Informal economy and its criminalization in the field of agroecology. Debates within economic anthropology 3102-FER-IEA
Since the 70s, the formal economy has been presented by anthropological theory as the economy that protects the workers through permanent paid work with fixed salaries. This was seen as an effect of the workers' struggle for the protection of the employment conditions. In contrast, the informal economy has been characterized by self-employment without permanence and with unstable wages. It was seen as a job not covered by the state protection, as a work of a more personal nature and with a more elastic workforce. However, at present, the precarious employment conditions of a large part of the population within the formal economy are being discussed.
In the vein of this theoretical discussion, during the course, we will examine the processes of formalization of the informal economy based on ethnographic research in Madrigales, a town situated 50 km from Madrid, where people produce seasonal vegetables for their own use as well as for sale. The social scenario produced by thesanitary and social crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic exposes the processes of formalization of the economy its causes and the effects it has on the lives of people who are dedicated to the small scale agroecological activity. One of the results of the process of formalization of the economy, accentuated during the pandemic crisis, is a criminalization of unformal economy through the persecution of an unregistered economic activity.
Type of course
Assessment criteria
active participation, essay
Bibliography
Hart, Keith
1973 Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana,The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 61-89.
*Portes, Alejandro, Manuel Castells, Lauren M. Benton
1989 The Informal Economy: Studies in Advanced and Less Developed Countries (fragment)
Palomera, Jaime
2014 Reciprocity, Commodification, and Poverty in the Era of Financialization, Current Anthropology 55 Supplement 9, p. 105-115
Carrier, James
2018 Introduction: Economy, Crime and Wrong in a Neoliberal Era [in:] James Carrier (ed.) Economy, Crime and Wrong in a Neoliberal Era.
*Graber, David
2015 Introduction: The Iron Age of Liberalism and the Age of Total Bureaucratization [in:] David Graeber. The Utopia of Rules. On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
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