Alena Ledeneva invites you on a voyage of discovery to explore society’s open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done’, these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The paradox, or not, of the invisibility of these informal practices is their ubiquity. Expertly practised by insiders but often hidden from outsiders, informal practices are, as this book shows, deeply rooted all over the world, yet underestimated in policy. Entries from the five continents presented in this volume are samples of the truly global and ever-growing collection, made possible by a remarkable collaboration of over 200 scholars across disciplines and area studies. By mapping the grey zones, blurred boundaries, types of ambivalence and contexts of complexity, this book creates the first Global Map of Informality. The accompanying database (www.in-formality.com) is searchable by region, keyword or type of practice, so do explore what works, how, where and why! Praise for Global Encyclopaedia of Informality ‘The Global Informality Project unveils new ways of understanding how the state functions and ways in which civil servants and citizens adapt themselves to different local contexts by highlighting the diversity of the relationships between state and society. The project is of great interest to policymakers who want to imagine solutions that are benefi cial for all, but sufficiently pragmatic to ensure a seamless implementation, particularly in the field of cross-border trade in developing countries.’ - Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary General of the World Customs Organisation, Brussels ‘An extremely interesting and stimulating collection of papers. Ledeneva’s challenging ideas, first applied in the context of Russia’s economy of shortage, came to full blossom and are here contextualized by practices from other countries and contemporary systems. Many original and relevant practices were recognized empirically in socialist countries, but this book shows their generality.’ - János Kornai, Allie S. Freed Professor of Economics Emeritus at Harvard and Professor Emeritus at Corvinus University of Budapest ‘Alena Ledeneva’s Global Encyclopedia of Informality is a unique contribution, providing a global atlas of informal practices through the contributions of over 200 scholars across the world. It is far more rewarding for the reader to discover how commonalities of informal behavior become apparent through this rich texture like a complex and hidden pattern behind local colors than to presume top down universal benchmarks of good versus bad behavior. This book is a plea against reductionist approaches of mathematics in social science in general, and corruption studies in particular and makes a great read, as well as an indispensable guide to understand the cultural richness of the world.’ - Alina Mungiu-Pippidi, Professor of Democracy Studies, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin ‘Transformative scholarship in method, object, and consequence. Ledeneva and her networked expertise not only enable us to view the informal comparatively, but challenge conventionally legible accounts of membership, markets, domination and resistance with these rich accounts from five continents. This project offers nothing less than a social scientific revolution… if the broader scholarly community has the imagination to follow through. And by globalizing these informal knowledges typically hidden from view, the volumes’ contributors will extend the imaginations of those business consultants, movement mobilizers, and peace makers who can appreciate the value of translation from other world regions in their own work.’ Michael D. Kennedy, Professor of Sociology and International and Public Aff irs, Brown University and author of Globalizing Knowledge ‘Don’t mistake these weighty volumes for anything directory-like or anonymous. This wonderful collection of short essays, penned by many of the single best experts in their fields, puts the reader squarely in the kinds of conversations culled only after years of friendship, trust, and with the keen eye of the practiced observer. Perhaps most importantly, the remarkably wide range of offerings lets us “de-parochialise” corruption, and detach it from the usual hyper-local and cultural explanations. The reader, in the end, is the one invited to consider the many and striking commonalities.’ Bruce Grant, Professor at New York University and Chair of the US National Council for East European and Eurasian Research

Alena Ledeneva invites you on a voyage of discovery, to explore society's open secrets, unwritten rules and know-how practices. Broadly defined as 'ways of getting things done', these invisible yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. They include emotion-driven exchanges of gifts or favours and tributes for services, interest-driven know-how (from informal welfare to informal employment and entrepreneurship), identity-driven practices of solidarity, and power-driven forms of co-optation and control. The paradox, or not, of the invisibility of these informal practices is their ubiquity. Expertly practised by insiders but often hidden from outsiders, informal practices are, as this book shows, deeply rooted all over the world, yet underestimated in policy. Entries from the five continents presented in this volume are samples of the truly global and ever-growing collection, made possible by a remarkable collaboration of over 200 scholars across disciplines and area studies. By mapping the grey zones, blurred boundaries, types of ambivalence and contexts of complexity, this book creates the first Global Map of Informality. The accompanying database is searchable by region, keyword or type of practice, so do explore what works, how, where and why! This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.

