Antípoda. Revista de Antropología y Arqueología

Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol | eISSN 2011-4273 | ISSN 1900-5407

Complications of the Legal and the Informal: “Business”, a Conceptual Proposal

No. 17 (2013-07-01)
  • Johanna Parra
https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda17.2013.11

Abstract

This article is a theoretical reflection based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork on the street markets of the Mexican capital. It examines the uses of the categories “illegal” and “informal” and the limitations these legal and economic definitions imply for the anthropological study of economy and society in the case of the street merchants of Mexico City. We present the concept of “Business” as a conceptual construction that helps in understanding this world.

Keywords: informal, illegal, Mexico, markets, economic anthropology