported the dissemination of the Encyclopaedia. The exhibition was organised by [http://artsterritory.org/events/palace Arts Territory], together with [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute], co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and co-curated by FRINGEr Michał Murawski.

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_6.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_7.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_11.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_12.jpg|border|x250px]]

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_8.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_9.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_1.JPG|border|x250px]]

==Past events==

See our past events from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

Events

2026-03-04T13:14:55Z

Admin: /* Global Informality in the Arts Conference */

__NOTOC__
See our past [[events]] from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

==Global Informality in the Arts Conference==

'''January 2026'''

The conference examined informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour and cultural production. It was organised by the UCL FRINGE Centre in partnership with Pushkin House London and SSEES.

<gallery>
[[File:WhatsApp Image 2026-03-04 at 12.45.26.jpg|thumb]]

</gallery>

Credentials:
Kitty Brandon-James©
Patricia Gabalova©

==Volume 3 Global Book Launch==

'''February 2024'''

The Volume 3 Global Book Launch is an international event marking the release of the third volume in FRINGE series. For photo and video reports click [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|here]].

==World Economic Forum Informality Map==

'''July 2022'''

Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map].

==Interview for the Mint Magazine==

'''28 March 2021'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the Mint Magazine on informality, corruption, and the unwritten rule of Russian politics.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://www.themintmagazine.com/steppes-in-a-journey link].

==Interview for the portal European Western Balkans (EWB)==

'''26 October 2020'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the portal Western Balkans on the nature of informal practices in the region.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/10/26/ewb-interview-ledeneva-the-limits-in-the-checks-and-balances-system-enables-informal-governance-to-be-effective-in-the-wb/ link].

==Virtual event==

'''15 July 2020'''

Alena participated in [https://www.pirammmida.life (Cyber)PiraMMMida], a transdisciplinary and transmedia project, with [https://www.pirammmida.life/alena-ledeneva three new art pieces] – ''Straw Man'', ''Double-edged'' and ''Incriminating Evidence'' that all use the pyramid as a shape and concept to reflect on the nature of informal power. The project that brings together artists, architects, scholars and activists was curated by Denis Maksimov, Masha Mileeva, Michał Murawski and David Roberts, conceived by the [https://www.ppv.life PPV] collective, co-realised by the [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute] and co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/ UCL European Institute], among others.

==Moscow, Russia==
'''3 July 2020: Moscow, Russia'''

Alena has given a virtual keynote lecture entitled [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw ''Silence of Systems: Invisible Domination or Motivational Ambivalence''] at the workshop organised by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE). The workshop on [https://ecsoclab.hse.ru/en/ecsocworkshop/ ''The Varieties of Power in the Economy''] took place from 3–4 July 2020. A [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw recording of the talk] is available.

==Stanford, USA==
'''2 March 2020: Stanford, USA'''

Alena has given a talk on [https://sgs.stanford.edu/events/global-corruption-versus-national-isolationism ''Global Corruption versus National Isolationism''] at the University of Stanford, Global Studies Division. The talk addressed the multiple challenges that corruption presents to governments, businesses, academics, and the public and the EU policy's shift away from perception-based measurement methodologies and top-down policy design and toward approaches integrating complexity, big data, and context-sensitive policy advice.

[[File:Stanford1.JPG|x250px]]
[[File:Event Stranford 2.JPG|x250px|]]<br>
''With Veronica Anghel, Fulbright Fellow, Stanford University & Associate Fellow, Johns Hopkins University - SAIS Bologna''

==Santa Barbara, USA==
'''26 February 2020: Santa Barbara, USA'''

Alena has [https://campuscalendar.ucsb.edu/event/global_studies_the_global_informality_project presented the Global Informality Project] at the Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[[File:santa barbara poster.jpg|border|x300px]]
[[File:Stanford2.JPG|border|x300px]]

''Photo on the right: With Mayfair Yang, author of [[guanxi]] entry.''

==Venice, Italy==

'''9-11 May 2019: Venice, Italy'''

The patterns of informal power acquired a non-textual mode in Alena's art displayed at the Palace of Ritual exhibition on the fringes of the 58th Venice Biennale. Three art pieces – ''Inner Circle, Scapegoat'' and ''Suspended Punishment'' – supported the dissemination of the Encyclopaedia. The exhibition was organised by [http://artsterritory.org/events/palace Arts Territory], together with [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute], co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and co-curated by FRINGEr Michał Murawski.

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_6.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_7.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_11.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_12.jpg|border|x250px]]

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_8.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_9.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_1.JPG|border|x250px]]

==Past events==

See our past events from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

Events

2026-03-04T13:01:52Z

Admin: /* Global Informality in the Arts Conference */

__NOTOC__
See our past [[events]] from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

==Global Informality in the Arts Conference==

'''January 2026'''

The conference examined informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour and cultural production. It was organised by the UCL FRINGE Centre in partnership with Pushkin House London and SSEES.

<gallery>

</gallery>

Credentials:
Kitty Brandon-James©
Patricia Gabalova©

==Volume 3 Global Book Launch==

'''February 2024'''

The Volume 3 Global Book Launch is an international event marking the release of the third volume in FRINGE series. For photo and video reports click [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|here]].

==World Economic Forum Informality Map==

'''July 2022'''

Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map].

==Interview for the Mint Magazine==

'''28 March 2021'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the Mint Magazine on informality, corruption, and the unwritten rule of Russian politics.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://www.themintmagazine.com/steppes-in-a-journey link].

==Interview for the portal European Western Balkans (EWB)==

'''26 October 2020'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the portal Western Balkans on the nature of informal practices in the region.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/10/26/ewb-interview-ledeneva-the-limits-in-the-checks-and-balances-system-enables-informal-governance-to-be-effective-in-the-wb/ link].

==Virtual event==

'''15 July 2020'''

Alena participated in [https://www.pirammmida.life (Cyber)PiraMMMida], a transdisciplinary and transmedia project, with [https://www.pirammmida.life/alena-ledeneva three new art pieces] – ''Straw Man'', ''Double-edged'' and ''Incriminating Evidence'' that all use the pyramid as a shape and concept to reflect on the nature of informal power. The project that brings together artists, architects, scholars and activists was curated by Denis Maksimov, Masha Mileeva, Michał Murawski and David Roberts, conceived by the [https://www.ppv.life PPV] collective, co-realised by the [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute] and co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/ UCL European Institute], among others.

==Moscow, Russia==
'''3 July 2020: Moscow, Russia'''

Alena has given a virtual keynote lecture entitled [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw ''Silence of Systems: Invisible Domination or Motivational Ambivalence''] at the workshop organised by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE). The workshop on [https://ecsoclab.hse.ru/en/ecsocworkshop/ ''The Varieties of Power in the Economy''] took place from 3–4 July 2020. A [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw recording of the talk] is available.

==Stanford, USA==
'''2 March 2020: Stanford, USA'''

Alena has given a talk on [https://sgs.stanford.edu/events/global-corruption-versus-national-isolationism ''Global Corruption versus National Isolationism''] at the University of Stanford, Global Studies Division. The talk addressed the multiple challenges that corruption presents to governments, businesses, academics, and the public and the EU policy's shift away from perception-based measurement methodologies and top-down policy design and toward approaches integrating complexity, big data, and context-sensitive policy advice.

[[File:Stanford1.JPG|x250px]]
[[File:Event Stranford 2.JPG|x250px|]]<br>
''With Veronica Anghel, Fulbright Fellow, Stanford University & Associate Fellow, Johns Hopkins University - SAIS Bologna''

==Santa Barbara, USA==
'''26 February 2020: Santa Barbara, USA'''

Alena has [https://campuscalendar.ucsb.edu/event/global_studies_the_global_informality_project presented the Global Informality Project] at the Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[[File:santa barbara poster.jpg|border|x300px]]
[[File:Stanford2.JPG|border|x300px]]

''Photo on the right: With Mayfair Yang, author of [[guanxi]] entry.''

==Venice, Italy==

'''9-11 May 2019: Venice, Italy'''

The patterns of informal power acquired a non-textual mode in Alena's art displayed at the Palace of Ritual exhibition on the fringes of the 58th Venice Biennale. Three art pieces – ''Inner Circle, Scapegoat'' and ''Suspended Punishment'' – supported the dissemination of the Encyclopaedia. The exhibition was organised by [http://artsterritory.org/events/palace Arts Territory], together with [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute], co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and co-curated by FRINGEr Michał Murawski.

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==Past events==

See our past events from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

Events

2026-03-04T12:55:50Z

Admin: /* Global Informality in the Arts Conference */

__NOTOC__
See our past [[events]] from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

==Global Informality in the Arts Conference==

'''January 2026'''

The conference examined informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour and cultural production. It was organised by the UCL FRINGE Centre in partnership with Pushkin House London and SSEES.

