Vando Borghi

The paper focuses on the complex relationship between experience, knowledge and information as well as on the ways in which sociology can enhance efforts of emancipation concerning that relationship. This processual relationship, in our view, is particularly crucial as it configures the range of the possible embedded in the real, combining and conditioning in this way both the cognitive and normative dimension. This relationship is addressed as the result of the interplay between what we conceive in terms of infrastructures of experience, on the one side, and what Amartya Sen defines as the informational basis “for judgment and justice”. The paper aims at deepening the emancipatory potential of sociology as far as this relationship is concerned. Its reasoning is then structured in three main parts. First, it resumes some of the most significant features of the relationship between infrastructures of experience and informational basis. Second, it explores the meaning of these analytical (and epistemological) keys and the way they help us to grasp the contemporary transformations of the focused relationship. Finally, it tentatively outlines the way social research should interpret cosmopolitanism from below for contrasting the worst consequences of that transformation and for enlarging the possible embedded into the real.

Una riflessione su conoscenza e società, a partire da due testi pubblicati di recente: Esperti. Come studiarli e perché, di Davide Caselli (Il Mulino 2020) e Welfare, capacità e conoscenza. Le basi informative dell’azione pubblica, di Carlotta Mozzana (Carocci 2019).

Piattaforme dell’economia dell’arricchimento, le città rischiano di trasformarsi in spazi in cui l’attività delle persone, tanto sotto forma di forza-lavoro quanto di forza di consumo, contribuisce al progressivo impoverimento dell’utopia intrinseca del processo urbano, quel “potenziale trasformativo” che il paradigma della Zona cerca di tradurre in modo conforme alle finalità economico-commerciali che esso incarna.

Per comprendere il significato dei luoghi attraversati dalle merci occorre mettersi sulle tracce di un rapporto. In altri termini, il luogo è un artefatto simbolico che incarna materialmente frames, schemi cognitivi e significati sociali che lo rendono familiare, praticamente comprensibile, parte di una sorta di seconda natura nella quale, proprio in forza di tale naturalezza, possiamo muoverci ad una bassa soglia di attenzione, attraverso routine e comportamenti irriflessi. Tuttavia è il rapporto sociale in esso tacitamente inscritto che dobbiamo inseguire se vogliamo comprenderne il senso e le condizioni di trasformazione.

L’ambizione di questo intervento è quella di dare consistenza allo sfondo in relazione al quale emerge la necessità di ridefinire la con-cezione dell’homo faber, che costituisce il perno su cui si sono incar-dinati i diversi formati dell’attività umana nell’evoluzione del capi-talismo. Si tratta di uno sfondo cui contribuisce la realtà che emerge dalla (mancata) promessa del capitalismo, le macerie sociali, ecolo-giche, culturali, politiche che il suo sviluppo lascia dietro di sé. Allo stesso tempo, a tale sfondo contribuisce anche il «possibile» che sempre si intreccia con il «reale», per quanto in forma potenziale, condizionale, sottotraccia. Su tale sfondo si proietta l’urgenza di una politica della cura, che investa pienamente (anche) il lavoro umano, il modo in cui esso è concepito, organizzato e mobilitato sia nelle at-tività produttive sia in quelle riproduttive.

Can a cross- sectional reading of the various historical forms in which a specific method – the camp form – of a specific collectivity has taken shape, and what (the people) is to be kept separate from it, be formulated? The difficulties that hinder attempts to present a single reading linking together different places and spaces – refugee camps, concentration camps, transit camps, identification camps – in which such practices take concrete shape (de facto, the building of a boundary), with widely varying purposes, meanings and consequences, should not be underestimated. Far from ignoring such distinctions, they must be used, increasing abstraction by a degree, in order to focus on the ways in which a social configuration functions (this is the underlying hypothesis), a ‘sociation form’ in Georg Simmel’s words. The objective, in other words, is to come up with a social organization logic that bypasses specific subjects’ experiences – however dramatic – of the (diverse) concrete manifestations of the camp form. According to this hypothesis, in fact, the forms of interaction – to use Simmel’s words once again – constitute the visible element in a more complex social logic: a social form is to be analysed as a ‘concept of reality [...] as a network of reciprocal influences between a plurality of elements’.

