THIRD ASIAN STUDIES COLLOQUIUM
Organized Informality and Suitcase Trading in the Pearl River Delta Region
Speaker: Dr. Eva Hung
Associate Professor, Department of Social Science
Date: 30 November 2017 (Thursday)
Time: 2:30 p.m. Venue: D406
Abstract: Suitcase trade is a very common activity along state borders in Asia. Existing scholarship has often viewed such suitcase trade as locally embedded activities characterized by informality. We contend that this perception underestimates the diversity and complexity of suitcase trade. We illustrate this with a case study of the Pearl River Delta region of southern China, where thousands of suitcase traders carry goods across the borders between mainland China and its two Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macao. Several patterns of operation run in parallel, ranging from petty traders working alone to highly organised group operators. While each individual transaction is small scale and based on informal networks, the entire chain of operations is run by syndicates that are highly organised, commercial, with well-defined divisions of labor, and on a large scale. We describe such a combination of organisational competence and informal networks as “organised informality”. The concept allows us to expand the analytical horizon to cover those cross border exchanges that incorporate modern commercial practices in otherwise non-formal settings. It also bridges the oft-criticized categories of the formal-informal and licit-illicit dichotomy.
