History of the Project

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Trace the development of the Global Informality Project by reading through Authors' newletters.

Latest Newsletters

Newsletter No 19 (Special issue) - 24 April 2020

Newsletter No 18 - 14 February 2020

Newsletter No 17 - 26 May 2019

Newsletter No 16 - 8 February 2019

Newsletter No 15 - 18 October 2018

Newsletter No 14 - 4 July 2018

All newsletters in chronological order

Newsletter No 1 - 5 October 2015

Dear Author, You are receiving this email because you have submitted or have agreed to submit an entry towards the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality.

The editorial team has been working really hard this summer and we are happy to report a few developments. First of all, we now have around 70 entries almost ready to go to the publisher. If everyone is on schedule with their deadlines we should be able to assemble a near 100 entries strong volume.

As Editor-in-Chief, I would like to update you on the progress of my negotiations with the publishers. As some of you know, the Encyclopaedia is part of the list of publications of the FP7 ANTICORRP project, and Cambridge University Press is considering our book proposal and sample entries (12) as part of the Memorandum of Understanding between CUP and ANTICORRP. We expected an answer from the Press by September, but have not received it yet. It is normal for CUP to be slow and I will keep you updated on the progress. According to the FP7 ANTICORRP schedule, we are to submit the complete manuscript in January 2016.

In the meantime, I am exploring other publication options and have sent another proposal to the UCL Press (University College London). The UCL Press is a new one and will be leading on ‘open access’ publications. The latter makes it really attractive to the Global Informality Project as we aim to reach out to the general public and eventually to collect data through crowdsourcing. I have received an enthusiastic response from the Commissioning editor, but as elsewhere the process is going to be a lengthy one.

In parallel with the paper copy of the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, we have been working on the online version of the encyclopaedia. We are using WIKI software for uploading entries, but this is very much work in progress that will need more funding and help. Especially when it comes to the use of images to brighten up the entries and future plans to develop some measurement tools for assessing the visibility, familiarity, frequency, impact of informal practices.

Perhaps, the most exciting event of this summer was the creation of the first World Map of Informality, depicting informal practices that prevail in various parts of the world. We have ‘mapped’ all entries we have received and ‘colloquial terms’ that we have we have commissioned or would like to commission. Although still very basic at this moment, the map has been an important visual tool to explain the project to those unaware of the importance of informal practices and their role all over the globe. We are working on the possibility to give access to the under-construction site to all authors, so that you could use the map and the online version for teaching and research, but technical issues around this possibility remain unresolved. Please be patient with us, as our editorial team works really hard on a very modest budget.

I would like to thank all members of the team who worked really hard from different locations this summer: Project Manager Dr Anna Bailey and editors Costanza Curro, Maximillian Lambertson, and Elizabeth Teague. Our special thanks go to our Digital Humanities intern Sharon Lin, who has handled the setting up of the website. But without our esteemed contributors of ideas and disciplined authors of entries, we would have been nowhere. So thank you very much again and we look forward to working with you further!

We include for your attention the entries that have been finalised or very near completion:

Salam credit (Afghanistan)
Magharich (Armenia)
Tapsh (Azerbaijan)
Stela (Bos&Herz)
Jeitinho (Brazil)
Vruzki (Bulgaria)
Pituto (Chile)
Guanxi (China)
Repetitorstvo (CIS)
Fimi Media (Croatia)
Socialismo (Cuba)
Schwarzwohnen (GDR)
Zersetzung (GDR)
Small-scale smuggling (general)
Squatting (general)
Kanonieri qurdebi (Georgia)
Birzha (Georgia)
Natsnoboba (Georgia)
azganvan popokhutyun (Georgia/Armenians)
Externe Personen (Germany)

Stroman (Hungary)
No entry (India)
Okurimono no shukan (Japan)
Agashka (Kazakhstan)
Uruuchuluk (Kyrgyzstan)
Alga aploksne (Latvia)
Vrski (Macedonia)
Mordida (Mexico)
Hawala (Middle East & India)
Kumstvo (Montenegro)
Egunje (Nigeria)
Padrino system (Phillipines)
Korapsen (PNG)
Kombinacja (Poland)
Zalatwianie (Poland)
Blat (Romania)
Chernukha (Russia)
Shpargalka (Russia)
Padonki language (Russia)
Vzyatkoemkost’ (Russia)

Obshchak (Russia)
Shebeens (South Africa)
Spaza shops (South Africa)
Rad na crno (Serbia)
Pabirciti (Serbia)
Vsimne/pozornost (Slovakia)
Blat (South Caucasus)
Carburant (Sub-Saharan Africa)
Pulling strings (UK)
Zarobitchanstvo (Ukraine)
Blat (USSR)
Magnitizdat (USSR)
Roentgenizdat (USSR)
Tanish-bilish (Uzbekistan)
Esusu (Nigeria)
Allegados (Chile)
Wasta (Middle East)
Mita (Romania)
S Vrutka (Bulgaria)
Compadrazgo (Mexico)

Veza (Serbia)
Graffiti (general)
Stoyanshiki (Russia)
Trafika (Czech Republic)
Ch’ir/blood revenge
Uhljeb (Croatia)
Jangmadang (North Korea)
Chelnok (Kyrgyzstan)
Insider trading (general)
Dizelasi (Serbia)
Gap (Uzbekistan)
Dzhinsa/zakazukha (Russia)
Zakaznoe bankrotstvo (Russia)
Keiretsu (Japan)
Reiderstvo (general)
Mahallah (Uzbekistan)
Tirikchilik (Uzbekistan)

Kind regards,
Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society
University College London

Newsletter No 2 - 7 Decenber 2015

Dear Author,

I am delighted to give an update on the progress of the Global Informality project.