Engaging with the key debates and issues in a continuously evolving field, Lavinia Bifulco and Vando Borghi bring together contributions from leading social scientists to debate the enduring relevance of public sociology in light of ongoing changes in the social world. Multidisciplinary in approach, this incisive Research Handbook advances dialogues between diverse scientific and environmental perspectives, and considers how best to design and conduct research in different scientific fields. Chapters discuss current teaching and critical thought within the discipline, identify promising analytical approaches through which to research key aspects of social transformation, and investigate the relationship between sociology and its various publics. Rather than reproducing a fixed analytical programme, the Research Handbook explores the potential of public sociology to collaborate and hybridize with novel research paths. Pushing the frontiers of public sociology, this insightful Research Handbook will prove an engaging and invaluable resource for social scientists and sociological communities, as well as for students in the social sciences. Its exploration of the applications of public sociology in empirical research and teaching will further benefit professionals working within public organizations.

Sommario: 1. Lavoro e coesione sociale – 2. Homo faber (fortunae suae) e le sue rovine – 2.1. Oltre una concezione economicista del lavoro umano – 2.2. Le rovine dell’homo faber – 3. La solidarietà nel “pianeta”: una questione di politica della cura – 3.1. Rovinare, curare – 3.2. Istituire la solidarietà nell’orizzonte della politica della cura.

The “sense of justice” as a political-moral object that animates social action – coordination, conflict, local compromise – is investigated by Luc Boltanski in the wake both of the Durkhemian and Weberian sociological tradition. It also constitutes one of the main areas of focus for the French pragmatic sociology, where it shifts from the perspective of “critical sociology” to the “sociology of critical capacity”, reconceptualising critique as a situated component of ordinary life and not (only) as the prerogative of an observer, external and in an elevated position in relation to the reality he investigates.
L'intero volume è liberamente accessibile, in Creative Commons: https://books.fupress.com/catalogue/idee-di-lavoro-e-di-ozio-per-la-nostra-civilt/13650

The Chapter deals with the process of transformation of knowledge into what Amartya Sen identifies as fundamental pillar of our societies and of collective decisions they shape, that is the \u2018informational basis\u2019 which policies and public action are based on. This is a crucial process, since it strongly contributes to frame the territory over which policies are going to intervene, establishing how the borders of this territory have to be drawn, what has to be included and what can be dropped off into the area of legitimate social, political and bureaucratic indifference. Such a process has to be historically and sociologically situated, in order to fully understand the way actors\u2019 capacities are implied in it. In the first part of the Chapter it is introduced and discussed the so called \u2018trap of trajectorism\u2019, that characterizes the field of tension configured by the capitalist mode of translating the space of possibility opened by modernity: the relationship knowledge/informational basis results strongly affected by social inequalities and concurs itself in reproducing them. An approach inspired from a cosmopolitanism from below is then explored, according to which citizens\u2019 capacities \u2013 in terms of capacity to aspire \u2013 can be actively involved in the process of transformation of knowledge into informational basis. A redefinition of the knowledge production process in terms of human right to research seems to be the direction to be addressed, for strengthening this relationship between capacity and knowledge. In this sense, cosmopolitanism from below represents a necessary, stimulating challenge for revitalizing their own role in what are claimed to be \u201cknowledge societies\u201d

Review of Lavinia Bifulco, Social Policy and Public Action (New York: Routledge, 2017) - This book has a very ambitious idea of the way a sociological analysis should be conducted and, jumping immediately to one of the conclusions of our review, it results to be a very important book as it is fully up to that ambition. Its ambitious nature lies in an approach that aims at avoiding the trap of assuming the definition of the research object already made by other agencies (policy makers, practitioners, administrations, social workers, etc.), which is often the limit of many sociological approaches to different matters and themes. Too often, in fact, such analyses remain hostage to the already-packed gaze with which different actors of the field analysed determine what is relevant and what is not, what is important and what can be overlooked. At the contrary, Lavinia Bifulco assumes that gaze itself \u2013 incorporated in concepts, definitions, technical devices, social and organizational practices \u2013as a precious entry point for addressing what should always be the real object of any sociological analysis, independently from the particular field explored, that is the social. The social, the ways it is defined, produced and organized through the public action and the social policies, in different social spheres and experiences, is the real subject of this book

