Table Of ContentInformality, Labour
Mobility and
Precariousness
Supplementing the State for the
Invisible and the Vulnerable
Edited by Abel Polese
International Political Economy Series
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Abel Polese
Editor
Informality, Labour
Mobility
and Precariousness
Supplementing the State for the Invisible
and the Vulnerable
Editor
Abel Polese
Dublin City University
Dublin, Ireland
Tallinn University
Tallinn, Estonia
This book has been made possible thanks to funding from the Euro-
pean Commission [H2020-MSCA-RISE-2018-Shadow, grant no: 778118 and
H2020-MSCA-RISE2019-NewMarkets,grantno:824027].Thebookwasfinal-
ized during a research stay funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science Visiting Fellowship Scheme (2020/2021).
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International Political Economy Series
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Preface: Life Lessons
from the Informality Secession
Project
The story behind any book is, in many respects, unique. But this book
incarnates a sequence of behind-the-scene events that are worth filling a
separatebook bythemselves.Thereis love,friendship,betrayal,academic
politics,money.Thatwouldbeenoughtowriteasortofacademicthriller
or even create a fictional character digging through academic politics to
solvesomekindofextremelyintriguingacademicmystery.Thatcouldbe,
for instance (and how exciting for non-academics), about how the third
author of a paper managed to get upgrades to first author.
Some years ago, I joined an allegedly anonymous book project for the
sake of working with people I liked and that were, until a certain point,
my friends. I believe you should work only with people whose aura you
enjoyandthisprojectwouldgivemethechancetomeetmoreoftenwith
some friends, organise events together and eventually be an excuse to
work with other like-minded people. However, being at different stages
of our careers our priorities were not the same. Likewise, the reasons for
engaging with this book project turned out to be radically different, a
thing that made us part at some point. Yet, at least initially, my naive
reasoningwasthatwhenyouworkwithreasonablepeople,youcaneven-
tually come to an agreement on most things and keep on going. This
assumption is, in theory, accurate. What I failed to take into account
at that time was that life events may transform reasonable people into
“unreasonable” ones for some periods and, no matter how short these
spells are, these can actually compromise long consolidated relationships.
v
vi PREFACE:LIFELESSONSFROMTHEINFORMALITY …
I can compromise on many things but quality is not one of these. I
learned it the hard way: if you have ten good books and one easier to
criticise, that last one will incidentally be reviewed more often than any
other of your books. And these negative reviews of that very book will
get on your nerves in a way that no positive review of your other books
will manage to compensate.
Abadreviewstandslikeacoffeespotonawhiteshirtinyouracademic
career.Besides,bycontributingsomethingnotworththepaperisprinted
on, you undermine trust in science and your own trust in what you are
doing.That’swhy,atthisstageofmylife,Iamwillingtoworkmorethan
initially planned, I can go the extra mile and work shoulder to shoulder
with authors to improve the paper, version after version. But I will not
sign off anything that I believe is of poor quality.
So when you see a co-editor pushing for getting a book published
with papers that are of dubious quality and the other co-editor makes
it clear to be willing to sign off anything for the sake of devoting to
the project as little work as possible, you understand that you have a
problem.Whenallthismatchesbetrayalonotherissuesthatyoudiscover
being, day by day, deeper than you knew the day before, you see prob-
lems turning into troubles and years of collaborations crumbling into a
painful academic divorce.
A real divorce is, in an average, much more enduring and painful. But
untying a large web of collaborations that you had entrusted someone
over the years is a real pain in the back and eventually may take much
longer than a real divorce. One of these collaborations was this book
and I would have gladly just walked off the project and leave every-
thing to them. But many of the authors were my close collaborators
with whom I had worked step by step on every new version of their
manuscript.Besides,theserieseditorhadentrustedtheprojecttome(and
the people I proposed as co-editors) so just leaving would have probably
worsened my relationship with the series editor, someone I appreciated
and respected a lot.
It took a lot of work and diplomacy (and nerves) to get the contract
cancelled, to agree on an official version of the divorce that would be
communicatedtotheauthors,tothenaskthemwhomtheywouldliketo
continueworkingwith.Irenamedthefolderinmycomputer“informality
secession project” and started reworking the narrative of this book into
something that I felt was more appropriate than its initial focus (then
continuedbymyco-editorsaloneintheirownproject).Ihadneveredited
PREFACE:LIFELESSONSFROMTHEINFORMALITY … vii
a book by myself but, given the advanced stage of the project, I decided
nottotakeupanyco-editors.Theextraeffortsrequiredbyworkingalone
to the final phase of this book would eventually be compensated by the
fact that no time would be spent on identifying someone, pulling them
into the project, agree on details and eventually discuss issues that would
inevitablybeemerging.Thepreparationprocesswasdelayedseveraltimes
and I saw my (ex) co-authors’ book coming out many months before I
wasabletosubmitthefinalversionofthismanuscript.ButRomewasnot
built in a day and I believe these papers altogether have something to say
to informality debates. This book is of course just a drop in the ocean.