In 1884, the first of 68 prisoners convicted of terrorism and revolutionary activity were transferred to a new maximum security prison at Shlissel´burg Fortress near St Petersburg. The regime of indeterminate sentences in isolation caused severe mental and physical deterioration among the prisoners, over half of whom died. But the survivors fought back to reform the prison and improve the inmates’ living conditions. The memoirs many survivors wrote enshrined their story in revolutionary mythology, and acted as an indictment of the Tsarist autocracy’s loss of moral authority. Writing Resistance features three of these memoirs, all translated into English for the first time. They show the process of transforming the regime as a collaborative endeavour that resulted in flourishing allotments, workshops and intellectual culture – and in the inmates running many of the prison’s everyday functions. Sarah J. Young’s introductory essay analyses the Shlissel´burg memoirs’ construction of a collective narrative of resilience, resistance and renewal. It uses distant reading techniques to explore the communal values they inscribe, their adoption of a powerful group identity, and emphasis on overcoming the physical and psychological barriers of the prison. The first extended study of Shlissel´burg’s revolutionary inmates in English, Writing Resistance uncovers an episode in the history of political imprisonment that bears comparison with the inmates of Robben Island in South Africa’s apartheid regime and the Maze Prison in Belfast during the Troubles. It will be of interest to scholars and students of the Russian revolution, carceral history, penal practice and behaviours, and prison and life writing.

Central Peripheries explores post-Soviet Central Asia through the prism of nation-building. Although relative latecomers on the international scene, the Central Asian states see themselves as globalized, and yet in spite of – or perhaps precisely because of – this, they hold a very classical vision of the nation-state, rejecting the abolition of boundaries and the theory of the ‘death of the nation’. Their unabashed celebration of very classical nationhoods built on post-modern premises challenges the Western view of nationalism as a dying ideology that ought to have been transcended by post-national cosmopolitanism. Marlene Laruelle looks at how states in the region have been navigating the construction of a nation in a post-imperial context where Russia remains the dominant power and cultural reference. She takes into consideration the ways in which the Soviet past has influenced the construction of national storylines, as well as the diversity of each state’s narratives and use of symbolic politics. Exploring state discourses, academic narratives and different forms of popular nationalist storytelling allows Laruelle to depict the complex construction of the national pantheon in the three decades since independence. The second half of the book focuses on Kazakhstan as the most hybrid national construction and a unique case study of nationhood in Eurasia. Based on the principle that only multidisciplinarity can help us to untangle the puzzle of nationhood, Central Peripheries uses mixed methods, combining political science, intellectual history, sociology and cultural anthropology. It is inspired by two decades of fieldwork in the region and a deep knowledge of the region’s academia and political environment. Praise for Central Peripheries ‘Marlene Laruelle paves the way to the more focused and necessary outlook on Central Asia, a region that is not a periphery but a central space for emerging conceptual debates and complexities. Above all, the book is a product of Laruelle's trademark excellence in balancing empirical depth with vigorous theoretical advancements.’ – Diana T. Kudaibergenova, University of Cambridge ‘Using the concept of hybridity, Laruelle explores the multitude of historical, political and geopolitical factors that predetermine different ways of looking at nations and various configurations of nation-building in post-Soviet Central Asia. Those manifold contexts present a general picture of the transformation that the former southern periphery of the USSR has been going through in the past decades.’ – Sergey Abashin, European University at St Petersburg

Europe is a popular destination for LGBTQ people seeking to escape discrimination and persecution. Yet, while European institutions have done much to promote the legal equality of sexual minorities and a number of states pride themselves on their acceptance of sexual diversity, the image of European tolerance and the reality faced by LGBTQ migrants and asylum seekers are often quite different. To engage with these conflicting discourses, Queer Migration and Asylum in Europe brings together scholars from politics, sociology, urban studies, anthropology and law to analyse how and why queer individuals migrate to or seek asylum in Europe, as well as the legal, social and political frameworks they are forced to navigate to feel at home or to regularise their status in the destination societies. The subjects covered include LGBTQ Latino migrants’ relationship with queer and diasporic spaces in London; diasporic consciousness of queer Polish, Russian and Brazilian migrants in Berlin; the role of the Council of Europe in shaping legal and policy frameworks relating to queer migration and asylum; the challenges facing bisexual asylum seekers; queer asylum and homonationalism in the Netherlands; and the role of space, faith and LGBTQ organisations in Germany, Italy, the UK and France in supporting queer asylum seekers.

