Informal Cities Working Group

About us

The Informal Cities Working Group is promoted by the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture (CISSC) from Concordia University.

The Informal Cities Working Group brings together faculty and students from anthropology, geography, history, political science, and sociology, to generate an interdisciplinary understanding of the role of the informal in the survival and development of the built and the lived city in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Definition

“The informal has long been defined – academically and practically – as being the opposite of the formal and acceptable. Informal activities are considered to be those taking place outside of the official rules and regulations of government, public administration, politics, and markets, and outside of dominant cultural practices. They are also thought to require reform through state action to include their practitioners in (and eliminate their activities from) the modern city. While recent critiques argue for an understanding of the informal as a legitimate form of practice inextricably entwined with the formal, policy makers and administrators continue to ignore/eradicate the informal practices and knowledge of low income communities.

Working group members have variously studied the structures and interactions of the informal, focusing on governance, markets, labour, settlements, infrastructural development, health care, disaster response, and cultural practices. The group seeks to integrate these different topical and disciplinary bases of knowledge into a holistic discussion of urban informality.”

Meet the Team

  • Tina Hilgers, PhD

    ORGANIZER

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Formal/informal/illicit approaches to mundane and critical events in low-income communities in Brazil, Jamaica, and Colombia.

  • João Roque da Silva Júnior

    COORDINATOR

    MA POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    How creative workers are resisting the dominance of digital cultural production platforms.

  • James Freeman

    GEOGRAPHY - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Politics of informal construction, use, and governance of space in the favelas of Brazil.

  • Kevin Gould

    GEOGRAPHY - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Assembly of land markets through entangled formal and informal processes in Guatemala.

  • Kregg Hetherington

    ANTHROPOLOGY/ETHNOGRAPHY LAB - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Clash of formal/informal, bureaucratic/activist practices and ideas about the governance of agriculture in Paraguay.

  • Omar Adrián Nuño Íñiguez

    MSc GEOGRAPHY

    Interactions between formal/informal disaster response and reconstruction practices in post-earthquake Southern Chile.

  • Nora Jaffary

    HISTORY - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    PClash of formal/dominant vs. informal/illegal medical and religious practices in colonial and post-colonial Mexico.

  • Greg Labrosse

    PhD HUMANITIES - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Informal production of urban cultural space in low-income communities in Colombia.

  • Luis Londoño

    PhD HISTORY

    Formal and informal justice and punishment in the history of murder and emotions in 19th century Mexico.

  • Jean François Mayer

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Consequences of, and resistance to, precariousness and violence in informal work in Brazil, Jamaica, and Colombia.

  • Rubens Lima Moraes

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Informal practices of low-income activists marginalized in participatory water management institutions in Brazil.

  • Camila Patiño Sanchez

    PhD ANTHROPOLOGY

    Informal electricity and water infrastructure projects in urban and peri-urban settlements in Colombia.

  • Luisa Seidl

    MA POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Informal domestic employees’ resistance to violence in the workplace in Brazil.

  • Cássia Reis Donato

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

  • Elias Ricardo de Oliveira

    PhD PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION - FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF PERNAMBUCO AND CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    How new management technologies in public security are represented, debated and resisted in contemporary society.

  • Larissa Pimenta Coldibeli

    PSYCHOLOGY - FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF JUIZ DE FORA

    Production of mental health care among quilombola women in Brazil, based on the intertwining of gender and race.

  • Nicholas Von Rosk

    PhD POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Comparative Politics, democratization and democratic backsliding, populism and nationalism.

  • Pierre-Ricardo Jean-Baptiste

    PhD POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Violence and informality in Bolivia and Haiti.

  • Sofia Lazcano-Fafard

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Political Science with History Minor/ Interest: Art, Literature, Travel, Photo/Videography and editing.

  • Estefania Perez

    POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Informal approaches to intermediating international migration in Brazil.

  • Sreelakshmi Ramachandran

    URBAN MOBILITY - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Urban transport and mobility in Indian cities and other developing countries.

  • Beatriz da Silva Takahashi

    ARCHITECTURE - MCGILL UNIVERSITY

    Intersections between architecture, race, and labor in Brazil

  • Justine Le Gallic

    ORNALISM AND POLITICAL SCIENCE - CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

    Processes of democratization, regime changes and the impact of civil society movements.

  • Millena Navega

    UFG / CONCORIDA

    Examination of the socio-political, economic and security implications of Brazilian Transnational Criminal Organizations in South American cross-border organized crime networks.

  • Edson Edrey de Menezes Sousa

    PARAÍBA STATE UNIVERSITY

    International Relations, Political Science, Foreing Affairs

Former members

  • Kathy Meilleur - AISK

  • Audrey-Anne Doyle - Program Officer at Canadian Heritage

  • Annele Bernal - Mexican Government

  • Gustavo Henrique Andrade - MA

  • Natanael J. Vargas - MA

  • Carlos Zapata - University of Ottawa

  • Cecilia Eraso - BA

  • Laura Sofía Rivera Sánchez - University of Toronto

  • Henrique Araújo Araugusuku - University of São Paulo

  • Maria Fernanda Aguilar Lara - University of São Paulo

Key questions

  • #1

    What is the informal? Why do researchers need to work with the term “informal”? What function does it have for doing research? For understanding urban practices?

  • #2

    How do informal practices structure governance? How are they structured by governance?

  • #3

    What role does the informal play in city-building? How does it play into the development of infrastructures – both the hard infrastructures of housing, transportation, water, electricity, etc. and the soft infrastructures of social, knowledge, service, and aid networks?

  • #4

    How does informal labour structure urban markets?

  • #5

    How do informal activities and practices interact with violence? The institutional and structural violence of state neglect? The violence of inequality and marginalization (race, gender, ethnicity) in the market? The violence of gangs and organized crime?

  • #6

    Is the informal a tool of resistance? Or is it something to be resisted?

Activities

  • Speakers’ series: Hybrid events in the fall and winter semesters with invited speakers in virtual attendance

  • Reading group: Meetings in the fall and winter semesters to discuss issues in the literature

  • Workshop: Year-end meeting with a keynote speaker and with discussion of student and faculty work in progress.