Journal Article

Thinking with and beyond the informal–formal relation in urban thought

McFarlane, Colin

2019

Overview

This commentary to the special issue on ‘Transcending (in)formal urbanism’ reviews key threads common across the issue and opens up questions as to the work that the informal–formal dynamic does for urban studies. It points out the general agreement in that none of the papers rejects the utility of the category of informal and that the terms informal and formal still have value and utility. In doing so, the special issue articles offer three key contributions to demonstrate the ways in which the informal either composes or becomes a close partner to the formal, de-link informality from its more commonplace registers, and sketch how the formal and informal have always been blurred in practice. Centrally, this calls for a critical reflection on the structures of thought through which the informal–formal relation emerges. It advances an understanding of how informal and formal operate as a kind of ‘intellectual governmentality’ reiterating the same ways of seeing, carving up, and analysing the city, getting in the way of our ability to research urbanism differently. The appreciation of the informal–formal dynamic is situated as part of the challenge to build a more global urban studies that works with multiple ways of knowing and researching. To what extent does remaining within a structure of thought around the informal– formal relation enable or get in the way of that? Borrowing alternatives from movements to ‘provincialising’ that structure of thought, this commentary calls for a renewed interest in the potential, and limits, of the informal–formal inheritance in urban thought. 对“超越（非）正规城市化”特刊的评论回顾了整个特刊的共同关键线索，并提出了关于非正规-正规形态对城市研究的影响问题。它指出了普遍的一致意见，即没有一篇论文拒绝非正规类别的效用，非正规和正规的术语仍然具有价值和效用。籍此，特刊文章做出了三个关键的贡献，以展示非正规如何构成或成为正规的紧密伙伴，使非正规性与其更常见的登记册之间脱离关联，并描绘正规和非正规之间如何总是在实践中模糊不清。中心思想是，这要求对非正规-正规之间的关系所处的思想结构进行批判性反思。它促进了我们理解非正规-正规如何作为一种“知识治理”起作用，强调对城市进行观察、分割和分析的相同方式，妨碍了我们以不同方式研究城市化的能力。对非正规-正规形态的理解是构建更整全的城市研究所面临的挑战的一部分，因为整全的研究采用多种认识和研究方法。在这方面，停留在非正规-正规关系的思想结构中会在多大程度上带来促进或构成妨碍呢？借用将这种思想结构“地方化”的运动所提供的替代选项，本评论呼呼重新关注非正规-正规这一城市思想传统的潜力和局限性。

• Publisher: Sage Publications, Ltd,SAGE Publications,Sage Publications Ltd
• Subject: Appreciation / Governmentality / Heredity / Informal economy / Inheritance / Inheritance and succession / Social sciences / Special issue commentary: Transcending (in)formal urbanism / Urban areas / Urban studies / Urbanism