‛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.’
Bruce Schneier, author of A Hacker's Mind
‛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.’
Lucy Ash, journalist
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 Encyclopaedia travelled the world . For the past events see the global book tour.
Download Volume 3 from UCL Press
featuring contributions from various authors
Read online
‛This is a monumental achievement – an indispensable reference for anyone in the social sciences interested in informality.’
Martin Holbraad, Professor of Social Anthropology at UCL and editor-in-chief of Social Analysis
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 tour.
Download Volume 1 from UCL Press
with an introduction by Alena Ledeneva,
80 entries and contribution by Zygmunt Bauman
Download Volume 2 from UCL Press
featuring more than 100 authors,
including Sheila Fitzpatrick and Vladimir Gelman
Read online
Introduction | Main findings
Table of contents | Theoretical framing
Short introduction to the volumes
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] '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 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.