<gallery>

[[File:DSC1077.jpg]]

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Credentials:
Kitty Brandon-James©
Patricia Gabalova©

==Volume 3 Global Book Launch==

'''February 2024'''

The Volume 3 Global Book Launch is an international event marking the release of the third volume in FRINGE series. For photo and video reports click [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|here]].

==World Economic Forum Informality Map==

'''July 2022'''

Thanks to the collaboration with the World Economic Forum Strategic Intelligence team and input of the MARKETS researchers, we have published the [https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G68000000Kzl5EAC Informality map].

==Interview for the Mint Magazine==

'''28 March 2021'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the Mint Magazine on informality, corruption, and the unwritten rule of Russian politics.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://www.themintmagazine.com/steppes-in-a-journey link].

==Interview for the portal European Western Balkans (EWB)==

'''26 October 2020'''

Professor Ledeneva has been interviewed by the portal Western Balkans on the nature of informal practices in the region.
The full interview can be consulted at this [https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/10/26/ewb-interview-ledeneva-the-limits-in-the-checks-and-balances-system-enables-informal-governance-to-be-effective-in-the-wb/ link].

==Virtual event==

'''15 July 2020'''

Alena participated in [https://www.pirammmida.life (Cyber)PiraMMMida], a transdisciplinary and transmedia project, with [https://www.pirammmida.life/alena-ledeneva three new art pieces] – ''Straw Man'', ''Double-edged'' and ''Incriminating Evidence'' that all use the pyramid as a shape and concept to reflect on the nature of informal power. The project that brings together artists, architects, scholars and activists was curated by Denis Maksimov, Masha Mileeva, Michał Murawski and David Roberts, conceived by the [https://www.ppv.life PPV] collective, co-realised by the [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute] and co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-institute/ UCL European Institute], among others.

==Moscow, Russia==
'''3 July 2020: Moscow, Russia'''

Alena has given a virtual keynote lecture entitled [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw ''Silence of Systems: Invisible Domination or Motivational Ambivalence''] at the workshop organised by the Laboratory for Studies in Economic Sociology at the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (NRU HSE). The workshop on [https://ecsoclab.hse.ru/en/ecsocworkshop/ ''The Varieties of Power in the Economy''] took place from 3–4 July 2020. A [https://eduhseru-my.sharepoint.com/personal/spashkov_hse_ru/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?id=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020%2FВидео%5FЛеденева%2Emp4&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fspashkov%5Fhse%5Fru%2FDocuments%2FHSE%2EWork%2FWorkshop%202020&originalPath=aHR0cHM6Ly9lZHVoc2VydS1teS5zaGFyZXBvaW50LmNvbS86djovZy9wZXJzb25hbC9zcGFzaGtvdl9oc2VfcnUvRWJPT3dtdlU3V3hDb21fVWUxQTdweWtCTFBMaGJZZVkzdlR3WHNwUkViNTdWZz9ydGltZT0yRElWS3ZkcDJFZw recording of the talk] is available.

==Stanford, USA==
'''2 March 2020: Stanford, USA'''

Alena has given a talk on [https://sgs.stanford.edu/events/global-corruption-versus-national-isolationism ''Global Corruption versus National Isolationism''] at the University of Stanford, Global Studies Division. The talk addressed the multiple challenges that corruption presents to governments, businesses, academics, and the public and the EU policy's shift away from perception-based measurement methodologies and top-down policy design and toward approaches integrating complexity, big data, and context-sensitive policy advice.

[[File:Stanford1.JPG|x250px]]
[[File:Event Stranford 2.JPG|x250px|]]<br>
''With Veronica Anghel, Fulbright Fellow, Stanford University & Associate Fellow, Johns Hopkins University - SAIS Bologna''

==Santa Barbara, USA==
'''26 February 2020: Santa Barbara, USA'''

Alena has [https://campuscalendar.ucsb.edu/event/global_studies_the_global_informality_project presented the Global Informality Project] at the Department of Global Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.

[[File:santa barbara poster.jpg|border|x300px]]
[[File:Stanford2.JPG|border|x300px]]

''Photo on the right: With Mayfair Yang, author of [[guanxi]] entry.''

==Venice, Italy==

'''9-11 May 2019: Venice, Italy'''

The patterns of informal power acquired a non-textual mode in Alena's art displayed at the Palace of Ritual exhibition on the fringes of the 58th Venice Biennale. Three art pieces – ''Inner Circle, Scapegoat'' and ''Suspended Punishment'' – supported the dissemination of the Encyclopaedia. The exhibition was organised by [http://artsterritory.org/events/palace Arts Territory], together with [http://www.avenirinstitute.info Avenir Institute], co-funded by the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/research-centres-and-seminar-series/fringe-ucls-centre-study-social-and-cultural-complexity FRINGE Centre] and co-curated by FRINGEr Michał Murawski.

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_6.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_7.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_11.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_12.jpg|border|x250px]]

[[File:Dissemination_Venice_8.jpg|border|x250px]]
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[[File:Dissemination_Venice_9.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Dissemination_Venice_1.JPG|border|x250px]]

==Past events==

See our past events from the global book launch [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|here]].

Gazriig gerchilgee dagdag (Mongolia)

2026-02-17T18:12:48Z

Admin: Redirected page to Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag (Mongolia)

#REDIRECT [[Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag (Mongolia)]]

Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag (Mongolia)

2026-02-17T17:43:47Z

Admin: Created page with "{{infobox | nameofpractice = Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag | flagemoji = | definition = An informal rule in Mongolia asserting that ownership of a building automatically entails c..."

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag
| flagemoji =
| definition = An informal rule in Mongolia asserting that ownership of a building automatically entails control of the land beneath it, even though all land legally belongs to the state.
| location = Mongolia
| imagemap =Mongoliamap.png
| clusters = [[:Category: Informal Governance|Informal Governance]] – [[:Category: Market| Market]] – [[:Category: Functional ambivalence| Functional ambivalence]]
| categories = [[:Category: Mongolia|Mongolia]] – [[:Category: Central Asia| Central Asia]] – [[:Category: Former Soviet Union| Former Soviet Union]] – [[:Category: East Asia| East Asia]] – [[:Category: Property| Property]] – [[:Category: Urban| Urban]] – [[:Category: Informal Governance| Informal Governance]] – [[:Category: Bureaucracy| Bureaucracy]]
| authorofpiece = Enerzaya Gundalai
| authorinstitution = Alumnus of School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK
| authorwebsite = https://www.linkedin.com/in/enerzaya
}}
<big>'''By '''</big>
[[Category: Mongolia]]
[[Category: Central Asia]]
[[Category: Former Soviet Union]]
[[Category: East Asia]]
[[Category: Property]]
[[Category: Urban]]
[[Category: Informal Governance]]
'''Enerzaya Gundalai, Alumnus of School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK'''
[[Category: Entry]]
[[Category: 2025 entry]]

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| In Mongolia, the expression ''gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag'' – literally ‘the land follows the certificate’ – summarises a quiet but powerful assumption that has come to structure property life since the early 1990s. It means that if a person holds the certificate for an immovable property – an apartment, house or office building – the ground under it is regarded, socially and commercially, as theirs. The phrase inverts a central principle of formal property law, ''superficies solo cedit'' (‘the building follows the land’), turning it on its head so that, in practice, the land follows the building. This inversion is not written in any statute, yet it determines how Mongolians buy, sell, build and defend space (Nyamdoo 2021: 63–70<ref>Bayarmaa Nyamdoo. 2021. ''Development of Real Property Law in Mongolia: Toward a Uniform Foundation''. Nagoya: Nagoya University.</ref>).
|}

Following the 1990 democratic revolution, a new constitution was adopted in 1992. It declared all land to be state property but allowed citizens limited rights of ownership, possession and use. Only the first – private ownership – was meant to create true freehold title, but less than one percent of national territory ever entered that category (World Bank 2015: 25<ref>World Bank. 2015. ''Land Administration and Management in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia''. Washington DC: World Bank.</ref>). The rest remained under temporary possession (''ezemshih'') and use (''ashiglah'') leases, renewable only at the discretion of local officials (World Bank 2015: 24–37). The privatisation in the early 1990s started with apartments and other buildings, not with land. People bought homes whose soil stayed in state hands. The result was an institutional mismatch: privately owned walls standing on publicly owned ground. Over time, practical necessity resolved the contradiction by informal decree: if one owned the structure, one must surely own the site – ''gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag''.

[[File:Mongoliancertificate.jpeg|thumb|300px|left|Example of a ''gerchilgee'' (certificate) issued by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism for land use within a protected area. Source: Enerzaya Gundalai. © Enerzaya Gundalai.]]

Two incompatible systems subsequently grew side by side. The ''Land Law'' governed state land leases, while the ''Civil Code'' introduced German-style property rules intended to restore the ''superficies solo cedit'' hierarchy (Nyamdoo 2021: 66–80). Each developed its own registry, language and bureaucracy. Citizens, notaries and judges now navigate between them. Most urban transactions rely on a property certificate rather than a land title; many buildings in Ulaanbaatar’s ''ger'' districts and central redevelopments stand on ground whose formal lease has expired. Yet business, mortgages, and inheritance proceed undisturbed because everyone accepts the certificate as proof enough. In the absence of legal certainty, social consensus delivers credibility (World Bank 2015: 39–40).