Over the century that has passed since the start of the massive post-revolutionary exodus, Russian literature has thrived in multiple locations around the globe. What happens to cultural vocabularies, politics of identity, literary canon and language when writers transcend the metropolitan and national boundaries and begin to negotiate new experience gained in the process of migration? Redefining Russian Literary Diaspora, 1920-2020 sets a new agenda for the study of Russian diaspora writing, countering its conventional reception as a subsidiary branch of national literature and reorienting the field from an excessive emphasis on the homeland and origins to an analysis of transnational circulations that shape extraterritorial cultural practices. Integrating a variety of conceptual perspectives, ranging from diaspora and postcolonial studies to the theories of translation and self-translation, World Literature and evolutionary literary criticism, the contributors argue for a distinct nature of diasporic literary expression predicated on hybridity, ambivalence and a sense of multiple belonging. As the complementary case studies demonstrate, diaspora narratives consistently recode historical memory, contest the mainstream discourses of Russianness, rewrite received cultural tropes and explore topics that have remained marginal or taboo in the homeland. These diverse discussions are framed by a focused examination of diaspora as a methodological perspective and its relevance for the modern human condition.

How are “grey market” imports changing media industries? What is the role of piracy in developing new markets for movies and TV shows? How do jailbroken iPhones drive innovation? The Informal Media Economy provides a vivid, original, and genuinely transnational account of contemporary media, by showing how the interactions between formal and informal media systems are a feature of all nations – rich and poor, large and small. Shifting the focus away from the formal businesses and public enterprises that have long occupied media researchers, this book charts a parallel world of cultural intermediaries driving global media production and circulation. It shows how unlicensed, untaxed, or unregulated networks, which operate across the boundaries of established media markets, have been a driving force of media industry transformation. The book opens up new insights on a range of topical issues in media studies, from the creative disruptions of digitisation to amateur production, piracy and cybercrime.

The Wild East bridges political economy and anthropology to examine a variety of il/legal economic sectors and businesses such as red sanders, coal, fire, oil, sand, air spectrum, land, water, real estate, procurement and industrial labour. The 11 case studies, based across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, explore how state regulative law is often ignored and/or selectively manipulated. The emerging collective narrative shows the workings of regulated criminal economic systems where criminal formations, politicians, police, judges and bureaucrats are deeply intertwined. By pioneering the field-study of the politicisation of economic crime, and disrupting the wider literature on South Asia’s informal economy, The Wild East aims to influence future research agendas through its case for the study of mafia-enterprises and their engagement with governance in South Asia and outside. Its empirical and theoretical contribution to debates about economic crimes in democratic regimes will be of critical value to researchers in Economics, Anthropology, Sociology, Comparative Politics, Political Science and International Relations, Criminologists and Development Studies, as well as to those inside and outside academia interested in current affairs and the relationship between crime, politics and mafia enterprises.

Historians often assume a one-directional transmission of knowledge and ideas, leading to the establishment of spatial hierarchies defined as centres and peripheries. In recent decades, transnational and global history have contributed to a more inclusive understanding of intellectual and cultural exchanges that profoundly challenged the ways in which we draw our mental maps. Covering the early modern and modern periods, Re-Mapping Centre and Periphery investigates the asymmetrical and multi-directional structure of such encounters within Europe as well as in a global context. Exploring subjects from the shores of the Russian Empire to nation-making in Latin America, the international team of contributors demonstrates how, as products of human agency, centre and periphery are conditioned by mutual dependencies; rather than representing absolute categories of analysis, they are subjective constructions determined by a constantly changing discursive context. Through its analysis, the volume develops and implements a conceptual framework for remapping centres and peripheries, based on conceptual history and discourse history. As such, it will appeal to a wide variety of historians, including transnational, cultural and intellectual, and historians of early modern and modern periods.

What is the role of monumentality, verticality and centrality in the twenty-first century? Are palaces, skyscrapers and grand urban ensembles obsolete relics of twentieth-century modernity, inexorably giving way to a more humble and sustainable de-centred urban age? Or do the aesthetics and politics of pomp and grandiosity rather linger and even prosper in the cities of today and tomorrow? Re-Centring the City zooms in on these questions, taking as its point of departure the experience of Eurasian socialist cities, where twentieth-century high modernity arguably saw its most radical and furthest-reaching realisation. It frames the experience of global high modernity (and its unravelling) through the eyes of the socialist city, rather than the other way around: instead of explaining Warsaw or Moscow through the prism of Paris or New York, it refracts London, Mexico City and Chennai through the lens of Kyiv, Simferopol and the former Polish shtetls. This transdisciplinary volume re-centres the experiences of the 'Global East', and thereby our understanding of world urbanism, by shedding light on some of the still-extant (and often disavowed) forms of 'zombie' centrality, hierarchy and violence that pervade and shape our contemporary urban experience. This work was published by Saint Philip Street Press pursuant to a Creative Commons license permitting commercial use. All rights not granted by the work's license are retained by the author or authors.