The Tunisian economy is in turmoil. Nearly half of all Tunisians work as vendors in the informal – that is, illegal – economy.
In this ground-breaking new study, Tunisia scholar Dr. L. Michalak draws links between the informal economy and informal politics in this post-Arab Spring state attempting to construct a politics of pluralism.
Based on years of fieldwork, the talk provides an ethnographic dimension to statistical studies of informality, while offering a powerful critique to the popular ‘formalizing the informal’ policy approach to solving the ‘problem’ of informal commerce.