ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the concepts which may be brought to bear on the study of social protection in relation to informal workers, focusing on the nexus of inclusion and exclusion – concepts that are sometimes explicit, but also often implicit, within much of the social policy literature. Drawing on historical data, the chapter suggests two things. First, that in order to understand informal workers as workers, it is necessary to incorporate an analysis of the worker-capital relationship within social protection – something that is often ignored in favour of the citizen-state relationship. Second, that particularly in relation to informal workers in the context of rapid urbanisation, there is a need to think more widely about the exclusion/inclusion nexus across spheres of policy. Practically, this leads to consideration not only of how to include informal workers in systems from which they are excluded, but also to think about where, how and on what terms informal workers are already included in state systems, in particular, the local level of government, and how this inclusion interacts with the aims and goals of social protection.