This informal rule has shaped a broad range of behaviour. Buyers often assume that the land accompanies the house; sellers exploit that expectation, occasionally transferring only the structure. Some owners choose not to register the underlying land to avoid taxes and renewal fees, confident that possession of the certificate(''gerchilgee'') offers adequate protection (Plueckhahn 2020: 104–6<ref>Plueckhahn, R. 2020. ''Shaping Urban Futures in Mongolia: Ulaanbaatar, Dynamic Ownership and Economic Flux''. London: UCL Press.</ref>). Construction companies holding short-term ''ezemshih'' rights use those same papers to pressure authorities for renewal, sometimes mobilising residents to protest delays (World Bank 2015: 25–27). The belief that the land ‘follows’ the property thus becomes a tool of negotiation as well as security. As documented in the World Bank’s ''Land Administration and Management in Ulaanbaatar'' (2015: 25–27), disputes over duplicate certificates and unregistered ‘carve-outs’ of public plots have become emblematic of the saying ''gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag''.

The social logic behind it is performative rather than doctrinal. Ownership in Ulaanbaatar is demonstrated through visible acts – fencing, extending, investing, and maintaining – backed by a piece of paper that serves less as legal evidence than as a token of credibility (Plueckhahn 2017: 12–17<ref>Plueckhahn, R. 2017. ‘The Power of Faulty Paperwork: Dynamic Ownership in Ulaanbaatar’. ''Inner Asia'' 19 (1): 45–63.</ref>). As Plueckhahn observes, Mongolians practise a form of ‘dynamic ownership’ that turns possession into an ongoing negotiation of legitimacy rather than a fixed legal state (Plueckhahn 2020: 100–16). In this sense, ''gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag'' provides an ethical grammar of belonging. It reassures neighbours, lenders, and officials that one’s claim is legitimate because it is embodied, displayed, and socially confirmed (Sneath 2002: 181–83<ref>Sneath, D. 2002. ‘Mongolia in the “Age of the Market”: Pastoral Land-Use and the New Political Economy’. ''Central Asian Survey'' 21 (1): 129–46.</ref>).

Institutionally, the rule performs what law fails to do. It supplies continuity in an insecure environment. The World Bank has described Mongolia’s ‘dual property registry’ and frequent database tampering, yet the system endures precisely because people rely on its informality (World Bank 2015: 19–27). The World Economic Forum ranks Mongolia among the weakest worldwide for property-rights protection, but its urban real-estate markets remain active (World Economic Forum 2019: 394–96<ref>World Economic Forum. 2019. ''Global Competitiveness Report'' 2019. Geneva: World Economic Forum. </ref>). Informal certainty substitutes formal clarity; transactions move forward on faith that paper and practice coincide. The result is what Plueckhahn calls a ‘productive anticommons’: overlapping rights that encourage construction, speculation, and circulation instead of paralysis (Plueckhahn 2020: 13–22).

At the same time, this vernacular certainty entrenches fragility. It allows discretionary renewal of land leases, fostering patronage networks and corruption (World Bank 2015: 79–80). It normalises the absence of a unified cadastre, discourages infrastructural investment, and drives the unplanned expansion of Ulaanbaatar’s peripheries (Plueckhahn 2020: 112–15). Politically, it converts administrative favour into a form of capital: to have one’s ''ezemshih'' right extended is to be recognised by the state. Economically, it sustains an informal credit system in which certificates function as collateral despite their ambiguous legality.

Comparable patterns appear in other cultural contexts. In [[no entry]], overlapping municipal and revenue registries sustain a lively property market where documentation, instead of title, secures possession. In post-socialist Estonia, a similar divide between building and land ownership was resolved through digital land registration and strict adherence to superficies solo cedit (Nyamdoo 2021: 67–69). Mongolia has not yet made that transition. Its citizens, developers, and officials continue to rely on belief and precedent – what might be called credible commitment by practice – to keep urban life functioning.

''Gazar gerchilgeeg dagdag'' stands as both symptom and solution: a symptom of weak formal institutions and a solution crafted within them. It exemplifies how an imported legal framework was subtly reframed through everyday reasoning. Through this inversion, Mongolians transformed the uncertainties of post-socialist transition into a workable social contract. To own, in this context, is to be recognised as an owner by others. The law may assert that land remains in state hands, yet social practice holds that land follows the certificate – and it is this practice that ultimately prevails.

Informal Art

2025-09-03T06:55:12Z

Admin:

=='''Open Call for Papers and Artistic Contributions'''==

<big>'''Global Informality in the Arts'''</big>

<big>'''15-16 January 2026, UCL and Pushkin House, London'''</big>

The Global Informality Project invites submissions for the '''Global Informality in the Arts''' conference, to be held at '''University College London (UCL) and Pushkin House, London, 15-16 January 2026.''' This conference will examine the role of informality in artistic media, practices, creative labour, and cultural production. It will bring together artists, academics, and cultural practitioners to explore how informal networks, unwritten rules, and hidden practices shape cultural production across different contexts.'''<br>

At the same time, the accompanying exhibition ''''The Impossible Encyclopaedia: Informality in the Arts', Pushkin House (January-February 2026, dates TBC)''', will showcase the artworks already realised that challenge conventional categorisation, exploring themes of decolonisation, visibility/invisibility, subversion, resistance, post-humanity, self-care and environmental care, among others.<br>

The conference and exhibition are organised as part of the interdisciplinary research initiative, [[Global Informality Project]], led by the FRINGE Centre with support from the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies. Since 2014, the project has explored the social and cultural complexity of informal practices worldwide, culminating in the publication of three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' (UCL Press, 2018, 2024). '''All accepted papers could be included in Volume 4.'''<br>

We welcome proposals for papers and artistic contributions to the following panels: '''Patterns of Informal Power; Informality and Creative Labour; Lecture Performance and the Edges of Performative Informality; (Secret) Art in the Workplace; Protest Art and Informality; Visibility/Invisibility; Collecting as Art.''' The conference will take place in a hybrid format, allowing for both face-to-face and online participation. '''The conference will be held in a hybrid format''', allowing for both face-to-face and online participation. However, recognising the limitations of rigid categorisation, we also encourage submissions that make a meaningful contribution to the planned volume of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Informal Art.''<br>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
'''Themes and panels:'''
</div>

'''Patterns of Informal Power'''
This panel is an invitation to explore the invisible and immeasurable dimensions of informal power – the deep structures often associated with open secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices, collected from around the world and published in three volumes of ''The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality'' (UCL Press, 2018, 2024).<br>

We aim to address the complex, anonymous, unpredictable, and seemingly irrational nature of informal power, which serves to hold society together, distribute resources, and mobilise people; and above all, to control and co-opt to ensure its own reproduction. Each contributor of a paper, art or performance is invited to capture, visualise, or reflect on patterns of complexity and ambivalence (doublethink, double motivation, double-deed, and double standards) among others.<br>
For more information on how informal power works, see [https://www.alenaledeneva.com/art www.alenaledeneva.com/art].<br>

'''Informality and Creative Labour'''

Informality is deeply intertwined with creative labour, manifesting both in the precarious conditions of cultural work and in the networks of support, collective resilience and collaborative action that sustain it (Alacovska 2018).<br>
This panel takes a transnational perspective on informality in cultural production, bringing together diverse perspectives on how informal labour practices simultaneously challenge and sustain creative work. Panellists will explore issues ranging from the insecurity and precariousness of cultural employment to the forms of collaboration that emerge within creative ecosystems. Examining these dynamics in different contexts will shed light on the sometimes hidden social infrastructures associated with creative work.<br>

'''Lecture Performance and the Edges of Performative Informality'''

Lecture performance is perhaps the most misunderstood and liminal medium in contemporary art. It can be likened to the metaphorical 'Bermuda Triangle' between experimental theatre, artistic performance and academic lecture. Museums and other 'formal' institutions have traditionally struggled with the disciplinary nature of the medium.<br>
This panel will address the conceptual challenges of categorisation, museology and artistic framing of lecture performance as an exciting medium that thrives on informality.<br>
The Lecture Performance Archive project will serve as a reference point and documentation site for the panel's interventions - [https://linktr.ee/lparchive https://linktr.ee/lparchive.].<br>

'''(Secret) Art in the Workplace'''

The workplace is a hierarchical site of constraints, competing motivations and performances. In response, workplaces are often also sites of informal tactical resistance and subversion by workers. These practices are covert (and sometimes deliberately overlooked) tactics that can result in unsanctioned spaces and moments of worker agency.<br>
This panel explores how such workplace actions sometimes produce art - whether through artworks that use agency-producing tactics, covert artistic practices that take place in the workplace, practices that (mis)use aspects of the artist's daily work, or artworks that share the spirit of informal, ad hoc responses to restrictions.<br>
We welcome submissions from researchers working on art-in-work issues as well as from artists working under these conditions. Contributions may include panel participation, short paper presentations, or submissions of completed artworks for inclusion in the accompanying exhibition at Pushkin House.<br>

