Spectrums of in/formality and il/legality: negotiating business and migration related statuses in arrival spaces

Keywords: formal/informal dichotomy, irregular migration, urban ethnography, Turkey
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 2/26/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/26/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 13

Abstract

Across global cities of the world, urban spaces of arrival tend to be characterized by a multiplicity of informal practices, and therefore also marginality, being most prevalent in relation to local economic practices, and increasingly more the legal status of foreigner migrants residing in such spaces. And these two dimensions are often treated separately in the urban and migration studies literature. This article aims to both understand these dynamics of informality and marginality in arrival spaces and to bring these two conceptual fields into unique conversation. Over recent decades urban and migration studies have separately given rise to new research that is critical of the pervasive dichotomous views around formal vs. informal economies and legal vs. illegal migrations. Drawing on this literature, and ethnographic fieldwork carried out in an Istanbul locality which has served as a zone of arrival for varying migration flows for several decades, the article examines how businesses and migrants continuously re-negotiate their positions along spectrums of in/formality and il/legality. Arrival spaces at the margins are places of intense calculation, where inhabitants actively assess their positions along this continuum by weighing costs and benefits, with the chosen direction depending on an evaluation of all kinds of variables (i.e. resources, goals, experiences, risks) transpiring at a particular moment and place. In focusing on this processual nature of in/formalities and il/legalities, the paper also suggests reconsidering various other dualities attributed to arrival spaces at the urban margins.