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Shifting informalities: Motorcycle taxis, ride-hailing apps, and urban mobility in Bangkok
Editors
Title / Series / Name
Geoforum
Publication Volume
136
Publication Issue
Pages
Authors
Editors
Keywords
Mobility
Informality
Urbanism
Bangkok
Ride-hailing apps
Motorcycle taxi
Informality
Urbanism
Bangkok
Ride-hailing apps
Motorcycle taxi
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14018/13773
Abstract
This article reconstructs the shifting uses of local concepts of “informality“ (nǭk rabop) over the last 35 years in the streets of Bangkok, with a particular attention to the birth of the motorcycle taxi business in the 1980s, its development after the 1997 economic crisis, and its transformation since the arrival of ride-hailing apps in 2016. Based on more than 10 years of qualitative and quantitative research with motorcycle taxi drivers, state officials, city planners and everyday users in Bangkok, this archaeology of informality expand on contemporary theorizations of informality as a logic of planning, a heuristic device, and a practice. I do so by focusing on the highly relational, contingent, and ultimately contested nature of informality, the role of non-state actors in shaping it and, the performative power of informality as a categorical label. In this sense, I propose a double conceptualization of informality: on one side as an ever-shifting relationship between established and codified practices (whether regarding land, labor, property rights, or everyday actions), a governmental and legal system, and people who control and interact with these practices; on the other, as a label, often deployed tactically by actors trying to make sense and make do with the world around them. In this duality between a shifting set of relationships and an almost intuitive and referential label that allow for categorical assessments resides, I show, the central efficacy of “informality” as a concept good to think with, to govern with, and to resist with.
Topic
Publisher
Place of Publication
Type
Journal article
Date
2022
Language
ISBN
Identifiers
10.1016/j.geoforum.2021.04.007