'''Protest Art and Informality'''

Political or protest art often focuses on political crimes and illegalities - the repression of peaceful protests, the illegal shadow surveillance of citizens, and corruption at all levels. This panel invites scholars, artists and art practitioners to think collectively and creatively about the workings of informal powers that give meaning and often normalisation to political crimes - from corruption and nepotism to violent and illegal crackdowns on dissent. How did artists of the past think about informal power in both democracies and autocracies? What kind of visual languages and pictorial or performative critiques emerge in artistic fields when artists think about, with or against informality and its pervasive practices? Can we collectively propose a conceptual tool to explain artistic re-evaluations and explorations of informality in the grand political but also the mundane everyday? Can we draw artistic and performative conclusions about similar or different approaches to representing and critiquing informality in protest art?<br>

'''Visibility/Invisibility'''

Visibility is never neutral. It is shaped by power, by apparatuses that range from satellites and surveillance systems to the movement of a cursor and the gaze of an eye. In our daily lives, telepresence – especially videoconferencing – has become an informal yet deeply structured practice of being seen and unseen. This panel explores the artistic tactics that emerge within these conditions: the ways in which visibility is negotiated, erased, or subverted. How do informal gestures – glitches, distortions, refusals – reshape what can and cannot be seen? How does the act of looking become a form of governance, and how can it be disrupted? What are the sanctions of the visual, the thresholds beyond which visibility becomes exposure, risk, or disappearance?<br>

'''Submission guidelines:'''

We welcome submissions from scholars, artists, and practitioners working on the themes outlined above.<br>

*'''Deadline for abstract submissions:''' EXTENDED DEADLINE 21 September 2025<br>

*'''Abstract length:''' 250-300 words<br>

*'''Formats accepted:''' Papers (15-20 minutes), lecture performances, artistic interventions, and completed artworks (please include photos or websites for exhibition consideration)<br>

*'''Submission email:''' [mailto:informalart2024@gmail.com informalart2024@gmail.com].<br>

Submissions should include the title of the proposed paper or artistic contribution, an abstract, a short biography (150 words), and whether the participant intends to present in person or online.<br>

For further information about the project, please visit [https://www.in-formality.com the Global Informality Project].<br>

We look forward to receiving your submissions!

'''Organising Committee'''
'''Global Informality Project'''

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'''NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING (2019)'''
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The Invigilator Research Network (IRN) is an evolving group of visual artists who work as gallery guards, while using their jobs as sites of performance. Produced by this partially anonymous UK network of 16 guards, the 2019 exhibition examines the informal practices contesting the existing rules for invigilators. This contemplative collection of drawing and writing when on duty explores the degree of privacy and freedom at the workplace. Such practices have no collective name: they are less universal than individual doodling at meetings, but more consolidated, even if by word-of mouth, as practices of secret resistance to the gallery management culture. Identifying these semi-covert, knowingly overlooked, or unacknowledged informal practices is a step towards the conceptualisation of the transgressive, bottom-up performances of self-expression by invigilators in art galleries and museums across the United Kingdom.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Invigilator Research Network</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Transforming Finance Conference 2019 by People's Private Equity, University of Greenwich, London</big><br>

<big>'''Link to the work''': https://invigilatorresearch.org/nodrawing/</big><br>

<big>'''Direct link to the catalogue''': https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BJ6JGFF1ToKBiSF7QKA8qFlADehnQC-m/view</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[GALLERY_-_NO_TALKING_//_NO_READING_//_NO_DRAWING_(2019)|See more]] </big><br>

<big>'''Further reading''': Mathur, S. and Singh, K. eds., 2017. ''No Touching, No Spitting, No Praying: the Museum in South Asia.'' Routledge</big><br>

NO TALKING // NO READING // NO DRAWING''' © 2019 by [[Art|Simon Farid]]''' is licensed under [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 '''CC BY 4.0'''] / [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/?ref=chooser-v1 Attribution 4.0 International]
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'''The Informal Museum (2024)'''
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The project emerged from research into informal vending practices and related production networks on Istanbul´s streets. The gained knowledge was then transferred into the museum context, dealing with creative and flexible strategies of art production and how these might enable a more open and participatory form of museum. By editing architectural sections of the venue, the drawings first break with the form of the museum before adding new „informal“ ideas. It´s not their intent to musealise informality, but to create awareness of social groups which are excluded from museum institutions and the art scene.</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Author''': Helen Hümmer</big><br>

<big>'''Venue''': Pera Museum, Istanbul, Türkiye</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[The_Informal_Museum_(2024)_-_Gallery|The Informal Museum (2024)]]</big><br>

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'''As Beru (2024)'''
</div>

<div style="text-align: justify;">
The photos attached were taken during the Kazakh custom named As Beru (literally: giving out the meal). It is given to show respect and remembrance of one's ancestors. The host invites guests who are familiar with their ancestors. Usually, guests are people from the same village, colleagues, and other relatives. From the perspective of informality, the host family organizing the event establishes its status and power among other members of the community. This is demonstrated through organization and leading the event ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 2]]) and through financial investments ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 3]]). The event also involves financial donations (bata) for local religious leaders (imam) ([[As Beru - Gallery|Picture 4]]).</big><br>
</div>

<big>'''Artist''': Madi Zhakupbayev</big><br>

<big>'''Date and Venue of Exhibition''': 16 June 2024; Dolon Village, Beskaragay District, Abay Region, Kazakhstan</big><br>

<big>'''Gallery''': [[As_Beru_-_Gallery|As Beru (2024)]] </big><br>

</div>

</div>

Published Volumes and Analysis

2025-06-12T05:40:28Z

Admin:

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:10%">
[[File:FringeVersion3v16.png]]
</div>

<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming of the system.''’</span><br>
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
</span>
<br>

<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''Alena Ledeneva’s latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.''’</span><br>''
Lucy Ash, journalist
</span>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall.
From February 2024 the [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|volume 3 ]]Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past [[events]] see the [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
<br>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615]] '''[https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615 Download Volume 3 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring contributions from various authors</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=35 Introduction]''' | '''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=11 Table of contents]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:50%">
[[File:GEI vol1 vol2 covers.png|link=Table_of_Contents]]
</div>
<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.''’</span><br>
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
This unique collection invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality contains over 200 entries. From March 2018 to April 2019 the Encyclopaedia travelled the world on a [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<div class="mainpage_row2">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i]] '''[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i Download Volume 1 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>with an '''introduction''' by Alena Ledeneva,<br>80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii]] '''[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii Download Volume 2 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring more than 100 authors,<br>including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[[The informal view of the world|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Main Findings|Main findings]]'''<br>
'''[[Table of Contents|Table of contents]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing of the Database|Theoretical framing]]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

==Short introduction to the volumes==
{{#evu:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlPMGmCrYw|dimensions=600x338}}

==Reviews==

'''Fradejas-García, Ignacio''':

"In conclusion, this encyclopedia, due to its inherent comparative character, allows use its typology, which has been defined extensively in each chapter, both in the introductions as well as specific conclusions, to classify practices informal to be investigated in the future globally. However, we were wrong if we see the encyclopedia as an Encyclopedia with capital letter: both the Chapter introductions, like many of the entries, subsume a huge quantity of analytical and theoretical reflections of enormous depth. Yes, still If there were door-to-door encyclopedias sellers, this would be a bestseller."

''Perifèria'' 23(2), 2018.
[in Spanish] [https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.658 'Reseña de “The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity” de Alena Ledeneva (Ed.)']

'''Hupp, S. L.''', West Virginia University at Parkersburg:

"To quote lead editor Ledeneva, this work deals with “the world’s open
secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices” as “ways of getting things
done.” This complex, highly theoretical book examines the use of family
contacts, friendships, bribes, favors, cronyism, language, and other informal
practices throughout human society. Essays, written by a score of scholars,
fall into four parts: redistribution (the role of relationships), solidarity
(conformity versus nonconformity), markets (economics), and domination
(power). Each section has a preface and conclusion. The entries are not
arranged in alphabetical order or in a time line. Rather, similar practices
followed in different countries are grouped together and identified by the
local term. Each chapter ends with a detailed bibliography. A glossary of
these terms appears in both volumes, which the editors suggest should serve
as the starting point for the reader. Detailed indexes are also included. A
larger number of terms included come from Russia and Eastern Europe and
date back to the communist era. An outgrowth of the Global Informality
Project, this book provides interesting insights into how similar practices
are carried out across different cultures. This work is not intended as a
ready reference or for undergraduates but stands as a complex study suited
for graduate students, scholars, and professionals."

''The Choice'', April 2019: 939.