Number of entries

The editorial team has been most efficient this autumn and we are happy to report just under 80 completed entries before Christmas. Although the difference from the October newsletter is only 10, there are many more that are in the process of being drafted, edited or awaiting return from the authors. We cannot emphasise enough just how grateful we are to the authors who turn around entries promptly. We are still aiming at assembling 100 entries by the end of 2015, which should be easily achieved if all the contributors with December deadline send in their entries.

Publications and publishers

We are still waiting for Cambridge University Press to inform us about their decision on the book proposal that I have submitted as part of the list of publications from the FP7 ANTICORRP project. You may remember that we were expecting an answer from the Press by September, but unfortunately we have not received it yet. We anticipate being able to submit a near final selection of entries related to corruption to CUP in February. In the meantime, as I reported earlier, we have approached UCL University Press and received extremely encouraging feedback and a positive decision. We will be working on a volume for the UCL Press as well. The UCL Press is a new publisher and will be leading on 'open access' publications. The latter makes it really attractive to the Global Informality Project as we aim to reach out to the general public.

Website

The online version of the encyclopaedia on the basis of WIKI software has been developed as well. Thanks to Sharon and Max, we have experimental pages with images and entries that are tagged, categorised and are searchable. Now that Sharon and Max have completed their degrees and moved on, we need more funding and help to continue this work. We are thinking of possibilities of crowdsourcing for new ideas of practices and of finding ways of assessing them: visibility, familiarity, frequency, ambivalence, and impact. We are likely to take up on this dimension of the project once we have completed submissions to the publishers. Due to the lack of qualified staff, we have not yet enabled access for authors to the construction site, but we are working on grant applications that would allow us to do so. Please be patient with us, as our editorial team works very hard on a very modest budget. World Map of Informality:

The map continues to develop thanks to the help of Philipp Koeker, who keeps adding dots to mark submitted entries. This function works on the basis of the Google Maps software. An interesting fact that Philipp has shared with me recently is that Russia only has two dots, despite us having a lot of entries on Russian practices. It turns out that all Soviet entries are listed if you click on Moscow, whereas Russian entries are listed if you click on the dot in Eastern Siberia.... I wonder how it works for India and China, and whether we can actually make the map crowdsourced as well. The map has been an important visualisation tool and my students on the Informal Practices MA course are likely to further contribute to the map.

FRINGE

As part of the FRINGE Centre, the Global Informality Project has been housed at the new UCL Institute of Advanced Studies. It was launched among other FRINGE projects at the IAS on 3 December 2015, together with Eric Gordy's project on Closing the Gap between Formal and Informal Institutions in West Balkans (Horizon 2020). Very soon we will be posting blog reports about the launch and constituent projects. We are keen to establish an international network of Friends of Fringe, if you would like to receive our news please send your email address to the Centre Coordinator Akosua Bonsu at a.bonsu@ucl.ac.uk. Read more at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ah-shs-office/digital-communications/joint-faculty-internal-communications/staff-profiles/alena-ledeneva

People

We would like to thank Maximilian Lambertson and Sharon Lin for their excellent work. They are now in their respective employments. We would like to welcome Sheelagh Barron to the team and thank the Project Manager Dr Anna Bailey, Costanza Curro, and Elizabeth Teague for their dedicated effort. Dr Roxana Bratu, the FP7 ANTICORRP Research Fellow, will be working with the editorial team on the links of the Global Informality Project with the WP6 Media and Corruption. Dr Philipp Koeker, the FP7 ANTICORRP Research Fellow will be helping with website updates.

Newsletter No 3 - 7 April 2016

Dear Author,

I am delighted to inform you of the progress of the Global Informality project.

Number of entries: The editorial team has made terrific progress and we are happy to report 121 completed and fully edited entries. We have completed our 2015 target of 100 entries and expect a steady flow of new entries in 2016.

Publication: We are happy to report signing a contract with the UCL University Press. UCL University Press is a new publisher and the pioneer of open access publishing (simultaneous online and paper copies). They will provide open access to our Encyclopaedia and make paper copies affordable. Publication is due to take place in 2017. As part of the contract, we have waived royalties and taken responsibility for acquiring copyright for images. We are allowed 60 colourful images. All authors are invited to submit colour images to accompany their entries. We will email out further details once we have the Press’s requirements (file type, minimum resolution, instructions for seeking copyright permission etc.)

