12. L'économie informelle vue par les anthropologues

Although the notion of ?informality? has come through in social sciences and international institutions only since the seventies, the practices to which it refers have been drawing attention from social scientists for more than sixty years. What part did anthropology play in the effort at conceptualizing those practices defined by their distance to the social norms? Even though anthropologists actively contributed to the debates which formulated the concept of ?informality?, this notion didn?t seem to them very accurate to investigate the so-called ?informal practices?. This explains the consequent proliferation of other concepts such as ?solidarity-based economy? or ?popular economy?. A new interest in the ?informal sector? has emerged over the last years, but those publications deal with the notion of ?informality? and what it teaches us about the making of economic rules, as much as with ?informal practices?.