Ledeneva A. (Ed.) The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, Volume I: Towards Understanding of Social and Cultural Complexity

UCL Press, London, 2018. — 467 p. — (Fringe) — ISBN10: 1911307886, 1911307894.Broadly defined as "ways of getting things done," the invisible yet powerful concepts of "informal practices" tend to escape articulation in official discourse. These practices include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. Yet, the possible paradox of the indiscernibility of these informal practices is their ubiquity. Alena Ledeneva's wholly unique two-volume work collaborates with over two hundred scholars across five continents, illustrating how informal practices are deeply embedded across the globe yet still remain underestimated in policy-making procedures.
Contents Volume 1
Redistribution
The substantive ambivalence: relationships vs use of relationships
Neither gift nor commodity: the instrumentality of sociability
Neither gift nor payment: the sociability of instrumentality
Solidarity
The normative ambivalence of double standards: ’us’vs ’them’
Conformity: the lock- in effect of social ties
The unlocking power of non- conformity: cultural resistance vs political opposition
Contents Volume 2
Market
The functional ambivalence of informal strategies: supportive or subversive?
The system made me do it: strategies of survival
Gaming the system: strategies of camouflage
Domination
The motivational ambivalence: the blurring of the public and the private in the workings of informal power
Co- optation: recruiting clients and patrons
Control: instruments of informal governance