Our proposal received extremely encouraging feedback. One of the anonymous reviewers stated:

The proposed book will provide a broad academic and interested audience with a fascinating, in fact unique and durable collection of descriptions and analyses of informal practices from all over the globe. As far as I know no such venture exists. I strongly support the publication. The value that will be added by this project to existing research in the area is threefold:

First, it will give the academic and broader interested audiences insights into the great variation of informal practices, their institutional, social and cultural embeddedness, path dependencies and interactions with formal rules. At the most basic level the encyclopaedia will make accessible specialist knowledge about a widespread but often hard-to-grasp social phenomenon;

Second, in the same way, the collection will offer very useful material to researchers of informality, but also to those studying institutions and socio-economic development who might want to compare different practices in different contexts and time. The collection will allow them to overcome the limitations that usually accompany ethnographic and other qualitatively oriented empirical work on social practices, which usually focuses on a few cases only. Hence, the encyclopaedia will be useful for theoretical and comparative research on the subject since it presents excellent research material for further elaborations – a feature that is quite unusual for a text collection.

Third, the book will be able to be widely used in seminars and lectures because of the uniqueness of the collection, and will thereby also inform new theoretical and comparative considerations.

We will be working on the critique as well.

Online version: Since December 2016, the development of the online version (using searchable, WIKI software based) has been maintained by Dr. Philipp Koeker, the FP7 ANTICORRP Postdoc Fellow, to whom we are most grateful for updating the database. In April, we will be selecting new interns from the UCL Digital Humanities, and plan to appoint a new images editor and a web designer in order to be able to open the website to the authors and to explore possibilities of crowdsourcing for new ideas of practices and of finding ways of assessing them: visibility, familiarity, frequency, ambivalence, and impact. Once done and tested, we should be able to open up the website to a wider circle of contributors. We plan to release the online version of the Encyclopaedia in 2017 alongside the publication of the print version for maximum impact.

World Map of Informality: The map continues to develop thanks to the help of Philipp Koeker, who keeps adding dots to mark submitted entries. This function works on the basis of the Google Maps software. We are wondering whether we can actually make the map crowdsourced as well. If any of our authors have experience with such software, we would be interested to hear your ideas. The map has been an important visualisation tool and my students on the Informal Practices MA course are likely to further contribute to the map.

FRINGE: as part of the FRINGE Centre (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre), the Global Informality Project has been housed at the new UCL Institute of Advanced Studies. On 17 March 2016, the editorial team launched the In- formality.com website with a dissemination event at the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies. The World Map of Informality can currently be viewed on the website. Encyclopaedia entries are being uploaded but will not be publically viewable until launch in 2017. We would like to make entries viewable by our authors prior to the public launch, so you can use them as a resource in your own teaching and research, but we are still looking into what is technologically possible. We will keep you updated on this.

Alena Ledeneva
7 April 2016

Newsletter No 4 - 7 August 2016

Dear Authors,

I am writing with an update on the progress of the Global Informality project.

Number of entries: Under the leadership of Sheelagh Barron, who took over from Anna Bailey in June, the editorial team has made terrific progress and we are happy to report 163 completed and fully edited entries. We expect to be able to reach 200 entries in 2017.

Online version: Since June 2016, the development of the online version has been undertaken by UCL Digital Humanities interns Yang Liu and Adriana Bastarrachea Santez, to whom we are most grateful for updating and upgrading the database, and making it searchable. They have run into a number of technical difficulties with the sheer volume of tagging required for the entries. Yet we are still firmly on course to launch the online version of the Encyclopaedia in 2017, simultaneously with the publication of the print version, in order to maximise impact. The website will organize entries alphabetically and have an option for authors to add keywords.

Publication: In compliance with the UCL University Press contract, we will be submitting the first volume of our Encyclopaedia on the 1st of October. Once submitted, it will be sent to reviewers. Subject to positive reviews, the publication will take place in 2017. We aim to assemble 60 colourful images for the print volume and are grateful to our Web Wizard Anastasia Shekshnya, who has taken the lead on assembling the images in a variety of formats for both the print version and the website. Anastasia has also managed to secure copyright permission to use an image by Pavel Filonov for the cover of the book.

The complexity of this picture, The Formula of Spring, from the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, hints at the number of challenges for the volume:

Visualising Invisibility We thank all authors who have taken care (and time) to find images in order to visualise the invisibility of informality. See some further discussion on invisibility at http://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/2015/12/

Dealing with complexity You will appreciate that we have undertaken a bottom-up approach to collecting research findings related to informality. The call for submissions was open and all entries will be included in the online version of the Encyclopaedia. To select material for the print version in a meaningful way has been perhaps the most challenging task. We will of course take into consideration suggestions from anonymous reviewers and the Press.

For now, we have been working in stages. We clustered similar patterns together, asking ourselves ‘what is this practice the case of?’ and then tried to organize entries according to the differences within the cluster. The outcome of such bottom-up structuring has been shaping up slowly (the work continues), but I am happy to report that the structure of the first print volume has emerged and we now have clusters of entries that we offer for conceptual and comparative analysis (according to the reviewers’ recommendations I shared with you In Newsletter 3).

