Informal Market Worlds : Atlas

The gravities of the world are shifting. Supposed peripheries are moving centre stage, challenging not only the hegemony of the former West but the very system on which the established global order has been operating. Informal activities are at the core of this transformation, extending the reach of emergent economies into ever new areas. Once understood as a marginal phenomenon, they are rapidly becoming the key focus of future prospects. Currently, the conflict rages about the integration of these emerging markets into competing politico-economic power constellations. But informality is not just an economic issue. Informal markets are also places of intense social interaction, fostering cultures of different values and alternate relations. Here, not only monetary values circulate but questions of resource sustainability, cooperative decision making, and social cohesion come into play - issues that are gaining critical importance in times of crisis.^ The essays in the reader debate the scope of informality for generating economic, social and political change. From discussing the conceptual challenges behind the development of a new political economy based on the philosophical, leg