==UCL FRINGE Series==
The UCL press [https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/ FRINGE series] is supported by the FRINGE Centre, founded by Alena Ledeneva and Peter Zusi. The FRINGE Centre explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena. A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, FRINGE series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, and clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices. Our interest lies in the hidden complexity of all embedded practices, taken-for-granted and otherwise invisible subjects. Illuminating the 'fringe' thus puts the 'centre' in a new light.

Published Volumes and Analysis

2025-06-12T05:39:24Z

Admin:

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:10%">
[[File:FringeVersion3v16.png]]
</div>

<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming of the system.''’</span><br>
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
</span>
<br>

<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''Alena Ledeneva’s latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.''’</span><br>''
Lucy Ash, journalist
</span>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall.
From February 2024 the [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|volume 3 ]]Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past [[events]] see the [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].

<br>
<br>
<br>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615]] '''[https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615 Download Volume 3 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring contributions from various authors</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=35 Introduction]''' | '''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=11 Table of contents]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:50%">
[[File:GEI vol1 vol2 covers.png|link=Table_of_Contents]]
</div>
<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.''’</span><br>
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
This unique collection invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality contains over 200 entries. From March 2018 to April 2019 the Encyclopaedia travelled the world on a [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<div class="mainpage_row2">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i]] '''[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i Download Volume 1 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>with an '''introduction''' by Alena Ledeneva,<br>80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii]] '''[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii Download Volume 2 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring more than 100 authors,<br>including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[[The informal view of the world|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Main Findings|Main findings]]'''<br>
'''[[Table of Contents|Table of contents]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing of the Database|Theoretical framing]]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

==Short introduction to the volumes==
{{#evu:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlPMGmCrYw|dimensions=600x338}}

==Reviews==

'''Fradejas-García, Ignacio''':

"In conclusion, this encyclopedia, due to its inherent comparative character, allows use its typology, which has been defined extensively in each chapter, both in the introductions as well as specific conclusions, to classify practices informal to be investigated in the future globally. However, we were wrong if we see the encyclopedia as an Encyclopedia with capital letter: both the Chapter introductions, like many of the entries, subsume a huge quantity of analytical and theoretical reflections of enormous depth. Yes, still If there were door-to-door encyclopedias sellers, this would be a bestseller."

''Perifèria'' 23(2), 2018.
[in Spanish] [https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.658 'Reseña de “The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity” de Alena Ledeneva (Ed.)']

'''Hupp, S. L.''', West Virginia University at Parkersburg:

"To quote lead editor Ledeneva, this work deals with “the world’s open
secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices” as “ways of getting things
done.” This complex, highly theoretical book examines the use of family
contacts, friendships, bribes, favors, cronyism, language, and other informal
practices throughout human society. Essays, written by a score of scholars,
fall into four parts: redistribution (the role of relationships), solidarity
(conformity versus nonconformity), markets (economics), and domination
(power). Each section has a preface and conclusion. The entries are not
arranged in alphabetical order or in a time line. Rather, similar practices
followed in different countries are grouped together and identified by the
local term. Each chapter ends with a detailed bibliography. A glossary of
these terms appears in both volumes, which the editors suggest should serve
as the starting point for the reader. Detailed indexes are also included. A
larger number of terms included come from Russia and Eastern Europe and
date back to the communist era. An outgrowth of the Global Informality
Project, this book provides interesting insights into how similar practices
are carried out across different cultures. This work is not intended as a
ready reference or for undergraduates but stands as a complex study suited
for graduate students, scholars, and professionals."

''The Choice'', April 2019: 939.

==UCL FRINGE Series==
The UCL press [https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/ FRINGE series] is supported by the FRINGE Centre, founded by Alena Ledeneva and Peter Zusi. The FRINGE Centre explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena. A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, FRINGE series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, and clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices. Our interest lies in the hidden complexity of all embedded practices, taken-for-granted and otherwise invisible subjects. Illuminating the 'fringe' thus puts the 'centre' in a new light.

Published Volumes and Analysis

2025-06-12T05:37:54Z

Admin:

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:10%">
[[File:FringeVersion3v16.png]]
</div>

<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming of the system.''’</span><br>
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
</span>
<br>

<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">'‘Alena Ledeneva’s latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.''’</span><br>''
Lucy Ash, journalist
</span>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall.
From February 2024 the [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|volume 3 ]]Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past [[events]] see the [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].

<br>
<br>
<br>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615]] '''[https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615 Download Volume 3 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring contributions from various authors</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=35 Introduction]''' | '''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=11 Table of contents]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:50%">
[[File:GEI vol1 vol2 covers.png|link=Table_of_Contents]]
</div>
<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.''’</span><br>
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
This unique collection invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality contains over 200 entries. From March 2018 to April 2019 the Encyclopaedia travelled the world on a [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<div class="mainpage_row2">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i]] '''[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i Download Volume 1 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>with an '''introduction''' by Alena Ledeneva,<br>80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii]] '''[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii Download Volume 2 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring more than 100 authors,<br>including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman</small>
</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[[The informal view of the world|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Main Findings|Main findings]]'''<br>
'''[[Table of Contents|Table of contents]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing of the Database|Theoretical framing]]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

==Short introduction to the volumes==
{{#evu:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlPMGmCrYw|dimensions=600x338}}

==Reviews==

'''Fradejas-García, Ignacio''':

"In conclusion, this encyclopedia, due to its inherent comparative character, allows use its typology, which has been defined extensively in each chapter, both in the introductions as well as specific conclusions, to classify practices informal to be investigated in the future globally. However, we were wrong if we see the encyclopedia as an Encyclopedia with capital letter: both the Chapter introductions, like many of the entries, subsume a huge quantity of analytical and theoretical reflections of enormous depth. Yes, still If there were door-to-door encyclopedias sellers, this would be a bestseller."

''Perifèria'' 23(2), 2018.
[in Spanish] [https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.658 'Reseña de “The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity” de Alena Ledeneva (Ed.)']

'''Hupp, S. L.''', West Virginia University at Parkersburg:

"To quote lead editor Ledeneva, this work deals with “the world’s open
secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices” as “ways of getting things
done.” This complex, highly theoretical book examines the use of family
contacts, friendships, bribes, favors, cronyism, language, and other informal
practices throughout human society. Essays, written by a score of scholars,
fall into four parts: redistribution (the role of relationships), solidarity
(conformity versus nonconformity), markets (economics), and domination
(power). Each section has a preface and conclusion. The entries are not
arranged in alphabetical order or in a time line. Rather, similar practices
followed in different countries are grouped together and identified by the
local term. Each chapter ends with a detailed bibliography. A glossary of
these terms appears in both volumes, which the editors suggest should serve
as the starting point for the reader. Detailed indexes are also included. A
larger number of terms included come from Russia and Eastern Europe and
date back to the communist era. An outgrowth of the Global Informality
Project, this book provides interesting insights into how similar practices
are carried out across different cultures. This work is not intended as a
ready reference or for undergraduates but stands as a complex study suited
for graduate students, scholars, and professionals."

''The Choice'', April 2019: 939.

==UCL FRINGE Series==
The UCL press [https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/ FRINGE series] is supported by the FRINGE Centre, founded by Alena Ledeneva and Peter Zusi. The FRINGE Centre explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena. A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, FRINGE series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, and clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices. Our interest lies in the hidden complexity of all embedded practices, taken-for-granted and otherwise invisible subjects. Illuminating the 'fringe' thus puts the 'centre' in a new light.

Published Volumes and Analysis

2025-06-12T05:36:47Z

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<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming of the system.''’</span><br>
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
</span>
<br>

<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">''<b>‘Alena Ledeneva’s</b> latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.''’</span><br>''
Lucy Ash, journalist
</span>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall.
From February 2024 the [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|volume 3 ]]Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past [[events]] see the [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].

<br>
<br>
<br>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615]] '''[https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615 Download Volume 3 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring contributions from various authors</small>
</div>
</div>

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'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=35 Introduction]''' | '''[https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10187134/1/The-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-3.pdf#page=11 Table of contents]'''
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</div>
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<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:50%">
[[File:GEI vol1 vol2 covers.png|link=Table_of_Contents]]
</div>
<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:100%; line-height:110%">‛''This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.''’</span><br>
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
This unique collection invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality contains over 200 entries. From March 2018 to April 2019 the Encyclopaedia travelled the world on a [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<div class="mainpage_row2">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
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[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i]] '''[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i Download Volume 1 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>with an '''introduction''' by Alena Ledeneva,<br>80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii]] '''[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii Download Volume 2 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring more than 100 authors,<br>including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman</small>
</div>
</div>

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<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[[The informal view of the world|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Main Findings|Main findings]]'''<br>
'''[[Table of Contents|Table of contents]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing of the Database|Theoretical framing]]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

==Short introduction to the volumes==
{{#evu:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlPMGmCrYw|dimensions=600x338}}

==Reviews==

'''Fradejas-García, Ignacio''':

"In conclusion, this encyclopedia, due to its inherent comparative character, allows use its typology, which has been defined extensively in each chapter, both in the introductions as well as specific conclusions, to classify practices informal to be investigated in the future globally. However, we were wrong if we see the encyclopedia as an Encyclopedia with capital letter: both the Chapter introductions, like many of the entries, subsume a huge quantity of analytical and theoretical reflections of enormous depth. Yes, still If there were door-to-door encyclopedias sellers, this would be a bestseller."

