Abstract
Since the 1970s, one of the key concepts used to analyse the economies of so-called developing countries has been informality. The adoption of this concept by international organizations and its use to account for the economic and social processes of these countries is an ideal field in which to observe how certain phenomena are conceptualized, measured and constructed as focal policy issues. Emergent from the field of anthropology and development, the social life of the concept of informality is linked to its circulation through various disciplines. In this paper, I present the concept of informality, the context of its emergence, its incorporation into the agendas of various international agencies, and the current attempts to re-formulate it. The case of informality presents interesting aspects to reflect on the relationship between various disciplinary languages and economics as a discipline, as well as the expansion of these languages to address various facets of the contemporary world.
Keywords
Informality; ILO; conceptual history; institutional trajectory