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Writing Across Contexts: Urban Informality and the State in Tallinn, Bafatá and Berlin

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  • Hanna Hilbrandt
  • Susana Neves Alves
  • Tauri Tuvikene

Abstract

Urban research has long related informality to a lack of state capacity or a failure of institutions. This assumption not only fails to account for the heterogeneous institutional relations in which informality is embedded, but has also created a dividing line between states. Whereas some states are understood to manage urban development through functioning institutions, others, in this view, fail to regulate. To deconstruct such understandings, this article explores informal practices through a multi‐sited individualizing comparison between three case studies of water governance, parking regulation and dwelling regimes in Bafatá (Guinea‐Bissau), Tallinn (Estonia) and Berlin (Germany), respectively. Our approach to understanding informality starts from the negotiation and contestation of order between differently positioned actors in the continuous making of states. From this point of view, informality is inherent in the architecture of states––emerging through legal systems, embedded in negotiations between and within institutions, and based on conflicts between state regulations and prevailing norms. Tracing how order takes shape though negotiation, improvisation, co‐production and translation not only highlights how informality constitutes a modus operandi in the everyday workings of the state in all three cases, but also provides a way to talk across these cases, i.e. to bring them together in one frame of analysis and overcome their presumed incommensurability.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanna Hilbrandt & Susana Neves Alves & Tauri Tuvikene, 2017. "Writing Across Contexts: Urban Informality and the State in Tallinn, Bafatá and Berlin," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(6), pages 946-961, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:41:y:2017:i:6:p:946-961
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12583
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ker-hsuan Chien, 2019. "Polarizing informality: Processual thinking, materiality and the emerging middle-class informality in Taipei," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(6), pages 1225-1241, September.
    2. Yi Jin & Yimin Zhao, 2022. "THE INFORMAL CONSTITUTION OF STATE CENTRALITY: Governing Street Businesses in (Post‐)Pandemic Chengdu, China," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 631-650, July.
    3. Susana Neves Alves, 2021. "Everyday states and water infrastructure: Insights from a small secondary city in Africa, Bafatá in Guinea-Bissau," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 39(2), pages 247-264, March.
    4. Wood, Astrid & Kębłowski, Wojciech & Tuvikene, Tauri, 2020. "Decolonial approaches to urban transport geographies: Introduction to the special issue," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    5. Gabriela Christmann & Ariane Sept & Ralph Richter, 2024. "Socially Innovative Initiatives in Deprived Rural Areas of Germany, Ireland and Portugal: Exploring Empowerment and Impact on Community Development," Societies, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-23, April.
    6. Jakub Galuszka, 2024. "BOATS AS HOUSING IN OXFORD, UK: Trajectories of Informality in a High‐Income Context," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 126-144, January.
    7. Tarmo Pikner & Krista Willman & Ari Jokinen, 2020. "Urban Commoning as a Vehicle Between Government Institutions and Informality: Collective Gardening Practices in Tampere and Narva," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 711-729, July.
    8. Michele Acuto & Cecilia Dinardi & Colin Marx, 2019. "Transcending (in)formal urbanism," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(3), pages 475-487, February.

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