''Perifèria'' 23(2), 2018.
[in Spanish] [https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.658 'Reseña de “The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity” de Alena Ledeneva (Ed.)']

'''Hupp, S. L.''', West Virginia University at Parkersburg:

"To quote lead editor Ledeneva, this work deals with “the world’s open
secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices” as “ways of getting things
done.” This complex, highly theoretical book examines the use of family
contacts, friendships, bribes, favors, cronyism, language, and other informal
practices throughout human society. Essays, written by a score of scholars,
fall into four parts: redistribution (the role of relationships), solidarity
(conformity versus nonconformity), markets (economics), and domination
(power). Each section has a preface and conclusion. The entries are not
arranged in alphabetical order or in a time line. Rather, similar practices
followed in different countries are grouped together and identified by the
local term. Each chapter ends with a detailed bibliography. A glossary of
these terms appears in both volumes, which the editors suggest should serve
as the starting point for the reader. Detailed indexes are also included. A
larger number of terms included come from Russia and Eastern Europe and
date back to the communist era. An outgrowth of the Global Informality
Project, this book provides interesting insights into how similar practices
are carried out across different cultures. This work is not intended as a
ready reference or for undergraduates but stands as a complex study suited
for graduate students, scholars, and professionals."

''The Choice'', April 2019: 939.

==UCL FRINGE Series==
The UCL press [https://uclpress.co.uk/book-series/fringe/ FRINGE series] is supported by the FRINGE Centre, founded by Alena Ledeneva and Peter Zusi. The FRINGE Centre explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena. A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, FRINGE series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, and clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices. Our interest lies in the hidden complexity of all embedded practices, taken-for-granted and otherwise invisible subjects. Illuminating the 'fringe' thus puts the 'centre' in a new light.

Category:Volume 3

2025-02-17T16:23:24Z

Admin: Created blank page

Khamstvo (USSR, Russia)

2025-02-17T16:22:32Z

Admin:

{{infobox
| nameofpractice = Khamstvo
| flagemoji = 🇷🇺
| definition = Rude, impudent and abusive way to communicate, used especially in the Soviet public sector service provision
| location = USSR, Russia
| imagemap = Russia map.png
| clusters = [[:Category: Domination|Domination]] – [[:Category: Control| Control]] – [[:Category: Intermediation| Intermediation]]
| categories = [[:Category: Russia|Russia]] – [[:Category: FSU| FSU]] – [[:Category: Healthcare| Healthcare]] – [[:Category: Payment| Payment]] – [[:Category: Intermediation| Intermediation]] – [[:Category: Women| Women]] – [[:Category: Gender| Gender]] – [[:Category: Etiquette| Etiquette]] – [[:Category: Norms| Norms]] – [[:Category: Status| Status]] – [[:Category: Emotions| Emotions]] – [[:Category: Personal connections| Personal connections]]
| authorofpiece = Anastasia Novkunskaya, Daria Litvina and Anna Temkina
| authorinstitution = European University at Saint-Petersburg, Russia
}}
<big>'''By Anastasia Novkunskaya, Daria Litvina and Anna Temkina, European University at Saint-Petersburg, Russia'''</big>
[[Category: Domination]]
[[Category: Control]]
[[Category: Intermediation]]
[[Category: Russia]]
[[Category: FSU]]
[[Category: Healthcare]]
[[Category: Payment]]
[[Category: Women]]
[[Category: Gender]]
[[Category: Etiquette]]
[[Category: Norms]]
[[Category: Status]]
[[Category: Emotions]]
[[Category: Personal connections]]
[[Category: Entry]]
[[Category: 2020 entry]]
[[Category: Volume 3]]
{| class="wikitable"
|-
|style="font-size:1.1em;"| ''Khamstvo'' – a communicative code of rudeness – signifies emotional and verbal abuse, which had been widely distributed in public sector services in the Soviet Union. Some examples of ''khamstvo'' can also be found in contemporary encounters. ''Khamstvo'' normally characterizes communicative situations when members of social groups, which lack status and authority, perform their situational dominance in a rude manner. ''Khamstvo'' was typical for the proletariat and professional groups that had exclusive access to scarce resources, such as sales clerks, medical personnel, accountants, and staff for communal and housing services (Koenker 2019).
|}

''Khamstvo'' was embedded in the fabric of Soviet everyday life. Multiple examples of ''khamstvo'' can be found in literary descriptions of early Soviet times – in Tolstoy’s Road to Calvary that covers the period 1914-1919 and Bulgakov’s Dog’s Heart that depicts the aftermath of the early twentieth century revolutions in Russia. The snap redistribution of power in that period and further economic, political and social changes provided institutionally favourable conditions for the spread of ''khamstvo''. ''Khamstvo'' can either be employed occasionally or become a habitual mode of behaviour, routinely performed in public: on transport, in queues, on the streets. It is more likely to be widespread in authoritarian and top-down regulated regimes, where the rigidity of rules is combined with poor services.

The Soviet planned economy resulted in a constant deficit of goods and services (even essential ones), unavailable even for a higher price (see [[blat]]). This made service workers the de facto gatekeepers of centrally-distributed, scarce resources. Their situational authority, giving them power to make decisions about the welfare of others made them eligible to perform ''khamstvo'' – to assert this authority by a rude manner. These gatekeepers could facilitate or limit access to goods or services and such examples were widespread in the late socialist fiction. One of the best-known attempts to formulate the essence of mature Soviet ''khamstvo'' is contained in an essay This untranslatable word – ''khamstvo'' by Sergei Dovlatov (2005):

<blockquote>‘''Khamstvo'' – so real, wallowing in itself, deliberately unpunished – is almost absent in New York. Here you can get robbed, but no one will slam the door right in front of your face, and this is not unimportant. […] [In Leningrad] I enter a grocery store, wait for my turn in the queue and then something strange happens to me […] something akin to the falsetto of a young beggar appears in my voice […]. I say to the saleswoman, who is in her sixties: “Dear lady, darling, could you be so kind to weight for me about hundred gramsies of butterling and also sausageling, you know, low-fatty, about two hundred gramsies…” And I pronounce all those diminutive suffixes trying my best to please this lady […], and so I bend in front of her in anticipation of ''khamstvo'', because she has a sausage and I do not yet […] I talked my entire life just as obsequiously […] to everyone whom we call the ʻservice sectorʼ. There were, of course, nice and polite people among them, but just in case, I pre-emptively mobilized all the diminutive suffixes, because these people could do something big, good, important for me, like give me two hundred grams of sausage, or, on the contrary, they could refuse, and it would be completely natural, normal and unpunishable’.</blockquote>

''Khamstvo'' continues to operate in the post-Soviet economy and culture in Russia, especially in the areas where basic services are sparse and provided at discretion of the public official, who acts as a gatekeeper to public welfare. We illustrate this practice with cases from maternity care – where childbearing women feel themselves particularly vulnerable and helpless.

Soviet maternity wards were physically closed to any visitors and could be characterized as quasi total institutions, harbouring opaque rules and practices resistant to challenges from the outside (see Goffman 1961, Davies 1989). Consequently, they were secure spaces for healthcare practitioners to exercise direct power and control over women and subordinate them to uniform medical procedures, disregarding patients’ feelings (Rivkin-Fish 2005). Maternity wards have since changed, yet ''khamstvo'' (even though reduced and lost status of normality in interactions) remains an important tool to control women and place them under clinicians’ authority.

The rigidity of the centralised socialist healthcare system was somewhat alleviated by a system of informal and paid care (Rivkin-Fish 2005, Stepurko et al. 2013, Cook 2015). In order to avoid the uniform over-medicalisation during childbearing and the emotionally traumatic experience of birth in Soviet hospitals (including ''khamstvo'' of personnel), women mobilised their families and networks and resorted to informal practices. These included personal introductions and referrals ([[blat]]), informal agreements arranged through the social networks and informal payments. The contacts were used to find a doctor that could offer a personal care, thus reducing negative experience and stress during the childbirth, in exchange for an out-of-pocket payment. While blat could not change the doctors’ emotional pressure on patients, or reduce manifestations of ''khamstvo'' overall, personal referrals could boost the competitive advantage of patients and ensure doctors’ attention, sincere concern and forgo ''khamstvo''. The system of out-of-pocket payments helped further improve the provider-patient relationship, by making emotional support part of the deal. Thus, ''khamstvo'' captured a complex emotional regime. On the one hand, it was on display in both bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic medical settings, but never openly admitted by the Soviet doctors, who positioned themselves as experts ‘teaching’ women proper behaviour. On the other hand, the trade of emotional support through informal channels was also widely known, albeit as an ‘open secret’.