The list of conceptual pieces (some of them already commissioned) will include:

The FRINGE Series: SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

THE GLOBAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF INFORMALITY: TOWARDS UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY.

PART I REDISTRIBUTION: relationship vs use of relationship
Substantive ambivalence (gift vs commodity)
Chapter 1 Neither Gift Nor Commodity: The Instrumentality of Sociability Introduction: Economies of Favours by Nicolette Makovicky and David Henig
Conclusion: Managing favours in the global economy???
Chapter 2 Neither Gift Nor Payment: The Sociability of Instrumentality Introduction: Interpretations of gift and reciprocity by Florence Weber
Conclusion: Languages of informality by Nicolette Makovicky and David Henig

PART II MARKET: need vs greed
Functional ambivalence (supportive vs subversive)
Chapter 3 The System Made Me Do It: Strategies of Survival
Introduction: Conclusion:
Chapter 4 Gaming the System: Strategies of Camouflage
Introduction: Gaming the system by Phil Hanson Conclusion on the Enabling Power of Constraints

PART III SOLIDARITY: us vs them
Normative ambivalence (double standards)
Chapter 5 Conformity: The Weakness of Strong Ties
Introduction: Eric Gordy on the transformation of solidarity, identity politics and traps of belonging
Conclusion: Approached Christian Giordano???
Chapter 6 Self-Expression: The Innovative Power of Non-Conformity
Introduction on resistance capacity by Jan Kubik
Conclusion: On Us and Them by Zygmunt Bauman

PART IV DOMINATION: carrots vs sticks
Motivational ambivalence (public vs private)
Chapter 7 Cooptation: Recruiting Patrons and Clients
Introduction: Carrots vs. sticks in patron-client relationships by Paul Heywood
Conclusion: Informal Governance and Hidden Constitutions by Scott Newman
Chapter 8 Control: Informal Governance
Introduction: Politics of Fear by Vladimir Gelman
Conclusion: Klaus Segbers Freie Universitat Berlinen

This structure allows us to make the print version (also going into the open access online from the date of publication) distinct from the website.

Handling Ambivalence
A feature that has come up as the most striking in our collection is the fact that each entry can be related to almost any structural part, and be characterised by all four types of ambivalence. Looking at our entries from the comparative perspective has allowed us to identify four types of ambivalence and the role they play in the blurring of boundaries and grey areas: double think, double deed, double standards and double purpose are all essential for the workings of informality.

Defining Informality
Given the cross-discipline and cross-area nature of this project, it will probably be impossible to agree on a definition of informality agreeable to all. Please let me know if you have good definitions or great texts on the definition of informality. In the Encyclopaedia, we should probably acknowledge that we are using the word as an umbrella term for a variety of social and cultural phenomena that are too complex to be grasped in a single definition. However, to introduce the in-formality.com website I have come up with the following paragraph:
We invite you on a voyage of discovery of the world’s open secrets, unwritten rules and hidden practices. Broadly defined as ‘ways of getting things done,’ these invisible, yet powerful informal practices tend to escape articulation in official discourse. We have identified unique research on such practices across disciplines and across areas and created the first Global Map of Informality. The database is searchable by region, keyword or type of practice. Do explore what works: how, where and why.
Do send me your thoughts and suggestions on the notion, definition, history, or theory of informality. If you have a favourite citation, author, typology, please do let me know.

World Map of Informality: The map continues to develop with the increasing number of entries submitted to the project. Do spread the word – we do need more!
The Informal Practices MA course is likely to further contribute to the map.

The FRINGE connection

In association with the FRINGE Centre, UCL Press is launching a new series of collective volumes, of which the Encyclopaedia is likely to be the first. To become a member of FRINGE to receive the Centre’s newsletter, sign up at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre.

More on the UCL Press FRINGE series: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/series

We look forward to receiving the remaining entries promised for our 1st September deadline. Thank you for all you help in this tough period before the submission.

Alena

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society
University College London

Newsletter No 5 - 14 October 2016

Dear Authors,

I am writing with an update on the progress of the Global Informality project.

Big news: I am happy to report that the manuscript of the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality was submitted for review to the UCL Press. Costanza Curro and Elizabeth Teague took from Sheelagh Barron and previously Anna Bailey to bring the project to completion. The editorial team has edited over 200 entries overall, and I am happy to report that we have included all finalized entries into the two volumes of the Encyclopaedia. As we have overextended the word limit substantially, we had to reformat the submission into two volumes and resubmit (on 11 October). We thank everyone who had submitted entries in time and particularly the authors of the conceptual entries who has worked on very short schedule. I enclose the detailed Table of Contents for your attention at the end of this Newsletter. Also see below how we hope the cover of the book will look. Of course things will change and we will have to respond to the reviewers’ suggestions but you might want to see the scale of the project and appreciate its complexity to date. We will keep you informed about the progress.

