ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to chart how conceptualizations of work in the informal economy have shifted over time so as to help the reader situate the ways in which this volume advances knowledge. To do this, I commence by examining the literature on the variable magnitude of informal work (e.g., Feige, 1990; Fortin et al., 1996; Leonard, 1998; Renooy, 1990; Thomas, 1999; Williams and Windebank, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2001a). This will reveal how the earlier literature was dominated by two universal generalizations, namely the “modernization thesis” that viewed such work as slowly disappearing and the “marginality thesis” that depicted this work as concentrated among marginalized populations. In recent decades, however, it will be shown that there has been an accumulation of evidence to refute these generalizations. Indeed, in much of the recent literature, the opposite has been frequently argued. There has been a tendency to depict informal work as universally growing and always and everywhere concentrated in relatively affluent populations. In this chapter, however, there is revealed to be gradually emerging a growing appreciation that a fuller understanding will derive only from a more socially, culturally, and geographically embedded consideration of this sphere.
