Strategies for relating diverse cities: A multi-sited individualising comparison of informality in Bafatá,Berlin and Tallinn

Abstract

Spanish

French

Anybody wishing to position Bafatá (Guinea-Bissau), Berlin (Germany) and Tallinn (Estonia) side by side would encounter a number of reasons why these cities should not be compared. To unmake such hesitations, this article offers a conceptual and methodological exploration of the ways in which these cities might be analysed comparatively through a methodological strategy termed multi-sited individualising comparison. This exploratory approach allows to talk across individual research projects in different sites. In applying this methodology to Bafatá, Berlin and Tallinn, the authors demonstrate how case studies in these different cities can be compared around a common interest, namely informal processes and their relations to states.

Keywords

Comparative urbanism dichotomisation everyday state informality

Introduction

Anybody positioning Bafatá, Berlin and Tallinn side by side in an urban comparison would encounter numerous challenges. The cities differ crucially in the size of their population: Bafatá counts 40,000 residents, Tallinn ten times more, while Berlin houses approximately 3.5 million inhabitants. They hardly compare in their international positions: while Berlin can claim global recognition, Tallinn and Bafatá struggle to be known beyond their regions. They also differ greatly in their geographical locations: Bafatá is located in West Africa, Berlin in Europe, at the border between East and West, and Tallinn in the region known as Central/Eastern Europe. From a conventional perspective these cities would simply appear too dissimilar to allow for a meaningful comparison, especially a comparison that avoids positioning these cities on a development track. And yet the thrust of the literature on comparative urbanism (Edensor and Jayne, 2012; Jacobs, 2012; McFarlane, 2012; Nijman, 2007; Robinson, 2014) has invited urban researchers to challenge such incommensurabilities, claiming they sustain dichotomisations that position some cities in the centre of urban theory while moving others ‘off the map’ (Robinson, 2006, 2011). Instead, these accounts forefront the connections between cities, which occur through the movement of people, goods and ideas, thus highlighting possibilities to develop conceptual linkages between disparate urban sites. This article is an intellectual effort to develop such linkages. We explore how experimental methodological approaches to urban comparisons can challenge and refine urban conceptualisations, particularly of informality. To foster such explorations this article offers a methodology that we term a ‘multi-sited individualising comparison’.

This methodology reflects our practical engagement with different comparative strategies intended to relate three distinct research projects developed individually by each author across a common interest. Susana Neves Alves’s project focused on water governance in Bafatá and its related informal procedures. Hanna Hilbrandt explored the regulation of informal dwelling practices in allotment gardens in Berlin. Tauri Tuvikene investigated interactions between formal and informal means of governing car parking in Tallinn. Our comparison can thus be called ‘multi-sited’ and ‘individualising’ because it starts from in-depth knowledge about single cases and develops conceptual connections by thinking collectively across multiple urban sites. While a direct comparison was not the raison d’être for our individual projects, our comparison allowed a dialogue around common themes. The contextual differences between our cases required us to challenge the language of our dialogues and its conceptual ideas.

A key theme connecting our project and framing our analysis is the notion of urban informality. Although reflections on informality have fostered new ways of thinking about contemporary urban processes in the Global South, the concept is increasingly used to frame research in cities of the Global North. Informality is easily applicable to a diversity of cases because it remains a concept that encompasses multiple meanings and refers to various relationalities (see Schindler, this issue). This definitional vagueness provided the conceptual space to develop more precise propositions that work across our cases.

This dialogue between the literature on informality and our cases revealed that the notion of informality frequently relied on diverse, under-theorised and implicit understandings of states. This comparative exercise called for a common understanding of states, based on the recognition of the ‘porosity’ of the state to be at the core of our conceptualisation of informality. Based on this understanding, we have projected several ‘propositions’ – in the form of observations about informal urban processes – that hold across our different research sites and allow us to overcome the assumption of incommensurability.