Il volume raccoglie contributi di ricerca originali, con l'obbiettivo di affrontare da un punto di vista sociologico un tema che negli anni recenti, in tale ambito disciplinare, \ue8 stato ampiamente trascurato. La questione della sicurezza al lavoro non \ue8 esauribile nella applicazione di regole e procedure tese ad evitare incidenti e/o malattie, ma rimanda, direttamente o indirettamente, alla definizione stessa del lavoro come rapporto sociale, al costante processo di costruzione sociale della \u201cforza-lavoro\u201d, alla concezione dell\u2019impresa e delle organizzazioni, al problema della forma contratto e della sua capacit\ue0 di produrre corsi d\u2019azione, al rapporto tra basi informative e processi decisionali e, pi\uf9 in generale, alla democrazia stessa nei luoghi di lavoro. Il rapporto tra lavoro e sicurezza \ue8 cambiato significativamente nel corso della storia recente del nostro Paese e su tale cambiamento ha inciso significativamente, come per ogni altra materia politico-sociale, l\u2019azione dell\u2019Unione Europea, nonch\ue9 il peso crescente delle forme di regolazione privata sopranazionale (attraverso l\u2019imposizione di standard, procedure di certificazione, di regolazione). Questo numero di Sociologia del lavoro nel cercare di illustrare questo complesso scenario, affronta le questioni sollevate dalla relazione tra lavoro e sicurezza attraverso contributi che cercano di mettere a fuoco sia le pratiche sociali sia le categorie cognitive che la presiedono

Il paper č sostanzialmente diviso in tre parti. Nella prima vengono richiamate le ragioni per cui č attualmente importante rimettere il rapporto tra terra e lavoro al centro delle analisi del capitalismo contemporaneo e sono rapidamente delineate alcune caratteristiche chiave di quest'ultimo. Nella seconda, sono introdotte alcune delle principali questioni in gioco nell'analisi del rapporto tra terra e lavoro e viene accennato al modo in cui esse sono affrontate nei diversi contributi raccolti nella rivista. Infine, si mostra come le questioni fin qui indicate chiamino in causa i temi dell'agency del lavoro, in termini di forme della rappresentanza (sociale, politica, sindacale) e di contro-movimento, di "capacitŕ di aspirare" degli individui e di "giustizia cognitiva".

L’articolo si colloca al crocevia tra tre ambiti problematici: le trasformazioni del capitalismo contemporaneo, gli orizzonti dell’azione sindacale e il ruolo della ricerca sociale. Alcune delle principali caratteristiche del capitalismo reticolare, che e la forma assunta dal capitalismo nei decenni piu recenti, vengono schematicamente richiamate. E in questo contesto, infatti, che l’azione sindacale e venuta mostrando crescenti segni di affanno e di difficolta, sia per quanto riguarda il suo ‘potere strutturale’ che quello ‘associativo’. Tuttavia, e in questo stesso contesto che emergono, in diverse parti del mondo, esperienze significative di innovazione dell’azione sindacale stessa. Queste risultano assai interessanti per rinnovare il patrimonio delle risorse cognitive e metodologiche cui la solidarieta organizzata puo attingere. Si tratta di uno scenario in cui, a fronte dell’ondata espansiva della mercificazione che ha segnato i decenni piu recenti, sembra particolarmente utile riprendere il concetto messo a fuoco da Karl Polanyi, di ‘contro-movimento’. A tale proposito, la ricerca sociale svolge un ruolo assai importante, per quanto delicato.

