Theories of economic development have long predicted that employment outside of formal, regulated organizations would eventually become obsolete, but informal economies continue to provide a livelihood to around 60 percent of workers in poorer countries and 30 percent in richer ones. India is a particularly important case when studying informal economies because over 90 percent of its workforce is informal. This project analyzes informal waste collection and recycling in Delhi, India, which, despite challenges from legal and private actors, continues to persist and facilitate positive environmental outcomes in India?s capital city. The research asks: What are the relationships and institutions that allow the informal recycling workforce to thrive in spite of private opposition and formal regulation?
The project is designed as an extended case study, which assembles original ethnographic data to revise and build sociological theory on the relationship of state and market institutions to informal urban economies. The primary data to be collected are extensive participation observation with informal recyclers and at least 125 interviews with informal recyclers and legal actors. Two hypothetical positions are examined: the first holds that there is a division between higher and lower levels of legal operation, which results in support for informal enterprise at the local level despite high level disavowal, and a second proposes that while social relations such as kinship and ethnicity prevail within singular informal enterprises, market relations are a primary source of regulation between these informal enterprises.
This project takes steps to understand urban processes in the twenty-first century. From the global cities literature, we know that cities are becoming increasingly connected through markets. However, that research attends only to the world?s wealthiest cities and takes a high-level perspective, when what is needed are more detailed analyses of how global flows and local practices combine to produce urban change. This study draws on sociological tools to open up the "black box" of urban informality and theorize how it is produced from the ground up. A detailed look at negotiations between informal actors and those in market and legal institutions provides an opportunity to revise essential sociological theory, while the combined focus on structural barriers and potential for agency holds promise as a paradigm for future urban research. Understanding the formal ties of informal work allows researchers to contribute to the difficult question of how to create change where formal institutions are less strong. Additionally, there is a need to study informal practices that contribute to an urban sustainability agenda. This project addresses both of these issues in a context where approaches to waste management could be revised to produce more positive social and environmental outcomes.
