Difference between revisions of "Ideas for Future Research"

Is the Global Informality Project network a community? Wikipedia defines learning commons, also known as scholars' commons, information commons or digital commons, are learning spaces, similar to libraries and classrooms that share space for information technology, remote or online education, collaboration, content creation, and meeting. Can the Global Informality Project website become a virtual learning common? What do we need for it? How would you be able to use the dataset? How to facilitate growth of entries? How to engage with related projects? How can it be used for teaching? For research proposals? For publishing? How can the users rearrange the data for their own use? What does it miss? Do we want to set up an International Board and an annual meeting? A lot of authors have worked with policy-makers, would it be a good idea to share experience? To share training materials and research findings?  

*There is a limit in using informal categories in different cultural contexts (blat is not štela, is not guanxi) – we should be very cautious.  

How can we making connections with other conventionally-defined areas in the interest of crosschecking relevance and/or bridging disconnected discussions. For example, how does the unification of Germany compare with unification of Korea? Economies of favours are often associated with post-communist and post-socialist contexts, how do we compare their workings with those in other places?

H.P. began by speaking about his work on “squatters” (a translation approved of by H.P.) in the Netherlands. He spoke of how the movement had moved with practitioners to the US, particularly New York City, where they “started doing it” and “interested fellow students.” R.M., familiar with NYC, asked for more information as to where/when, and M.S. asked for some clarification as to “how political” the action had been. H.P. also discussed a squatting movement created in the 1970s in New York’s Upper West side by immigrants from Puerto Rico. He found out about this because of the research performed by Sister Ann Brotherton for the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS). JTS was interested in this because it happened in their neighbourhood, and allowed H.P. to examine the data and materials that Brotherton collected. When M.S. commented that it seemed not so explicitly “evangelical,” H.P. emphasized that the practice is about “identity,” and discussed his own participation in the “Euro-squatting network.” R.M. asked how people organize, stay in touch, and H.P. noted several websites. H.P. also noted the concept of “flexible institutionalization” he had developed to describe how though state institutions had regulated and begun implementing the practice, the “activists” mobilized and retained control.