Abstract

Drawing on rich ethnographic materials from longitudinal fieldwork on informal trading routes across Europe, Travelling with the Argonauts offers a new perspective in the research of the social space, reflecting on how best to investigate amorphous social phenomena, such as informal networks. Breaking with much current theory, the approach detailed here – the ‘Restricted Verticality Perspective’ – examines the horizontal dimension of social relations, and understands informality not as marginal or substandard, but as life itself, as the real experience of ordinary people.

Małgorzata Irek is a sociologist, anthropologist, and philologist. For over thirty years, she has researched social phenomena connected with the informal economy, including “irregular” migration, informal employment, and informal networks.

“I find it very hard to fault this book. It is wide-ranging, while also having a consistent set of related arguments, and ethnographically exceptionally rich… An interesting and original work in many dimensions.” · Robert Parkin, University of Oxford