If the UCL Press decides to publish the Encyclopaedia, each author will receive a contract/form to sign. Please note that the UCL Press pioneers open access publications online (and in cheap print). We are not likely to receive complimentary paper copies, and there are no royalties on our publication, but we expect to have a significant number of Internet hits (UCL Press has been very successful with the number of hits on their previous online publications) and we will be given author’s discount to order a paperback copy (UCL Press prints on demand). More on the UCL Press FRINGE series: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl- press/series.

Online version: UCL Digital Humanities intern Adriana Bastarrachea Santez continues to work on the website, making it accessible and searchable for all. The website is organized as A to Z WIKI where each entry will have an illustration – at least where we managed to secure copyright.

World Map of Informality: The map continues to develop with an increasing number of entries submitted to the project. Do spread the word – we do need more!

The FRINGE connection: To become a member of FRINGE and to receive the Centre’s newsletter, sign up at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre. We will be launching a promotion video soon.

Last, but not the least, thank you for all your help in this tough period before the submission.
Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society, University College London

Newsletter No 6 - 8 March 2017

https://prezi.com/ehhy-jppklpe/12th-of-december-informal-politics/

Dear Authors,

I am writing with an update on the progress of the Global Informality Project.

Big news: I am pleased to inform you that the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality has been resubmitted to the UCL Press on Friday 3 March 2017. We are grateful to our anonymous reviewers and wish to acknowledge the critical importance of their reports to the UCL Press. At various stages of the project, whether at book proposal stage, reading and commenting on entries, conceptualisation, or at the stage of the final submission, their critique has guided, influenced and corrected our course of action. We also thank our authors who acted as light tough peer reviewers for the Encyclopaedia.

We have been honoured to benefit from the conceptual contributions to this Encyclopadia: Zygmunt Bauman, Svetlana Barsukova, Vladimir Gelman, Christian Giordano, Eric Gordy, Philip Hanson, David Henig, Paul M. Heywood, David Jancsics, Jan Kubik, David Leung, Daniel McCarthy, Nicolette Makovicky, Colin Marx, Scott Newton, Sheila Puffer, Scott Radnitz, Leonie Schiffauer, Klaus Segbers, Elena Semenova, Florence Weber, Colin C. Williams and Peter Zusi – all of whom provided invaluable insights and made it possible to frame the empirical data. We are sad to inform you that Professor Bauman has passed away in January 2017.

We do not have a publication date yet, as the project has exceeded its anticipated length (twice!) and the resultant two volumes will require much more work from the copyeditor. When requested, please sign your contributor’s agreement and return to the UCL Press at c.penfold@ucl.ac.uk and help the Press in other ways too. More on the UCL Press FRINGE series: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/series.

Online version: We are delighted to announce that the working version of the www.in- formality.com is now live, and you are most welcome to give it a try. It would be useful to have your feedback and also requests for corrections. It is likely that we will have a UCL Digital Humanities intern this summer responsible for updating the website and perfecting the tagging system for each entry. We look forward to continuing work with you on making the dataset searchable and easy to use.

Dissemination: The website was presented at the final Meeting of the FP7 ANTICORRP project deliverables report to the European Commission in Brussels, on 7 February 2017. The poster on the Global Informality Project will be presented at the 2017 OECD Global Anti- Corruption & Integrity Forum on 30 and 31 March 2017 in Paris. We attach the poster with this newsletter, so that you could display it in your institution and disseminate the findings of the project.

World Map of Informality: We have also created a prezi template for the Global Informality project and invite everyone to use it in your presentations. Please disseminate the outcomes of the project and do let us know how and where you used it – we will include it in the following Newsletters. Please email to informality2014@gmail.com. Do spread the word and please look out for countries that we do not have!

The FRINGE connection: The online version of the Global Informality project appears centrally on the UCL FRINGE Centre website. To become a member of FRINGE and to receive the Centre’s newsletter, sign up at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre or write to use at fringe@ucl.ac.uk and we will sign you in.

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society, University College London

Newsletter No 7 - 28 April 2017

Dear Authors

A quick update: As some of you know, we have been struggling with the technical side of the manuscript: illustrations, captions, copyright, tables and diagrams had to be submitted as separate files and in the right format, and listed throughout. Costanza has done her best on this and now the manuscript is back with the publishers. Unfortunate as it is, because of the publishers’ rules, we have had to cut out many pictures and graphs. We are very grateful to those of you who provided images and copyright for their use, and we will make sure that they duly appear on our website.
We will let you know once we have a clearer time-line for copy-editing.

Important: Our unique Encyclopaedia has some 250 authors, so it would not be practical to send out contracts individually. What we have agreed with our editor at the UCL Press, Chris Penfold, is that we will send a standard contract to all authors (attached to this Newsletter) for your records. The contract states your agreement to be published by UCL Press. Given that your consent to publish had been recorded in our email correspondence, you will need to contact Chris Penfold only if you have any objections to the terms and conditions stipulated in the contract. If this is the case, please contact Chris at c.penfold@ucl.ac.uk before 8 May 2017. If we do not hear from you, we will presume that your signature is received.

