Informal infrastructuring: The defining feature of 21st century urbanization

Abstract

Urbanization drives global socio-spatial transformation. Informality is central to this transformation, but is treated as a peripheral process on the margins of cities and economies. Informality is often associated with specific locations, overlooking the fact that it constitutes a dynamic, global process operating across spatial and temporal scales. We develop the concept of informal infrastructuring to interrogate how, through informality, people, places, processes, and politics reconfigure and build urban life. We draw together planetary and postcolonial strands of urban theory to conceptualize informal infrastructuring as a global phenomenon. To imagine informality as peripheral is to mistake marginalization with marginality.