Dominant in Soviet paternalistic maternity care, ''khamstvo'' remains present despite the significant changes in maternity care after the Soviet Union’s collapse. In in-depth interviews conducted by the authors for the research project ‘Choice, control and trust in childbirth’ in 2017, women shared examples of ''khamsky'' communication they had faced in maternity wards:

<blockquote>‘The midwives were so angry, so conniving and insolent... I asked her, “Well, what about the test results?”. She snapped at me: “How would I know, it's none of my business”, and so on (mother, 25 years old).’
‘Yes, they are boors. They yell, damn it, but they don’t just yell, they discipline’ (mother, 30 years old)’. </blockquote>

''Khamstvo'' manifested as emotional abuse in healthcare could be considered an emotional regime or an institutionalised behaviour. The vulnerability and dependence of patients together with the isolation of medical institutions help reproduce the superior status of staff. The institutionalization of'' khamstvo'' is indicative of the prevalence of the collective over the individual in Russia. This regime enables health care providers to neglect women’s emotional needs for care and subordinate these needs to the clinical, organizational and bureaucratic demands. ''Khamstvo'' in maternity wards used to be perceived as legitimate by both the healthcare providers and, to some extent, by the childbearing women.

''Khamstvo'' shapes the attitudes of all participants, including the clinicians themselves, who often claim feeling helpless within the paternalistic hierarchies of the state (Rivkin-Fish 2005). Doctors and midwives often feel in a subordinate and vulnerable position (Litvina, Temkina and Novkunskaya 2019). In this situation, they see familiarity and aggression as effective instruments to obey the women. Protagonists of such approach appeal to the necessity of controlling, manipulating and, in some cases, exercising power. Unlike in other medical settings, such as ''[[psikhushka]]'' (in [[Psikhushka (FSU)|USSR]] and [[Psikhushka (Russia)|Russia]]), they do it verbally and emotionally, rather than physically. Women are labelled as ‘ignorant’ and ‘infantile’ and forced to cooperate and behave properly during the childbirth, purportedly for their own and their baby’s sake. Paternalistic aggression is used to generate shame to affect patient behaviour and to subordinate an individual to the ʻcorrectʼ way of behavior. Clinicians justify their way of communication as a preventive measure against ‘wrong or shameful’ behaviour from childbearing women and do not label it as ''khamstvo''. At the same time, they perceive the women’s tactics against ''khamstvo'', such as making complains or making videos of personnel’s communication with them as aggressive and respond to them with ''khamstvo''.

Late Soviet era state medical services were characterized by overregulation, rigidity of medical hierarchies and shortages of resources. ''Khamstvo'' in maternity wards generated a power style and a code of rudeness that sought to discipline women and subject them to both the impersonal rules and the clinicians’ discretion in interpreting them. Because women were completely dependent on the medical staff, they had to accept these rules and codes as inevitable, beyond women’s control, and impossible to challenge (Temkina 2016). To feel bound by fate is considered as a constitutive element of the emotional regime of ''khamstvo'' and can be considered its intrinsic vehicle, reproduced in institutions at the organizational level (Temkina, Novkunskaya and Litvina forthcoming). Patients, who had no choice but to use state medical facilities, employed bottom-up strategies of personalization to counter ''khamstvo'', a top-down strategy of the staff. Some structural prerequisites and communication characteristics of ''khamstvo'' were transferred onto Russian contemporary medical institutions and are still typical for certain medical specialists and settings (Temkina, Novkunskaya, Litvina forthcoming).

==Entries in the online encyclopaedia linking to ''khamstvo''==
<div style="column-count:3;-moz-column-count:3;-webkit-column-count:3">
{{Special:Whatlinkshere/Khamstvo}}
</div>

==References==

Cook, L. 2015. ‘Constraints on Universal Health Care in the Russian Federation: Inequality, Informality, and the Failures of Mandatory Medical Insurance Reforms’, Journal of Self-Governance and Management Economics, 3(4): 37-60

Davies, C. 1989. Goffman's Concept of the Total Institution: Criticisms and Revisions. Human Studies, 12(1/2): 77-95

Dovlatov, S. 2005. ‘Eto neperevodimoe slovo – “khamstvo”’, in Sobranie sochineniy v 4-h tomah, Saint Petersburg: Azbuka-klassika. 323-327

Goffman, E. 1961. Asylums: essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates, New York: Anchor

Koenker, D. 2019. ‘The Smile behind the Sales Counter: Soviet Shop Assistants on the Road to Full Communism,’ Journal of Social History, 30 December 2019.

Litvina, D., Temkina A., Novkunskaya A. 2019. ‘Multiple Vulnerabilities in Medical Settings: Invisible Suffering of Doctors’, Societies, 10(1): 5

Rivkin-Fish, M. 2005. Women’s health in post-Soviet Russia: The politics of intervention, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Stepurko, T., M. Pavlova, O. Levenets, I. Gryga, and W. Groot. (2013) ‘Informal patient payments in maternity hospitals in Kiev, Ukraine’, International Journal of Health Planning Management, 28(2): 169–187

Temkina, A. 2016. ‘Russian middle class intimacy and family life: the life project and its constraints’, in K. Joesalu & A. Kannike (eds.), Сultural Patterns and Life Stories, Tallinn: Tallinn University Press

Temkina A., Novkunskaya A., Litvina D. Forthcoming. Emotional Regimes in Russian Maternity Hospitals: Juggling between Khamstvo and Smiling, Emotions and Society (under review)

Published Volumes and Analysis

2025-02-17T16:15:24Z

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<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
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[[File:FringeVersion3v16.png]]
</div>

<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:180%; line-height:110%">‛''This book tells a story of human cooperation. It is not the narrative you’ll find in books teaching you how to solve problems. It is an assemblage of something much more endemic, fundamentally human, and much more pervasive than we tend to think of informality. It involves money and power, but also the alternative currencies of gaining advantage or gaming of the system.''’</span><br>
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
</span>

<br>

<span style="font-size:180%; line-height:110%">''<b>‘Alena Ledeneva’s</b> latest database of rule bending is a goldmine for documentary makers and storytellers. Entries from 70 countries, covering a human lifespan from Chinese “anchor babies” to funeral feasts in Azerbaijan, offer remarkable insights into the way the world really works.''’</span><br>''
Lucy Ash, journalist
</span>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

The volume takes a reader on a ‘biographical’ journey through elusive, taken-for-granted or banal ways of getting things done from over 70 countries and world regions. It offers innovative understanding of the significance of fringes, and challenges the assumption that informality is associated exclusively with poverty, underdevelopment, the Global South, oppressive regimes or the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. It also maps the patterns of informality around the globe; identifies specific informal practices in a context-sensitive way; and documents their ambivalent impact on people engaged in problem-solving, on societies in which these problems arise, and on humanity overall.
From February 2024 the [[Volume 3 Book Launch Events|volume 3 ]]Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past [[events]] see the [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].

<br>
<br>
<br>

<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615]] '''[https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/232615 Download Volume 3 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<small>with an '''introduction''' ‘The raison d’etre of informality studies’ by Alena Ledeneva</small>
</div>

'''Read online'''

'''[[The raison d’etre of informality studies: an introduction|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing - Volume 3]]'''

</div>
</div>

<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>

<div class="mainpage_row_with_2_boxes">
<div class="mainpage_image_new" style="min-width:50%">
[[File:GEI vol1 vol2 covers.png|link=Table_of_Contents]]
</div>
<div style=mid-width:calc(50% - 1em); margin-left:1em">
<span style="font-size:180%; line-height:110%">‛''This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.''’</span><br>
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
This unique collection invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality contains over 200 entries. From March 2018 to April 2019 the Encyclopaedia travelled the world on a [[Global Book Launch Events for Volumes 1-2|global book tour]].
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider"></div>
<div class="mainpage_row2">
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i]] '''[http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i Download Volume 1 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>with an '''introduction''' by Alena Ledeneva,<br>80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
[[File:Published vols download 2.png|20px|link=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii]] '''[https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii Download Volume 2 from UCL Press]'''<br>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
<small>featuring more than 100 authors,<br>including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman</small>
</div>
</div>
<div class="mainpage_hubbox">
<div class="mainpage_boxborder" style="margin-bottom:5px"> </div>
<div class="mainpage_boxcontents" style="font-size:110%; text-align: center">
'''Read online'''
<div class="mainpage_hubbox_divider" style="margin:0.5em"></div>
'''[[The informal view of the world|Introduction]]''' | '''[[Main Findings|Main findings]]'''<br>
'''[[Table of Contents|Table of contents]]''' | '''[[Theoretical Framing of the Database|Theoretical framing]]'''
</div>
</div>
</div>

==Short introduction to the volumes==
{{#evu:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMlPMGmCrYw|dimensions=600x338}}

==Reviews==

'''Fradejas-García, Ignacio''':

"In conclusion, this encyclopedia, due to its inherent comparative character, allows use its typology, which has been defined extensively in each chapter, both in the introductions as well as specific conclusions, to classify practices informal to be investigated in the future globally. However, we were wrong if we see the encyclopedia as an Encyclopedia with capital letter: both the Chapter introductions, like many of the entries, subsume a huge quantity of analytical and theoretical reflections of enormous depth. Yes, still If there were door-to-door encyclopedias sellers, this would be a bestseller."