For citation: We will let you have the publication date as soon as we know it but, given the scale of the project, it is probably unrealistic to expect publication before January 2018. In the meantime, you can refer to your piece as Author, Name of entry, in Ledeneva, A. et al., eds. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. UCL Press, forthcoming. You can look up further details in the UCL Press Spring catalogue at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press.

Online version: We are delighted to announce that we have a new intern, Yuan Guo from the UCL Digital Humanities Department, who will be up-dating and improving our website www.in-formality.com. It would be useful to have your suggestions as to how we make the website useful for teaching. If you have specific keywords for your entry that you would like to include in the search system online (and in the index of the printed version), please email them to us without text and mark your email with KEYWORDS in the subject line. We look forward to continuing to work with you on making the dataset searchable and easy to use.

World Map of Informality: To date, we have all five continents, 66 countries and over 200 entries! We aim to increase the number of countries in the online version and would be grateful for your help. Do spread the word!

Dissemination: The poster on the Global Informality Project was presented at the 2017 OECD Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum on 30 March 2017 in Paris. We have partnered with the UCL European Institute to expand our coverage of European countries, such as Spain and Portugal, from which we at present have no entries. We have also reached out to Canadian scholars, aiming to commission entries in other countries for which we currently do not have entries.

The FRINGE connection: Please look up the latest FRINGE Newsletter - left hand side menu at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society, University College London

Newsletter No 8 - 17 June 2017

Dear Author,

I am writing to ask you to reserve the dates for helping with the index and proofs. The following timetable has been agreed with the publisher:

Index due to us: 14 July 2017
Index comments due back: 28 July 2017
Page proofs (to authors) for review: 25 August 2017
Proof corrections (mistakes only) due: 15 September 2017
Revised proofs for final review (editors only): 26 October 2017
Final comments due (editors only): 13 November 2017 (four days longer)

Project Update:

  • Our Digital Humanities intern, Yuan Gao, has started work on updating the website database. To date, she has added most entries to the website and will continue working on images and correction over the summer.
  • We have created partnership with the UCL European Institute in order to improve the European entries, especially Spain and Portugal. Dr. Costanza Curro would be working on this.
  • We have received a few possible entries from Canada and Malaysia, so we hope to add two more countries to the map.
  • We look forward to the FRINGE annual workshop in on illegal Housing across the Globe on 22-23 June 2015. For details see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/fringe-centre/events.
  • We look forward to being touch soon about keywords to be added to the index. Please start thinking about it.

Thank you very much and more soon,

Alena Ledeneva

Newsletter No 9 - 6 September 2017

Dear Author,

One good news and one urgent request, please!

GOOD NEWS! With some delay, we have received the first proofs of the Encyclopaedia. As you will see it is not perfect and needs typos, misspellings and other types of irregularities to be sorted out.
Most commonly, the mistakes cluster in places taken-for- granted, such as titles and subtitles of chapters, entries, figures, tables and around places where you were asked to provide additional information (references, page numbers, images to be inserted). Placing of images, figures and tables is also sometimes a problem.

You should first check with the Table of contents to see if your entry is in volume 1 or 2, and then search the relevant pdf file with CTRL+F for your name/number of the entry or follow the page numbers in the Table of the Contents.

Please mark only essential corrections, and ensure that your corrections are clearly described. I will be the one to integrate all corrections for the final file, so please make sure that I could understand what you mean. The best way is to state:
Number of the entry
Page number on which correction is needed
Para beginning with ‘quote’ or the number of paragraph on the page
Line number in that paragraph
DELETE: ‘say what’
SHOULD BE: ‘say how it should look after I have inserted the correction’.

URGENT: Please send all corrections to informality2014@gmail.com AND copy to a.ledeneva@ucl.ac.uk with PROOFS_CORRECTIONS_VOL.1 or PROOFS_CORRECTIONS_VOL.2 in the subject line.
Once we have a list, we will collate all corrections onto the whole book PDF and return the proofs to the Press.
I should be grateful if you could check your entry as soon as possible and return your correction by 18 September 2017. If no correction is needed for your entry, please confirm so in writing by email.

I do hope you are pleased with the proofs – there are some easy-to- fix mistakes of course – so do let me know.   Best wishes,

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society, University College London

Newsletter No 10 - 4 November 2017

Dear Author,

Just to update you on the publication process of the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality!

GOOD NEWS!

  • We have managed to return the first proofs of the Encyclopaedia with changes more or less on time
  • Second proofs will need signing off I mid-November, but no further changes will be required.
  • I have assembled a list of endorsements for the back cover.
  • As far as I know, the following ISBN numbers are confirmed: for Volume I it is 9781911307884 and for Volume II it is 9781787351912.
  • We heard that our publication date is 11 January 2018.
  • It is already possible for libraries to order the book on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=global+Encyclopaedia+of+Informality
  • We plan a book launch event on 22 March 2018 in London, hosted by the UCL Global Engagement Fund and FRINGE Centre at the UCL Institute of the Advanced Studies.
  • The book will be available online, in open access, free of charge.