Le riflessioni contenute in questo paper derivano da due ricerche sul campo su lavoratori con contratto di collaborazione coordinata e continuativa in cui si \ue8 posto al centro dell'analisi il nesso fra condizioni lavorative e condizioni di vita in una prospettiva di genere. Fra i temi trattati: il rapporto fra questa condizione occupazionale e la maternit\ue0, l'interesse verso altre forme di lavoro, il rapporto fra autonomia ed eteronomia, la questione del riconoscimento, la centralit\ue0 della risorsa formazione

Apart from the economic support (constant or otherwise depending on the individual in question) that the submerged economy may provide to long-term unemployed young people, everything else (on the one hand the alleviation of social isolation, on the other hand involvement in a vicious circle of marginalization; the maintaining of some form of contact with the world of work, but at the same time the worsening of the individual\u2019s chances of ever getting a regular job, and so on) may vary considerably. Such variations depend on the kind of job done, the skills and training of the individual, the gap separating the irregular job a person in fact does and the regular one he hopes to find, and so on. With regard to the link between irregular employment and the risk of social exclusion, there is evidence that certain features of the submerged economy make long-term unemployment more bearable from the economic and social points of view. However, it also has to be said that it may lead to the partial social recognition of those individuals in question. In denying access to the collective identity normally associated with regular employment, the submerged economy denies individuals the full experience of inter-subjective recognition which lies at the basis of their very integrity. Among other things, this incomplete recognition, within a socio-political context characterised by an increasing divide between standard employment, accompanied by full social integration, and precarious employment, of which irregular employment is the most extreme example may lead to splits and conflicts among workers themselve

L’articolo ripercorre in estrema sintesi alcune delle principali trasformazioni che caratterizzano attualmente il rapporto tra sicurezza e lavoro. In particolare, vengono messi in luce due mutamenti che riconfigurano la cornice entro la quale e venuto inscrivendosi lo sviluppo delle politiche e delle pratiche della sicurezza del lavoro, cioe il paradigma della prevenzione: si tratta di una torsione che rimanda a due processi a loro volta complessi e articolati, quello dell’individualizzazione e della privatizzazione. Al centro di queste trasformazioni, e della possibilita di incidere su di esse e di cambiare il loro significato, si trova la questione delle basi informative, in quanto fattore chiave di cui si alimentano le politiche e le pratiche che hanno per oggetto questa (e non solo) materia sociale. Si evidenzia cosi una stretta connessione tra giustizia cognitiva e giustizia sociale. L’articolo sottolinea inoltre il modo in cui i contributi al volume toccano i differenti aspetti di tali trasformazioni.

In order to correctly analyse the different aspects that characterise unemployment, and youth unemployment in particular, we need to start from the criteria which underlie the definition of unemployment according to the official survey criteria. From the 1950s onwards, the Central Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) has conducted what can be defined as the primary source of statistical data on employment and unemployment in Italy, namely the Rilevazione trimestrale delle forze di lavoro (Quarterly Survey of the Labour Force). This sample survey is subdivided into two parts2: 1,318 city councils (a stratified sample based on the principle of demographic width), and families (in 1997 around 70,000 families; that is, almost 200,000 persons). Among the several labour market indicators that exist, those of most interest from the point of view of this report are the following: a) unemployed persons (i.e., persons who have lost their job), persons seeking their first job, and other persons seeking a job; b) unemployed persons aged 15 years3 or older who lost a previous subordinate job due to dismissal, end of a temporary job, or resignation; they had not worked in the reference week and claimed that 1) they were looking for subordinate work and were immediately available for work, or that 2) after the work survey they were going to start a subordinate job which they had already found, or that 3) after the work survey they were going to start a new activity and had already procured all the necessary means to carry out this activity; c) persons seeking their first job: people aged 15 years or over who had never worked, or who had been self-employed, or who had decided to stop working for a period of at least one year, finding themselves in one of the positions 1–3 listed under unemployed persons (Starting from 1992, in order to make surveys conform as much as possible to the Eurostat indicators, the definition “persons seeking their first job” was limited to all those who had actively looked for a job within the 30-day period prior to the interview; d) other persons seeking a job: persons aged 15 years or over who declared themselves as not being part of the labour force (such as housewives, students and retired persons), but who were in fact seeking a job and were immediately available for work. This group also includes those who, even if they satisfied some of the previously described conditions for unemployed persons seeking a first job (see conditions outlined under group c), had not yet arranged all the things they needed to be able to look for a job, as well as those who declared themselves to be unemployed for reasons other than dismissal, end of a temporary job, or resignation.

