Towards a Taxonomic Understanding of Informality

The discussion on informality has become considerably more complex since its inception in development planning in the early 1970s. Independent discourses exist on the informal economy, informal housing, informal planning practices, informal land management, legal informality and informal institutions. Although these discussions have directly informed development policies, they have remained fragmented and narrowly focused. This is unfortunate, as the complex interplay of formal-informal practices requires a more comprehensive understanding to become useful development policy targets. In order to break with the initial pathologies of subject fragmentation inherited from past sector-based approaches, the authors propose a cross-sector investigation. A selective literature review was carried out for academic discourses relevant to urban development scholars. The authors developed a visual tool, a taxonomic table to capture and systematise thematic dimensions and associated meanings of informality, as well as its relation to formality. This taxonomy may serve as a communicative interface between different schools of thought and structure more comprehensive and interdisciplinary research agendas. For scholars, the relevance of the study lies in the proposed use of bibliometrics and the taxonomic table to encourage mutual learning experiences. For praxis, by highlighting the different elements within the conceptualization of informality, the taxonomy can be used to tackle ‘the informal’ by improving communication across sectors, including often excluded voices and different on-the-ground understandings of the same phenomena.