How to think comparatively

The aim of comparisons is to escape the confines of a single case and to ascertain how a particular site relates to other sites, thus leading from case-specific analysis to more general knowledge. The aim is to ensure that theory is grounded in a multiplicity of experiences.

This is frequently accomplished through research projects carried out collaboratively that draw on coordinated work across numerous sites, often via large-scale funded projects. For instance, Urbanisation in Comparative Perspective, at ETH Zurich explores the ways in which urbanisation plays out in eight cities across the world.¹ As Schmid (2015) explains, this project’s comparative analysis builds on biannual workshops where researchers collectively discuss results by exploring each city through the perspective of seven others. Yet, these different perspectives are based on one common assumption: that urbanisation is becoming planetary. Within this frame, the aim is to trace ‘how general tendencies are materialized in specific places’. This project thus exemplifies a top-down, grand-theory led approach through which it reinforces a typology of urbanisation processes. Thus, although careful attention to different sites allows for context-specificity, a dominant framing pre-establishes the analysis in ways that limit the ability of places to offer their own narratives, revise existing concepts, or allow for new ones to emerge (Ghertner, 2015). Furthermore, this theory-led approach may offer limited scope for cities ‘elsewhere’ to inform concepts not as counter-points to a general theory, but as hubs of theory-generation. While the development of a new language that accounts for differing urban sites can be a useful path forward, the success of comparisons still depends on the wider framework, the assumptions from which the comparison has been drawn, and the tools it implies for empirical investigation.

Alternatively, comparative research can build on a single case, refracted through assumptions drawn from existing literatures (Wu, 2015). With an expansive body of work on cities, there is a reason to rely on that pool of knowledge to bring a particular case into a larger conversation. One does not even have to leave one’s armchair to be a comparative researcher (Robinson, 2006). Yet, this approach is also limited. By having empirical knowledge of only one case, the researcher may focus primarily on the case’s unique concerns.

The tendency to forefront the specificity of singular cases has worried some, particularly those who decry the tendency to multiply analytical frames to better match the cases under study (Peck, 2015) thus problematising what is called the ‘new particularism’ (Scott and Storper, 2015: 11) and challenging ‘the specificity, distinctiveness or even uniqueness of cities beyond the West’ (Brenner and Schmid, 2015: 161). Others stress such specificity for the purpose of re-theorising cities from diverse urban sites. To be sure, some of the limitations of a single case can be eliminated by elaborating on the researchers’ own experience of diverse urban sites, gained via systematic research or personal experience through living in those places. Scholars in urban studies have indeed followed this style of investigation (Abu-Lughod, 1999; Simone, 2004, 2010). Yet this experience rarely replaces collaborative comparative work because the depth of an individual analysis greatly depends on the experience and comprehension of the thinker. A single individual can only provide limited interpretation (Myers, 2014; Peck, 2015). All this is to say that we need comparative strategies that (1) allow cases to be addressed on their own without subsuming them under a wider framework, (2) do not centralise an individual case and (3) build on explicit comparisons across different sites.

A multi-sited individualising comparison combines the strength of the approaches reviewed above while avoiding some of their inherent pitfalls, by bringing Tilly’s (1984) individualising approach (see also Brenner, 2001; Robinson, 2011) together with cross-case thinking and conceptualising.² Starting from different cases and by building conceptual connections between them, this approach avoids the limits of the lone researcher. Using more than one case allows researchers to develop a theory built on empirical specificity by downplaying the importance of a single case while still being attentive to commonalities across different urban sites.