Borghi and Meschiari consider institutional processes within cultural management. After discussing the role of culture in the construction of the public sphere and the arguments in favour of public intervention in culture, they analyse the controversy relating to renewal of a disused foundry in Modena (Italy). The foundry was a place replete with memories and meanings mostly relating to the struggles for employment in the 1960s and, more recently, to the deindustrialization of the urban landscape. The public debate on the potential of that space inevitably drew attention to the building\u2019s historical, emotional and political value resulting from a stratification of meanings and uses over time. Consequently, the decision-making process was informed by different positions which claimed different destinations, thus opening up multiple and conflicting possibilities for the foundry. In this sense, culture acts as the organizing principle which drives urban restoration and governance practices

On the 30th of May 2016, the EU Minsters responsible for Urban Matters reached agreement on the establishment of the Urban Agenda for the EU, as set out in the Pact of Amsterdam, a working document indicating the guidelines for the sustainable growth of cities. The twelve Priority Themes–which include migrants and refugees, urban poverty, climate adaptation, urban mobility and digital transitions–make no mention of culture. This absence is alarming, and it is worth reflecting on, especially in light of the non-central role given to Cultural Heritage within the concluding stage of the framework programme Horizon 2020. In the following document, the authors have set out several conceptual schemes that can be used to re-insert culture within the bedrock of primary political action for city governance and, therefore, subtract culture from a merely accessory or ornamental function, where its role is seen as a pure cost. From this standpoint, culture–understood Andrea Boeri, Andrea Borsar...

The literature on informality is rich and diverse. Two of the dominant analytical themes are the conceptual analysis of the idea of informal, and the role of the informal economy in the overall productivity and growth of the economy. Additionally, there are literature on organisations and trade unionisms of informal workers, case studies of specific informal entrepreneurships, and interactions between informal entrepreneurs and workers with the government and the civil society. We briefly discuss some of these analytical approaches that are closer to our agenda in the present volume. We do not take informality as a neo-liberalism induced aberration per se; we attempt to look at informality from a wider perspective that does not only hold neo-liberal globalisation responsible for informal activities. However, we understand that neoliberalism has aggravated precarious conditions associated with informality and has narrowed down the possible responses to informality so far as the interests of workers are concerned. Unlike some scholars\u2019 preoccupation, we are also not concerned only with the re-emergence of informalisation; we are concerned about the idea of informality and its relation with the workers albeit with a focus on workers\u2019 own experience of working informally. Moreover, the abovementioned works principally focus on countries in the global South, an orientation we hope to overcome in this book by integrating perspectives from both the global South as well as from the North, albeit illustratively. However, a caveat must be added that since the informality phenomenon is much more pervasive in the South, our collection too has more contributions from this region reflecting the pervasiveness. A good starting point towards a contextual understanding of the informal could be the idea of informal itself. We analyse the theoretical and policy-related usefulness of the idea of informal and argue for a worker-centric understanding of the concept, thereby indicating a way to overcome a neoliberalism dominated economy-centric conceptualisation of the informal. Pushing the boundaries of the idea of informal, we propose the recognition of unremunerated work as socially valuable and a category of informal work. However, for policy-purposes, we argue that we need to focus on each specific category of informal work and put workers at the centre of the policy-making proces

Questo volume interroga il tema della rappresentanza sindacale a partire dalle condizioni di lavoro delle nuove generazioni. Il testo nasce a seguito di una ricerca empirica qualitativa condotta dall'Ires regionale in Emilia-Romagna con i giovani sindacalisti della Cgil. In occasione dell\u2019indagine sono stati cos\uec coinvolti pi\uf9 di cento delegati, in tutti i settori produttivi e le provincie del territorio regionale. Nel testo emergono, quindi, non solo le gravi problematiche del lavoro che cambia, della rappresentanza in contesti di lavoro sempre pi\uf9 frammentati, ma anche e soprattutto riflessioni ed elementi di discussione utili ad immaginare strategie di innovazione per il sindacato nel suo complesso. A fronte di uno scenario nel quale la divisione, l'isolamento e l'incomprensione tra le differenti esperienze produttive vanno intensificandosi, nel volume vengono prese in considerazione alcune ipotesi di riorganizzazione della rappresentanza al fine di suggerire nuove ragioni di alleanza e coalizione del lavoro. Ragioni tese ad alimentare un\u2019azione sindacale capace di non rinunciare n\ue9 alla promozione delle emergenti istanze di soggettivit\ue0 dei giovani lavoratori n\ue9 per\uf2 ad un\u2019idea di rappresentanza collettiva del lavoro

