ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the major conceptual and analytical considerations of informality in waste systems and introduces the concept of waste regimes, which allows informality to be situated in the multi-faceted relations that underlie the production of value from waste. It describes the key moments and historical processes of political, economic and institutional change, as well as their unintended consequences, and the material ramifications that resulted in the informalization of waste systems in Ankara. The chapter discusses the key findings’ potential contribution to the literature and the explanatory power of theoretical approach. It shows how socio-spatial, material and economic links between the urban poor, waste and urban growth emerged in the course of rapid urbanization and population growth, which, then, re-shaped the city’s waste regimes. Between the 1980s and the mid-2000s, informality became a dominant feature in Ankara’s waste regime. The chapter proposes the informality of waste regimes as a socio-historical process that cuts across political ecology, urbanization and poverty.