GLOBAL BOOK LAUNCH! Given that our project embraces five continents and 66 countries, let us make it truly global. It would be great to launch the books in as many countries as possible. If you have written an entry, please organize a book launch event at your university or organization for colleagues, students and guests. We already have volunteers to host book launches in New York, Paris, Tokyo, Montreal and Moscow. Please let me know if you would like to host an event – we will send you leaflets and can set up a Skype link for the event.
I look forward to hearing from you!

Best wishes,

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society
University College London

Newsletter No 11 - 20 December 2017

Dear Author,

I am writing to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2018 from the Global Informality Project! It has been a pleasure to work with you over the years and our first printed output – Global Encyclopaedia of Informality – is under way.

GOOD NEWS!

  • It looks like our publication date is going to be 15 January 2018 and the online version of the book will be free and downloadable from the UCL Press website.
  • ISBN numbers for Volume I - 9781911307884; for Volume II - 9781787351912.
  • It is already possible for libraries to order the book on Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=global+Encyclopaedia+of+Informality
  • Paper copies will be available from the UCL Press.
  • We plan a book launch event on 22 March 2018 in London, hosted by the UCL Global Engagement Fund and FRINGE Centre at the UCL Institute of the Advanced Studies. Please let me know if you can be in London on this date. We cannot pay the flight but we will be able to get a night at a hotel for you!

GLOBAL BOOK LAUNCH! Given that our project embraces five continents and 66 countries, let us make it truly global. It would be great to launch the books in as many countries as possible. If you have written an entry, please organize a book launch event at your university or organization for colleagues, students and guests. Thank you for all those who volunteered to host a book launch - we will have one in New York, Washington, Paris, Tokyo, Montreal and Moscow. Please let me know if you would like to host an event – we will send you leaflets, paper copies and assist in every way.
I also look forward to hearing from you if you have some ideas for marketing – which journal we should have a review, where we could publicize our publication.
For the moment, please include the publication in your email signature; in your research gate or academia.edu profile, on your university website. Once I receive a link to the UCL Press website where the Encyclopaedia can be freely downloaded, I will send it to you. In the meantime, enjoy the winter break and stay in touch.

Best wishes,

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society
University College London

Newsletter No 12 - 17 January 2018

Dear Author,

CONGRATULATIONS!
The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality is out in paper and online. It is available in open access for a free download at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopedia-of-informality-i
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/global-encyclopaedia-of-informality-ii
Congratulations to all of us!
Please make sure you join at least one of the book launch events: the first one is in San-Diego, CA! (see details below)

PURCHASE
If you would like to purchase a discounted copy (a third OFF the retail price) they should send the following information to uclpresspublishing@ucl.ac.uk, and the UCL distributor will invoice you.
Name of book:
Format: Paperback/Hardback
Name:
Delivery address:
Email:
Contact tel #
Invoice name/address/email (if not the same as above).

PUBLICITY
Please add the FREE download link to your email signature and to your profile on you university website; social media (Facebook; Twitter; Linkedin); and various research gates (Academia; ResearchGate; SSRN). Please also use the word of mouth and inform your colleagues, students and friends about the publication. Ask them to twit and write amazon reviews.

LONDON LAUNCH
Please come to the book launch event on 22 March 2018 in London, hosted by the UCL Global Engagement Fund and FRINGE Centre at the UCL Institute of the Advanced Studies, from 2.30 to 7.30pm. We plan to start promptly at 2.30pm with a workshop with a working title ‘So what?’ Given that a lot of authors and guests have confirmed their participation, we can organize several group discussions for an hour, followed by a joint roundtable and a drinks party. The proposed themes for the discussion of the implications of the Global Informality Project are:

  • Globalizing knowledge
  • Leaning commons
  • Building on resistance capacity
  • Power distance and closed access societies
  • Theory and practice of ambivalence
  • Complexity and pattern recognition
  • Superseding dichotomies
  • Cyber-informality
  • Informal governance
  • Area studies without borders
  • Cross-disciplinary analysis
  • Curious incidents in the dataset (what does not fit?)

If you can be in London on this date, please let me know which group you would like to be in.

HOTEL
We cannot pay the flight but we will be able to get a night at a hotel for you. Please me know if you need a hotel reservation in advance. We can only reimburse to the UCL partner hotels, so it is probably easier to book through the UCL.  

GLOBAL LAUNCH:
Thank you to all authors who has volunteered already to organize book launch events in their universities and other professional platforms and associations. In alphabetical order:

Bazel, Switzerland (Lucy Koelcin and Claudia Baez)
Belgrade, Serbia (Ivana Spasic and Predrag Cveticanin)
Boston, USA (Sheila Puffer)
Lund, Sweden (Rustam Urenboyev)
Montreal, Canada (Tina Hilgers)
Moscow, Russia (Svetlana Barsukova)
New York, NY (Sven Horak, Jessica Allina-Pisano)
Paris, France (Florence Weber)
Riga, Latvia (Klāvs Sedlenieks)
San Diego State University (David Jancsics)
Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM) (Misha Popovikj)
Tokyo, Japan (Yoshimichi Sato)
Washington DC, USA (Sergei Samoylenko and Marlene Laruelle)
Tampa Florida, USA (Golfo Alexopolous)

We need more events around the world. Please let me know if you would like to organize an event at your university or at a professional association meeting. Any format is welcome, from a seminar with students and colleagues to a small informal celebration. UCL Press will send you leaflets, paper copies and I will be happy to join in by Skype. If you could send us a photo of the event or short video, that would be great!

