Open Workshop by Prof. Abel Polese: Informality and its flavours — reflections on how informality can help policy-making and planning
Friday, December 7, 2018, 15:00 – 17:00
SSE Riga, Room W32
The aim of the Open Workshop Series in Business and Management Studies is to promote top-quality academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences. This is a unique opportunity for sharing knowledge and networking with local and international community members.
Speaker: Dr. Abel Polese, Dublin City University, Ireland
Since its appearance, the word “informality” has been used for a variety of situation and in a number of different contexts. Initially referring to economic, economistic or, in general, commensurable activities, in the course of time it has gone beyond its monetary significance. Its definition now encompasses activities, and transactions, that may happen beyond or despite the work of an overarching entity managing the relationship between individuals.
In this presentation we will try to cluster the various forms of informality I have encountered during my research - from informal pension schemes in China and Vietnam to informal job-seeking allowances in Southern Europe, lottery scheme in Albania and most of the post-socialist world, to perks (instead of money) to low-paid employees - into at least four different groups, each one with its own features.
This attempted taxonomy is intended to contribute to revisit informality – from a practice that should be liquidated, or at least controlled, to a social and political phenomenon that can be used for a better understanding of a society and eventually inform policymaking. Alternative regards at informality allow us to look at it as, depending on the context: resistance, social solidarity, welfare redistribution and other forms that, starting from an apparently economic phenomenon, can be taken as indicators of the capacity of a state, and its institutions, to manage the public life of its citizens.
Dr. Abel Polese is a Senior Research Fellow with DCU Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction. He has been a Marie Curie Fellow at the Technical University of Dresden, Germany (2006-2008) and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2008-2011). In 2012-2013 he worked as a policy analyst for the European Commission (DG Research). In the past seven years, Abel has been awarded funding for nearly 10 million euro and has worked as a consultant for a the governmental and non profit sector in Europe, Asia and Latin America (Austrian and Finnish Agencies for Erasmus+; Estonian Research Council; Rustaveli Foundation; SALTO; YouthForum; WAGGGS; UNOPS). His project “Sustainable Development in Cultural Diversity” received the Global Education Award by the Council of Europe in 2011. Abel is interested capacity building in, and research on, the non-Western world. His most recent book “The Scopus Diaries and the (Il)logics of Academic Survival” is intended to help researchers to design their own career strategy to conciliate what they want to do with what they need, or are expected, to do.
He is a member of the Global Young Academy, gathering scholars from around the world active in research policy and dialogue with non-academic institutions and has been a visiting fellow to the University of Toronto, Harvard University, Renmin University of China, Tbilisi State University, Jawarlahal Nehru University, Tezpur University, Corvinus University, University of Cagliari and the Moscow Higher School of Economics.
Discussion moderated by Dr. Arnis Sauka.
Attendance is free of charge.
Please sign up for the seminar, writing to arnis.sauka@sseriga.edu by December 5, 2018.
The aim of the SSE Riga Open Workshop Series is to:
- Foster cooperation between business and management researchers, practitioners and policy makers, as well as
- To promote academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences, focusing on but not limited to entrepreneurship, marketing, management, public administration and strategy.
Organised by the Centre for Sustainable Business at SSE Riga in cooperation with Representation of the European Commission in Latvia.