In addition to responding to various critiques of postcolonial urban studies that underscore the lack of ‘dialogue with a range of (revisable) theories’ (Peck, 2015: 171), a multi-sited individualising comparison manages to de-centralise the process of theorisation by making theory-building intrinsic to the process of thinking about particular case studies. But unlike processes of theorisation that start from an existing theory, which is then tested in particular sites to assess the extent of its validity and variegation, the multi-sited individualising comparison is informed by the histories and practices of particular places, which are examined through essentially revisable and still emerging theoretical imaginations. As such, this approach aims to move beyond the divide that has been identified in the literature between what is seen as ‘theorising urbanisation’ on the one hand, and thinking about cities in postcolonial ways on the other (Derickson, 2014). It follows Myers’ (2014: 115) suggestion that a ‘more comprehensive and multiregional comparison’ can be taken further by multi-cultural teams or networks of researchers who build ‘unexpected comparisons’, which in turn allow for the reversing or bypassing of the existing or expected route in urban theorisation.

Theorising informality from Bafatá, Berlin and Tallinn

Our comparative exercise examines three different cities, each focusing on distinct sets of problems specific to each place. Bafatá is the second city of Guinea-Bissau. In a country where state institutions commonly lack the resources to invest in urban services, the case study of Bafatá investigates the ways in which ASPAAB – the local association managing the city’s water supply network – as well as various state actors, local and international organisations, and users shape water supply in the city. Focusing on their interactions, it scrutinises various informal practices intrinsic to processes of governing water supply in Bafatá (see also De Alba, this issue). Berlin is the capital of Germany, one of the largest economies of Western Europe. The Berlin case explores informal dwellings and their regulation in the city’s allotment gardens (Kleingärten). While historically and legally they are considered to be spaces for gardening only, with permanent living restricted, these sites have at different times become important alternatives to overcome housing shortages in the city. Thus, the case provides insights into the entanglement of informality in the production of space in this city (see also Haid, this issue). Formerly a capital of the Soviet Republic the third case city, Tallinn, does not have a straightforward position in the Global North/South distinction. This case focuses on private parking on derelict land plots and the ways in which otherwise formal businesses have located themselves in legal vacuums and loopholes, becoming informal and, therefore, beyond the remit of urban planning and parking policies. The aim of this comparative exercise was to combine these three regionally and thematically diverse cases in order to understand informal practices in each of them and to contribute to current understandings of informality.

As argued above, the way we compare cities is related to the ways in which we think about cities. We started our comparative approach through an investigation of the cases based on aspects drawn from the literature on informality. Although we initially systematise these aspects through the construction of a table with a set of matrices, this table appeared insufficient for the kind of comparison we were seeking. Hence, we shifted to a focus on general propositions that encompassed an overview of conditions; and developed a method we termed multi-sited individualising comparison. The sections below describe these shifts and our efforts to link conceptualisations of informality with questions about how three diverse empirical cases helped inform this process.

Developing an adequate comparative framework: From aspects systemised in tables to a multi-sited individualising comparison

Academic debates on informality have moved well beyond previous dual conceptualisations of the term, which reinforced binaries such as the formal/informal and state/society (Porter, 2011; Roy, 2005; Tonkiss, 2012). Contemporary research on informality has also complicated established divisions between cities of the South and North (McFarlane, 2012). Historically with its empirical reference in cities of South America, Asia and Africa, literature on informality has gradually expanded to cover cities of the Global North. For instance, a book by Mukhija and Loukaitou-Sideris (2014) examines various informal practices of street trade, parking provision and so on in North American cities. Moreover, Hentschel (2013, 2015) and Schindler (2014) have gone further and investigated informality as a Southern theory in cities of the Global North. The expanding geographical reach of the critical literature on informality challenges prevailing ideas of the ‘informal’ as a characteristic of the South. Instead, it indicates that this notion speaks to the experiences of cities across the world. This was one of the reasons for framing our comparison around the notion of informality.

However, a review of these debates demonstrated that the multiplicity of processes and dynamics being captured through existing conceptualisations of informality varied considerably, making it difficult to pinpoint specific processes from which to draw a comparison. Thus, the first step in our comparative exercise was to review current academic debates on informality in order to define the various aspects of informality. Our initial aim was to explore how our comparison of the three cases could assist in sharpening conceptualisations of dimensions covered in the literature and to propose a ‘postcolonial’ notion of informality by identifying those aspects of informality that were relevant across the three cases. After identifying these aspects – the ability to be flexible and adapt, space for negotiation, ambiguity and transparency, as well as uncertainty and temporality – we proceeded to the construction of a table, whose appeal lies in the format and ability to systematise by positioning cases side by side. Tables facilitate analytical observations across cases.