OUR FIRST LAUNCH IN SAN-DIEGO, CA ON 9 MARCH 2018?
David Jancsics will organize a book launch event at San Diego State University’s School of Public Affairs (which celebrates its 50th anniversary on March 9th 2018 and the book launch will be part of a big celebration). He invites colleagues to join him:
“I would like to invite authors of the Encyclopaedia to come and participate in a roundtable in San Diego on March 9th. We would be very happy to host authors of Mexican, Latin American, Middle Eastern or North American entries since our faculty research is related to these regions but other authors are also welcome. Participants should come at their own expense but hotel and food will be covered by the School of Public Affairs. If you are interested in participating please let me know as soon as possible at:  djancsics@sdsu.edu"
If you are on the West Coast or can get there, please contact David and don’t forget to send us a short video from the big event.

OUR LAST LAUNCH AT ASEEES IN BOSTON 6-9 December 2018
Anyone plans to be at the 50 th annual ASEEES convention in Boston this year? Please contact Elena Denisova-Schmidt at elena.denisova-schmidt@unisg.ch

PLEASE CHALLENGE ‘OUR FIRST’ AND ‘OUR LAST’ AND SUGGEST MORE EVENTS INBETWEEN!

More soon,

Alena Ledeneva
Professor of Politics and Society
University College London

Newsletter No 13 - 28 March 2018

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality book launch went well in London on 22 March 2018. Over 25 authors came together for the event. The write-ups of brainstorming ideas on the future of the Global Informality Project will be on www.in-formality.com soon. Five themes included: informal governance, complexity and pattern recognition; theory and practice of ambivalence; superseding dichotomies, and cyber-informality. Full version is online (SCROLL to 6:13min for a start):

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/live/the-global-encyclopedia-of-informality-book-launch

Many authors have helped celebrate the publication around the world: David Jancsics has publicized the book at the 50th anniversary of San Diego State University’s School of Public Affairs on March 9th 2018; Eduard Klein has helped promote Encyclopaedia at a think tank event in Berlin; Rustam Urinboyev and Abel Polese have organized a launch at University of Lund. Photos and videos will be on www.in-formality.com.

PUBLICISING YOUR ENTRY

Your entry can be included in your email signature and to your profile on you university website; social media (Facebook; Twitter; Linkedin); and various research gates (Academia; ResearchGate; SSRN). To refer to the specific page in the volume, you have to add "#page=X" where X is the page number of the entry you want to refer to. For example, entry "kula" in Volume 2 is on page 386 of the document. (NOTE: this is not the page number on the bottom of that page. You need to open the PDF in a web browser like Chrome, and then see what page number “kula” appears on, according to the browser.) It takes a little while to download.

So you can then add that to the URL to give: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10041172/1/The-Global-Encyclopaedia-of-Informality-Volume-2.pdf#page=386

PURCHASING YOUR PAPER COPY

On request from some of you, I include the contact if you would like to purchase a discounted copy (a third OFF the retail price) – email to uclpresspublishing@ucl.ac.uk, and the UCL distributor will invoice you. Name of book: The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality. Volume X Format: Paperback/Hardback Your name: Delivery address: Email: Contact tel # Invoice name/address/email (if not the same as above).

PLANING NEXT LAUNCH EVENTS

Thank you to all authors who has volunteered already to organize book launch events in their universities and other professional platforms and associations. In alphabetical order: Telebridge UCL - Indiana University, Bloomington/ 6 April/ with Justin Otten Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM) / April date tbc/ contact Misha Popovikj Bazel, Switzerland - 24 April/ contact Lucy Koelcin and Claudia Baez Camargo Belgrade, Serbia/ date tbc/ contact Ivana Spasic and Predrag Cveticanin Moscow, Russia /7-8 June Tokyo, Japan /date tbc/ contact Yuko Adachi Riga, Latvia /22 October/ contact Klāvs Sedlenieks IAS Paris, France / November date tbc/ Boston 50th annual ASEEES convention --New York, NY--Washington / December 2018

WELCOME TO THE TEAM

Petra Matijevic is appointed Research Associate by the INFORM project ("Closing the Gap between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans", Horizon 2020 project no 693537) to work on the West Balkans and Global Informality Project website. Contact: informality2014@gmail.com At it happens this time of year, we are joined by the UCL Digital Humanities intern Orla Delaney. Warm welcome to both!

Many thanks to all authors and enthusiasts again!!! We have done a great job on the Encyclopaedia, now let us make the website work!

Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society, University College London

Newsletter No 14 - 4 July 2018

Newsletter No 15 - 18 October 2018

Newsletter No 16 - 8 February 2019

Newsletter No 17 - 26 May 2019

Newsletter No 18 - 14 February 2020

Newsletter No 19 (Special issue) - 24 April 2020