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The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City

  • Ilda Lindell and Christine Ampaire
Published/Copyright: February 14, 2016
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Theoretical Inquiries in Law
From the journal Theoretical Inquiries in Law Volume 17 Issue 1

This Article examines the ways in which market vendors in Kampala, Uganda, responded to plans to redevelop their markets through the concession of long-term leases to private investors. These plans met with massive resistance from the marketers, with significant outcomes. The Article uncovers how the marketers actively negotiated a “gray space” between legality and illegality and creatively used the law, with a view to asserting themselves as the legitimate rulers of their markets. It shows how the marketers engaged in highly diverse modalities of struggle, stretching across the legal/illegal boundary. They organized in multiple configurations which were flexible, hybrid and mutant in character, rather than being fixed in particular organizational categories. In their struggles, the marketers engaged in shifting alliances and with a disparate range of political allies. Their politics were fluid, untamed and pragmatic, but also contradictory and fractured. This flexibility and pragmatism enabled them to navigate a complex political landscape and to make instrumental use of a generally unfavorable legal environment

Published Online: 2016-2-14
Published in Print: 2016-2-1

© 2016 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Theoretical Inquiries in Law
  2. Research Article
  3. Introduction: Labor Scholarship in an Era of Uncertainty
  4. Research Article
  5. Reframing the New Deal: The Past and Future of American Labor and the Law
  6. Research Article
  7. The Right Not to Have Rights: Posted Worker Acquiescence and the European Union Labor Rights Framework
  8. Research Article
  9. Organizing: Should the Employer Have a Say?
  10. Research Article
  11. Workplace Democracy and Democratic Worker Organizations: Notes on Worker Centers
  12. Research Article
  13. Organizing Workers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: The Authoritarian-Corporatist Legacy and Old Institutional Designs in a New Context
  14. Research Article
  15. Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands
  16. Research Article
  17. Trade Union Ambivalence Toward Enforcement of Employment Standards as an Organizing Strategy
  18. Research Article
  19. Unionizing Subcontracted Labor
  20. Research Article
  21. The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City
  22. Research Article
  23. Informal Workers’ Aggregation and Law
  24. Research Article
  25. Active Industrial Citizenship of Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from Unionizing Attempts in Israel and the United Kingdom
  26. Research Article
  27. Organizing in the Shadows: Domestic Workers in the Netherlands
https://doi.org/10.1515/til-2016-0010

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Theoretical Inquiries in Law
  2. Research Article
  3. Introduction: Labor Scholarship in an Era of Uncertainty
  4. Research Article
  5. Reframing the New Deal: The Past and Future of American Labor and the Law
  6. Research Article
  7. The Right Not to Have Rights: Posted Worker Acquiescence and the European Union Labor Rights Framework
  8. Research Article
  9. Organizing: Should the Employer Have a Say?
  10. Research Article
  11. Workplace Democracy and Democratic Worker Organizations: Notes on Worker Centers
  12. Research Article
  13. Organizing Workers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico: The Authoritarian-Corporatist Legacy and Old Institutional Designs in a New Context
  14. Research Article
  15. Organizing Workers in “Hybrid Systems”: Comparing Trade Union Strategies in Four Countries — Austria, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands
  16. Research Article
  17. Trade Union Ambivalence Toward Enforcement of Employment Standards as an Organizing Strategy
  18. Research Article
  19. Unionizing Subcontracted Labor
  20. Research Article
  21. The Untamed Politics of Urban Informality: “Gray Space” and Struggles for Recognition in an African City
  22. Research Article
  23. Informal Workers’ Aggregation and Law
  24. Research Article
  25. Active Industrial Citizenship of Domestic Workers: Lessons Learned from Unionizing Attempts in Israel and the United Kingdom
  26. Research Article
  27. Organizing in the Shadows: Domestic Workers in the Netherlands
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