Even so, tables and their building blocks of aspects revealed various weaknesses. First, the systematisation of aspects of informality via tables produced an a priori definition of concepts, thus reinforcing differences between cases. For instance, once ‘uncertainty and temporality’ and ‘ability to be flexible and adapt’ were adopted as aspects of informality and positioned in a table, the next step involved filling in the respective rows of the table and exploring the ways in which these aspects materialised in the different cities. At this point, attention shifted to how each specific aspect unfolded in each city. Yet with such a tabular process, Bafatá constantly emerged as the extreme case, with fewer similarities and more differences. Stated differently, as predefined aspects of informality were kept intact, a table tended to fix the differences.

Second, while the aspects we identified constituted attributes, or characteristics, of informality, they were not necessary conditions associated with all instances of informality. For instance, temporality – referring to something that is in transition or in the making and/or that is not permanent, even if it lasts a long time – might be an important characteristic of informal practices and even a characteristic sought when actors navigate formal and informal domains. However, there can be informal practices for which temporality might not be a feature. For example, informal practices by state actors using their positions within the state – see, for example, Anand (2011) on water governance in Mumbai – might constitute features inherent to state institutions that are not indicative of the temporality of these institutions.

Finally, aspects are a rigid tool that may be unable to capture the essence of informality, because as a concept it remains elusive. At its best, informality is a term encompassing a variety of phenomena, whilst its premises remain ambiguous. The point here is not just that the aspects we defined presented some flaws and required revision, but that the whole endeavour of looking for characteristics and attributes of informality presented itself as problematic.

In order to overcome these limitations, we moved away from aspects in tables and opted for basing our comparison on what we term as propositions. Propositions have two key advantages for meaningful comparisons. First, propositions, unlike aspects, constitute premises for specific instants of informality. This means that these propositions are not characteristics positioned within informality; instead, they are about informality. Rather than focusing on how specific aspects or characteristics were revealed in each of our cases, we focused on instants of informality holding across the three cases. Second, propositions enable a reiterative process that opens up the conceptual boundaries of a comparison. They are not predefined for the comparison but are defined through the comparison. A comparison through propositions involves making and revising propositions through a reiterative process; the cases are brought side by side and interact with one another. Propositions that aim to make cross-case generalisations are thus constantly challenged, revised and clarified. This results in a continuous re-writing of these propositions, which means that the comparison becomes attuned to providing reflections across research sites as these are brought into the comparison alongside with (re-)conceptualisations.

Propositions constitute the methodological basis of our multi-sited individualising comparison. And, we propose that the multi-sited individualising comparison advanced here is an effective way to truly follow the comparative urbanism principles of being attentive to individual cases, while striving to make theoretical claims that reflect the diversity of places.

Comparing informal practices in Bafatá, Berlin and Tallinn: Forming propositions for instants of informality

Informality is a relational concept that is conventionally built on an assumed normativity in which the state has the power to define what is formal or informal. Notwithstanding the centrality of state apparatuses to conceptualisations of informality, understandings of the state in such conceptualisations frequently remain undefined and under-theorised.

This is not to say that efforts have not been made to correct this state of affairs. There are two slightly contrasting sets of literature that address the connection between informality and state. First, the works of Roy (2005, 2011) and Yiftachel (2009) have demonstrated that, far from being a sphere beyond the state, informality is a result of state practices. Their research has clearly illustrated the multiple ways in which states can strategically define and use informality to advance their own goals. Second, also focusing on the state and informality, various scholars (Devlin, 2011; Fourchard, 2011; Lindell, 2008) have scrutinised the various ways in which multiple, heterogeneous state actors and institutions affect urban processes in not quite so concerted manners that go well beyond laws and regulations. Pinpointing the strategic ways in which states affect informality, the first group of authors focuses on coherent actions and effects of state actions that follow defined logics even when expressed in de-centralised, particularised forms. In contrast, the second group provides a more nuanced analysis exploring disjointed practices of state actors and their vital involvement in and consequences for informal practices. From this perspective, the state emerges as much messier and more incoherent (see Hilbrandt et al., in review).