There are possibly many things that could have been done “better” with
a bit more time or energy at my disposal. For one thing, I had to reject
a few chapters with a very interesting focus for lack of time and energy
from my side. I believe anything can be made into a publication and it is
just a matter of time. Some papers need a week’s revision, some others a
monthandsomeothersseveralmonths.Therejectedauthors(thatIhope
to include in a future publication) would just need too much extra time
to put their chapter in shape and, given the initial delay and the fact that
other authors had been waiting for too long, we simply could not afford
that.
Looking back, I see with nostalgia how this project accompanied me
through several stages of my life. The idea was initially discussed during
long phone conversations about life and other things with one of the
co-editors, who was very helpful and supportive in that particular period
of my life. It was then developed through a very successful collabora-
tion leading to the organisation of two conferences to which excellent
speakers were invited. I had the chance to meet new colleagues, make
new friends and visit my childhood dream city Samarkand thanks to the
other co-editor. These collaborations were crucial to a fellowship that I
was awarded and thanks to which I could spend two idyllic months in
one of my favourite research institutes (and cities) in the world.
The secession phase was hard to digest at some moments but also
pushed me to take up other ways of working, rely on new people
and eventually consolidate new collaborations that are, as of today, still
ongoing. There are several people that I need to thank for having
contributed,inawayoranother,tothisproject.Inprimis,Ineedtothank
my ex co-editors since, without their input, I would have never started
thisbookorgonethroughanyoftheamazingexperiencesIwentthrough
duringour collaborations.I alsowant to thank the authors who patiently
viii PREFACE:LIFELESSONSFROMTHEINFORMALITY …
reworked their chapters multiple times and put up with my pedantry in
preparing a text.
Support by the Palgrave editorial team, Anca Pusca and Arun Kumar
Anbalagan, and in particular, encouragement from the series editor Tim
Shawwascrucial.NeverhasinmylifeasimpledinnerataJapanesechain
restaurant(inBoston)ledtosuchanextensivecollaborationacrossbooks
(this is the third one with his series) and world regions. I also wish to
thank the organisations and people who agreed to host me when I was
working on the various phases of this manuscript: KIMEP University in
Almaty, SIAR Research and Consulting in Bishkek, Kyiv International
Institute of Sociology in Kyiv, Aleksanteri Institute in Helsinki, Kyung-
pookNationalUniversityinDaegu,MoldovaStateUniversityinChisinau
and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. This book was made possible
also thanks to two generous grants from the European Commission
H2020/MSCA RISE Scheme (grant No: 824027) and H2020-MSCA-
RISE-2019-New Markets (grant no: 824027).
At various times I benefited from the support of colleagues and
friends that I thank here in random order: Brian Harney, Rustamjon
Urinboyev, Rano Turaeva, Nodira Kholmatova, Gian Marco Moisé,
Nozima Akhrarkhodjaeva, Valentina Bodrug, Sayaka Ogawa, Shioya
Akifumi, Zhamilya Utarbayeva, Olha Lysa, Donnacha Ó Beacháin, Aliya
Tankibayeva,Anna-LiisaHeusala,AnnaKorhonen,AkmaljonAbdullayev,
Adrien Fauve, Mai Ngoc, Ainoura Sagynbaeva, Catherine Poujol, Jeremy
Morris and may I be forgiven by the ones I forgot here.
Once again, this project confirms what I suggested some years ago
in the foreword of my “the Scopus Diaries and the (il)logics of academic
survival”.Nomatterhowhardyouwerehit,ifyousurviveandmanageto
“dry out” from emotions in a situation, you can just take it as a package.
Somememorieswillbesweeterthanothersbutitwasallworthitand,in
spite of all hardship, it shaped you into what you are now.
Kyoto, Japan Abel Polese
August 2021
Praise for Informality,Labour
MobilityandPrecariousness
“This is a timely and impressive intervention in the field of informality,
state-societyrelationsandeconomicprecarity.Tooofteninsocialresearch
the significant marginalised populations in societies rich and poor are
overlooked. The chapters in the volume offer a unique and nuanced
analysis of the livelihood strategies and ‘nomadic’ tendencies of those
renderedinvisiblebyeconomictransformations—particularlyinEurasia—
where the majority of the case studies are situated. As usual, Abel
Polese, together with contributors, offers enormous bang for buck in his
editing—an in-depth original conceptual approach drawing on political
science and sociology, and careful selection of cases, including over-
looked places and topics such as migrants in Spain and the aftermath of
Lebanon’s sovereign debt crisis.”
—Jeremy Morris, Aarhus University
“A must read for global citizens facing informality and conflicting moral
orders. A journey towards setting up the boundary between corruption
and solidarity. Learn from this book and act for a better world.”
—Ibrahim Sidi Zakari, Université Abdou Moumouni, Global Young
Academy’s member
“Based on a range of solid case studies from different regions of the
world,andenrichedbythelong-termcommitmentofeachauthortotheir
fieldwork, this book has a lot to tell about the boundary between infor-
mality, solidarity and their embeddedness in localised cultural practices.
ix