Open Architecture: Migration, Citizenship, and the Urban Renewal of Berlin-Kreuzberg by IBA-1984/87 is a unique book in its genre, dealing with a unique case in the history of European cities.1 Written by Esra Akcan, associate professor of architectural history at Cornell University, it sheds light on some of the neglected aspects around the celebrated Internationale Bauaustellung Berlin (IBA), the last and largest urban regeneration process in Europe through public housing, which gathered in the same neighbourhood the works of some of the most famous architects of the time. While the general strategy of the “critical reconstruction” of Berlin’s 19th-century fabric and the single architect’s buildings are well known, the political context in which the architects were called is often overlooked. IBA operated on the area of Kreuzberg, a district of West Berlin, where great part of its inhabitants were foreigners, in particular Turkish guest workers who started arriving after 1961 and ...

The Instituto de Ciências Sociais of the University of Lisbon and the Department of Sociology and Business Law of the University of Bologna, partners in the Horizon 2020 ROCK project https://rockproject.eu share research and action interests in the contemporary dynamics of the city and the ways in which urban value is created. In particular, their action is informed by the same interest in tourism and the tourism-led transformation of the historical centers of European cities. We have asked some questions to Chiara Pussetti and Roberto Falanga concerning the context of Lisbon, which is dramatically traversed by these transformations. We are convinced that the specificity of this case goes beyond local peculiarities and can stimulate comparisons capable of contributing to the creation of a broader interpretive frame.

Il testo argomenta le ragioni per cui attualmente occorra elaborare una strategia di intervento (sindacale, politica e sociale) che, accanto a quella politica e a quella sociale, ponga attenzione alla dimensione cognitiva della cittadinanza. La dimensione cognitiva della democrazia risulta oggi infatti precedere o comunque profondamente compenetrare gli altri fattori che contribuiscono alla sua evoluzione

O tema da relação entre trabalho e segurança insere-se em um campo preciso de tensão, de fato circunscrito às fronteiras daquilo que foi definido como o paradigma da prevenção. Este campo de tensão está sendo submetido a uma metamorfose que transforma a sua articulação interna e o seu senso de totalidade. Ao colocar em foco a mutação que investiu sobre um fator fundamental do discurso público referente à relação entre trabalho e segurança, vale dizer as bases informacionais que o sugerem e que o alimentam, visamos compreender o sentido e a direção de tal metamorfose. Esta última se revela de fundamental importância, não apenas porque investe sobre o mundo do trabalho em sentido estrito, mas também sobre um terreno bem mais geral e, além disso, tornou-se fator fundamental da própria reprodução da lógica do capitalismo contemporâneo, vale dizer, do processo desubjetivação.

L'articolo analizza il campo di tensione tra cooperazione come principio intrinseco all'azione sociale e cooperazione come prodotto storico-sociale. Dopo aver richiamato le concezioni utilitariste e "contrattualiste" dell'azione sociale il nesso tra cooperazione e azione sociale viene presentato analiticamente nel contesto del capitalismo neoliberale. Muo-vendo da una coattiva estrazione di cooperazione che caratterizza tale quadro, vengono discussi i rischi di erosione delle basi sociali della cooperazione e del legame sociale che l'estrazione di cooperazione comporta. Nel solco del con-cetto di contromovimento delineato da Polanyi viene tuttavia argomentata la necessità di superare ogni semplicistico schema dualistico mercato/società e di ricorrere ad una rilettura più complessa, in cui del sociale sia posta in evidenza la natura politica e si enfatizzi un ulteriore principio di qualificazione del contromovimento, vale a dire quello dell'emancipazione...