''Perifèria'' 23(2), 2018.
[in Spanish] [https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/periferia.658 'Reseña de “The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity” de Alena Ledeneva (Ed.)']

'''Hupp, S. L.''', West Virginia University at Parkersburg:

"To quote lead editor Ledeneva, this work deals with “the world’s open
secrets, unwritten rules, and hidden practices” as “ways of getting things
done.” This complex, highly theoretical book examines the use of family
contacts, friendships, bribes, favors, cronyism, language, and other informal
practices throughout human society. Essays, written by a score of scholars,
fall into four parts: redistribution (the role of relationships), solidarity
(conformity versus nonconformity), markets (economics), and domination
(power). Each section has a preface and conclusion. The entries are not
arranged in alphabetical order or in a time line. Rather, similar practices
followed in different countries are grouped together and identified by the
local term. Each chapter ends with a detailed bibliography. A glossary of
these terms appears in both volumes, which the editors suggest should serve
as the starting point for the reader. Detailed indexes are also included. A
larger number of terms included come from Russia and Eastern Europe and
date back to the communist era. An outgrowth of the Global Informality
Project, this book provides interesting insights into how similar practices
are carried out across different cultures. This work is not intended as a
ready reference or for undergraduates but stands as a complex study suited
for graduate students, scholars, and professionals."

''The Choice'', April 2019: 939.

==About the FRINGE Centre for the Study of Social and Cultural Complexity==

The [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/ucl-school-slavonic-east-european-studies-ssees FRINGE Centre] explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena. A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together scholars from the humanities and social sciences, FRINGE examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, and clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices. Our interest lies in the hidden complexity of all embedded practices, taken-for-granted and otherwise invisible subjects. Illuminating the 'fringe' thus puts the 'centre' in a new light.

The FRINGE Centre publishes the [https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre/publications FRINGE series] with [http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press UCL Press].

Category:2024 entry

2025-01-21T15:55:36Z

Admin: 2024 entry

Pages in category "2024 entry"
The following 3 pages are in this category, out of 3 total.

C
Chaza (Colombia)
K
Kvartirniki (Russia)
V
Vu cumprà (Italy)

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-22T11:22:40Z

Admin:

==Ghent University, Belgium==

'''18 October 2024: Ghent University'''

[[File:Ghent University Picture 2.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 3.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 5.jpg|border|x250px]]

==UCL SSEES/IAS/UCL Press Book launch, UK==

'''28 May 2024: UCL'''

==Oxford University, UK==

'''24 April 2024: Oxford University'''

[[File:Oxford University - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Oxford University - 2.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Harvard University, USA==

'''4 April 2024: Davis Center, Harvard University'''

[https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/events/book-launch-hitchhikers-guide-informal-problem-solving-human-life/ Book Launch: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life]

[[File:HarvardLaunch2.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch3.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Pushkin House, UK==

'''6 March 2024: Pushkin House, UK'''
__NOTOC__
<div class="mainpage_toprow" style="padding:20px">
{{#ev:youtube|0Ak0nghN8UQ|480|left||}}
<div style="margin-left:20px; margin-right:20pm">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle" style="colour:black;font-size:150%">
'''Keep It Informal: Resisting Power in the Shadows of Systems with Alena Ledeneva'''
</div>
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life,Volume 3 of The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, UCL Press Fringe Series, 2024.

Can informality be seen as resistance to power and potential for institutional change? Is staying hidden a productive way to accumulate critical resources to transform regimes? Join Professor Alena Ledeneva for a discussion of the “shades of grey” around the globe.

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality offers a journey into the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. Its third volume focuses on issues of emotional ambivalence and the pressures of the digital age on humanity. The informal practices presented in this volume demonstrate the urgency of alleviating tensions between continuity and all-too-rapid change and the need to tackle the central problem of modern societies – uncertainty.

</div>
</div>
[[File:Pushkin House - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 3.jpg|border|x250px]]

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-22T11:22:10Z

Admin:

==Ghent University, Belgium==

'''18 October 2024: Ghent University'''

[[File:Ghent University Picture 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 2.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 3.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Ghent University Picture 5.jpg|border|x250px]]

==UCL SSEES/IAS/UCL Press Book launch, UK==

'''28 May 2024: UCL'''

==Oxford University, UK==

'''24 April 2024: Oxford University'''

[[File:Oxford University - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Oxford University - 2.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Harvard University, USA==

'''4 April 2024: Davis Center, Harvard University'''

[https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/events/book-launch-hitchhikers-guide-informal-problem-solving-human-life/ Book Launch: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life]

[[File:HarvardLaunch2.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch3.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Pushkin House, UK==

'''6 March 2024: Pushkin House, UK'''
__NOTOC__
<div class="mainpage_toprow" style="padding:20px">
{{#ev:youtube|0Ak0nghN8UQ|480|left||}}
<div style="margin-left:20px; margin-right:20pm">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle" style="colour:black;font-size:150%">
'''Keep It Informal: Resisting Power in the Shadows of Systems with Alena Ledeneva'''
</div>
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life,Volume 3 of The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, UCL Press Fringe Series, 2024.

Can informality be seen as resistance to power and potential for institutional change? Is staying hidden a productive way to accumulate critical resources to transform regimes? Join Professor Alena Ledeneva for a discussion of the “shades of grey” around the globe.

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality offers a journey into the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. Its third volume focuses on issues of emotional ambivalence and the pressures of the digital age on humanity. The informal practices presented in this volume demonstrate the urgency of alleviating tensions between continuity and all-too-rapid change and the need to tackle the central problem of modern societies – uncertainty.

</div>
</div>
[[File:Pushkin House - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 3.jpg|border|x250px]]

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-22T11:21:56Z

Admin:

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-22T11:05:59Z

Admin:

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-22T11:05:44Z

Admin:

File:Ghent University Picture 5.jpg

2024-10-22T11:05:18Z

Admin:

Ghent University Picture 5

File:Ghent University Picture 4.jpg

2024-10-22T11:04:42Z

Admin:

Ghent University Picture 4

File:Ghent University Picture 3.jpg

2024-10-22T11:04:05Z

Admin:

Ghent University Picture 3

File:Ghent University Picture 2.jpg

2024-10-22T11:03:18Z

Admin:

Ghent University Picture 2

File:Ghent University Picture 1.jpg

2024-10-22T11:01:53Z

Admin:

Ghent University Picture 1

Volume 3 Book Launch Events

2024-10-18T17:40:58Z

Admin:

==Ghent University, Belgium==

'''18 October 2024: Ghent University'''

==UCL SSEES/IAS/UCL Press Book launch, UK==

'''28 May 2024: UCL'''

==Oxford University, UK==

'''24 April 2024: Oxford University'''

[[File:Oxford University - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Oxford University - 2.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Harvard University, USA==

'''4 April 2024: Davis Center, Harvard University'''

[https://daviscenter.fas.harvard.edu/events/book-launch-hitchhikers-guide-informal-problem-solving-human-life/ Book Launch: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life]

[[File:HarvardLaunch2.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:HarvardLaunch3.jpg|border|x250px]]

==Pushkin House, UK==

'''6 March 2024: Pushkin House, UK'''
__NOTOC__
<div class="mainpage_toprow" style="padding:20px">
{{#ev:youtube|0Ak0nghN8UQ|480|left||}}
<div style="margin-left:20px; margin-right:20pm">
<div class="mainpage_pagetitle" style="colour:black;font-size:150%">
'''Keep It Informal: Resisting Power in the Shadows of Systems with Alena Ledeneva'''
</div>
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Informal Problem-Solving in Human Life,Volume 3 of The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, UCL Press Fringe Series, 2024.

Can informality be seen as resistance to power and potential for institutional change? Is staying hidden a productive way to accumulate critical resources to transform regimes? Join Professor Alena Ledeneva for a discussion of the “shades of grey” around the globe.

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality offers a journey into the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. Its third volume focuses on issues of emotional ambivalence and the pressures of the digital age on humanity. The informal practices presented in this volume demonstrate the urgency of alleviating tensions between continuity and all-too-rapid change and the need to tackle the central problem of modern societies – uncertainty.

</div>
</div>
[[File:Pushkin House - 1.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 4.jpg|border|x250px]]
[[File:Pushkin House - 3.jpg|border|x250px]]