Contrasting these two perspectives with our three cases, it turned out that only the latter perspective – adopting a more nuanced understanding of the state – enabled our comparison. Seeking to explore the understandings of the state underlying this perspective, we engaged with the literature on the everyday geographies of states (Corbridge et al., 2005; Nugent, 2007; Painter, 2006). Through ethnographic investigations of everyday state practices, scholars have developed views of states as porous apparatuses articulating the blurriness of the state–society boundary and the contradictions inherent to the various state institutions, actors and documents.

By relying on understandings of state institutions as porous apparatuses, we not only brought our three states onto the same conceptual plane but also avoided typical North–South categorisations of states. This proved a vital manoeuvre for the commensurability of the cases under investigation. Based on the assumption of the porosity of states as the common thread capable of bringing cross-national comparison, we narrowed our analysis to precisely the kinds of informalities that result from such porosity.

Our comparative propositions emerged as we discussed and identified commonalities in the ways the porous nature of the state in our three cases resulted in informal practices. These propositions not only held true across the three cases, but also provided insights into the ways in which instances of informality were revealed in the three cities. The first proposition was: informal practices are inherent to the existence of legal systems. Processes related to the production, interpretation and enactment of laws are necessarily ambiguous and, therefore, inevitably spur multiple informal practices (see also Samson, this issue). In all three cities, divergent interpretations of legal terms, the inability or unwillingness to enforce laws, the imaginative use of loopholes within existing regulations and contradictions among regulations provided scope for informal practices. Notably, these were not the result of a failure of state institutions but a necessary condition of their nature. In Berlin, while living in allotment gardens is governed through strict state regulations, the ability to create ambiguities through multiple interpretations of these regulations has hindered their enforcement. Businesses providing car parking in private lots in Tallinn have skilfully used loopholes within existing laws in order to prevent the lots from being closed. In Bafatá, multiple contracts between state institutions and the city’s water operator contradict national water regulations.

The second comparative proposition is that informal practices are inherent to the diverse interests, rationalities and ways of acting undertaken by different state institutions. States are intricate assemblages, which include multiple institutions working at different levels and in different sectors. These elements within the state, or even outside but acting for the state, pursue different aims, have different interests and agendas and follow discrepant practices, which inevitably result in informal practices. In all three cases, these contradictions between institutions translated into informal practices. Differences in interests between different levels of institutions with different jurisdiction over parking in Tallinn explained the emergence of legal and institutional voids that resulted in multiple instances of informality. Also in Bafatá, conflicting interests between various state departments translated into contradictory and ambiguous approaches to tax-exemption for the water operator, which included a multiplicity of practices in the informal domain. In Berlin, the responsibility for supervising allotment gardens has been transferred to associations which, incorporating several ‘residents’ or neighbours, are unwilling to enforce regulations.

Finally, the third comparative proposition affirms that conflicts between state regulations and alternative norms guiding everyday practices highlight the existence of alternative sources of formality and legitimacy. As states strive to expand their remits, they collide with prevailing and accepted institutions and social relations. Informal practices may constitute means to evade state rationalities. These conflicts emerged in all three cities researched. The fact that inhabiting allotment gardens in Berlin, parking in private lots that escape municipal regulations in Tallinn, and using water at no cost in Bafatá had become accepted practices in these cities clearly complicated the efforts of different state actors and institutions to govern these practices. Social norms often turn out to be stronger than state-provided frameworks in defining ‘formality’. In Bafatá, efforts to impose strict cost-recovery measures with the assistance of water meters are being challenged by practices related to the sharing of water ingrained in societal relations. In Berlin, attempts to prevent permanent living in allotment gardens are also being undermined by social interactions that accept and protect such practices. Finally, in the case of Tallinn, prevailing norms among drivers connected with the need to increase the number of parking spaces are jeopardising local institutional efforts to regulate private businesses that provide parking in the city.

