ABSTRACT
This chapter tries to integrate different approaches towards conceptualising informality by distinguishing two major strands of the debate about formality and informality. Much of the confusion about informality can be resolved if we keep in mind that there are two different types of deviations from a more formal setting. Besides, accepting informality as a mode allows generalisations from the additive and never quite exhaustive approaches towards characterising informality. To speak of informality only makes sense if there is something like formalisation that has led to formality. While many scholars stick to the original approach and limit themselves to denoting economic practice and therefore exclude informal housing, other authors talk about informal governance arrangements and thus stretch the notion away from the legal and organisational relationship between state and non-state actors to the structure of negotiations with state organisations or even among private companies.
