Contested Urban Spaces: Urbanisation, Law, and Informal Work is a two-year edited book project by WIEGO and IRGLUS that explores this theme across multiple jurisdictions and from diverse viewpoints. How do informal worker livelihoods interface with urban space, law, and the state in the globalised environment? Everyday urban space reveals a contested terrain relied upon by informal workers to sustain their livelihoods despite this access made tenuous through various legal assemblages. These include property rights, planning laws and systems, and the arbitrary enforcement of governance. Informal workers are key enablers in urban growth, but the benefits that arise from urban growth do not necessarily transfer to informal workers. Instead, they remain at the policy and legal margins of urban society, and they remain in a constant struggle towards social and legal protection across a variety of jurisdictional contexts.
Sixteen abstracts selected from the submissions made in response to a call for papers explore multiple themes from both the global South and the global North. The Author's Workshop is the first gathering of scholars participating in the WIEGO/IRGLUS book project.