Everyday informality and governance dynamics in crisis situations and beyond

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

The current article serves as a prelude to this collection entitled ‘The Informality of Crisis Situations: Survival Strategies and Modes of Governance’. It introduces the concept of crisis from an everyday perspective. Crises have historically brought significant change to human conditions. However, these matters become visible only years, if not decades, following the crisis in question, whilst the process is an everyday occurrence. As time elapses during crisis situations, the seemingly imperceptible change, simmering in the folds of a crisis, becomes eventually visible in the long run. Intrigued by this concept, this introductory article explores crises as phenomena that incubate new modes of survival among human societies. These crises foster new structures, practices, and behaviours that nurture novel patterns of governance. Mainstream understandings view informality as an exception to the rule or an unnatural phenomenon that should wither away with the passage of time. Here, the research shows that it is only through a comprehension of these new patterns of governance during crises that we can come closer to shaping more informed understandings of post-­crisis scenarios.