L’articolo lavora all’intersezione di due livelli di ricerca. Il primo e quello, generale, approcciato attraverso la concettualizzazione elaborata da Sen in tema di "basi informative per la valutazione della giustizia". Dopo una breve introduzione dedicata a capire cosa significhi indagare le materie di policy piu disparate (su lavoro, protezione sociale, ma anche questioni urbane, culturali e cosi via) attraverso una prospettiva centrata sulle basi informative, vengono messe a fuoco le principali direzioni attraverso le quali la sociologia puo integrare e consolidare l’approccio di Sen. Inoltre, vengono messi a fuoco le principali caratteristiche delle trasformazioni delle basi informative nel contesto del capitalismo neoliberale: una forte torsione verso l’oggettivazione e la quantificazione; una pervasiva egemonia delle astrazioni reali; una crescente privatizzazione, nel duplice significato di responsabilizzazione degli attori e dello statuto privato delle agenzie e dei dispositivi che dominano la produzione e l’imposizione di tali basi informative. Allo stesso modo, questi processi di mutamento delle basi informative sono indagati - e questo e il secondo livello su cui lavora l’articolo - attraverso l’elaborazione di materiali di ricerca sul campo, che ha riguardato il rapporto tra sicurezza e lavoro. Nel contesto situato di questo ambito di ricerca - sono presentati due specifici aspetti della ricerca - viene cosi esemplificato il significato concreto delle tendenze generali sopra accennate.

Nella seconda metà degli anni '80 è emerso in Francia un programma di ricerca finalizzato a rimettere al centro dell'economia politica le competenze normative delle persone: l'Economia delle convenzioni. Nel corso di questi vent'anni, l'Economia delle convenzioni è cresciuta ...

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Idea of Form, Informality, and Aspirations of Workers Supriya Routh & Vando Borghi

Part I: Neo-liberalism, State, and Regulation in formulating Informality

1. Tackling the informal economy: a critical evaluation of the neo-liberal de-regulatory perspective Colin C Williams and Alvaro Martinez
2. Informal Economy and Neoliberal State Zoran Slavnic
3. Reforms, individualization, and informal employment in urban China Sandra Constantin

Part II: Law in Formalising Informal Workers
4. The ILO and the informal economy: tackling the concept from a legal perspective Claire La Hovary
5. Framing Informality in a Labour Court Roberto Fragale
6. Inequalities of social security towards informal employment in China Aiqing Zheng
7. Informal Workers and Consumocratic Law Martin Dumas

Part III: Informal Workers and their Multidimensional Interactions
8. Informal Employment and Absence of Job Security: Where Social Inequality Begins, and Where it Leads. Employment and Policies in Argentina, 2003-2014 Claudia Danani & Javier Lindenboim
9. Informal employment: Social Space and Capacities of Actors in Russia Petr Bizyukov
10. Informal work and socioeconomic transformations in Africa: the case of Cameroon Alioum Idrissou
11. Informal Workers’ Organising Strategies in India and Argentina Supriya Routh & Marisa Fassi
12. Workers & the Global Informal Economy: Issues and Perspectives Vando Borghi

ABSTRACT
The global financial crisis and subsequent increase in social inequality has led in many cases to a redrawing of the boundaries between formal and informal work. This interdisciplinary volume explores the role of informal work in today’s global economy, presenting economic, legal, sociological, historical, anthropological, political and cultural perspectives on the topic.

Workers and the Global Informal Economy explores varying definitions of informality in the backdrop of neo-liberal market logic, exploring how it manifests itself in different regions around the world, and its relationship with formal work. This volume demonstrates how neo-liberalism has been instrumental in accelerating informality and has resulted in the increasingly precarious position of the informal worker. Using different methodological approaches and regional focuses, this book considers key questions such as whether workers exercise choice over their work; how constrained such choices are; how social norms shape such choices; how work affects their well-being and agency; and what role culture plays in the determination of informality.

This interdisciplinary collection will be of interest to policy-makers and researchers engaging with informality from different disciplinary and regional perspectives.