Rejoinder: Contradictions and Irony in Policy Research

We have been stimulated by this exchange on both personal and intellectual levels. Intellectual pursuits have been subdivided by scholars with various interests. However, specialization is not in itself an evil, except when it constrains fruitful analysis of empirical issues that have real-world implications for social policy and people's lives. Problems of social life and social policy typically speak to and provoke scholars of all kinds. Hence opportunities to investigate empirical interests from a variety of perspectives are opportunities forus all to learn the strengths and limitations of our tools. We wish this kind of discussion about the importance of the informal sector and marketplaces had occurred before the destruction of the Maxwell Street Market. This exchange might have further informed policy decisions and perhaps avoided some of the negative effects of dismantling the market. Nonetheless, we thank those who commented for their thoughtful responses. We agree with many but not all of their views, as the responses below suggest. Our methodology involved integrating ethnography and analytical economics; throughout, we have tried to strike a reasonable balance between analysis and participation.