Re-viewing informality: Perspectives from urban Asia

Abstract

While the importance of the informal sector and informality in processes of urbanisation is increasingly widely acknowledged across development studies, architecture, planning and urban studies more broadly, there is considerable disagreement on how they should be defined and approached as objects of study. The three papers in this themed section all seek to re-view - or to look anew at - diverse aspects of urban informality in Asia. What the papers assembled here have in common is an orientation towards extending ways of thinking about urban informality on the basis of empirical research in Asia. The aim of the themed section as a whole is not one of proffering some (singular) new way of seeing or doing urban informality, nor is it to posit a specifically Asian take on informality. Rather, the contributions embrace both the conceptual diversity of work on informality and the empirical diversity of 'informal' activities and places in Asia. Asian empirical cases are thus treated as resources for theoretical insights that are not regionally-delimited, yet without implying universal generalization or meta-theorisation.