These three comparative propositions do not only hold across the different cases and form useful conceptual tools to investigate informal practices, they also illustrate that processes of informality constitute necessary components of the state. We thus highlighted how an account of informality within the state facilitates an understanding of the state that holds across diverse cities.

Conclusion

The key questions driving this article were: How are the ways we compare cities related to the ways we theorise cities? How can we compare cities and allow cases to shape the process of theory-making? In an attempt to answer these questions, this article has provided a brief insight into strategies of connecting cities that at first glance appear to be widely divergent.

Comparative urbanism debates have emphasised the need to take into account the diversity of cities across the globe and alerted us to the limitations of various abstract terms with histories in a limited number of places. However, there is still a lack of empirical examples illustrating the methodological and analytical details of such endeavours. Aiming to fill this gap, this article has proposed a strategy of comparison – a multi-sited individualising comparison – which, unlike single case study approaches and encompassing research strategies, enables conceptualisations from the viewpoint of multiple and diverse locations. The intricacies of this multi-sited individualising comparison approach were discussed with regard to Bafatá, Berlin and Tallinn.

Comparative propositions formulated through an iterative process allowed scope for a variety of urban experiences while determining common threads for our three cases. Through this comparison, we reaffirmed that the notion of informality remains excessively vague and continues to rely on insufficiently articulated understandings of the nature and operations of the state. This pushed us to better theorise the state. Once we adopted the notion of a porous state, we in turn focused our comparison on informality within the state. Yet we only arrived at this conclusion because conventional understandings of the state as rigid rather than porous would have seriously restricted the applicability of the concept of informality to our three different cases. All this is to suggest that there is much to be learned theoretically and conceptually from this comparative approach. Bringing individual research projects into comparative reflective interaction fosters initially unintended but meaningful insights. Such comparisons can occur at a distance and do not need expensive comparative protocols.

Even so, one critical question regarding the wider application of this method in urban research remains. Where can different researchers meet and enter in a conversation before committing to long-distance collaborations? In our case, even if most of the comparative exercise occurred through distant interactions, a common research network guided the beginning of our prolonged conversation. Furthermore, collaborators should share values, which in our case was a mutual interest in postcolonial literature. Finally, co-writing at a distance includes inevitable delays, multiple misunderstandings and subsequent revisions and comments. Thus, we encourage such collaborative comparisons, but also point out the challenges as well as frustrations that accompany distant and open-ended cooperations.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Jennifer Robinson and Suzanne Hall for their comments on an earlier version of this article and Will Gray for his time and effort committed to the article.

Funding

Tauri’s research was supported by Archimedes Foundation, by Estonian Research Council project IUT3-2 ‘Culturescapes in Transformation: Towards an Integrated Theory of Meaning Making’ and by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory, CECT).

Notes

Author biographies

Tauri Tuvikene works as a researcher at the Centre for Landscape and Culture in Tallinn University after receiving a doctorate in geography from University College London. His research topics include urban mobility, post-socialist cities and comparative urbanism on which he has recently published in the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.

Susana Neves Alves is a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography at University College London. Her research interests include emerging approaches to analysing and theorising African cities; ethnographic approaches, everyday practices and political ecology in analysis of urban infrastructure; and service provision in small secondary African cities.

Hanna Hilbrandt is an architect and urban geographer. Her PhD at the Open University explored the relationship of informal and regulatory practices in the everyday politics of governing the margins of Berlin. Her current research addresses the effects of regeneration processes on migration and urban exclusion.

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