Anthropological Perspectives on the Concepts of Dualism, the Informal Sector, and Marginality in Developing Urban Economies

Abstract

Fieldwork in Bogota is used to evaluate the concepts of marginality and the informal sector as tools for understanding the urban economy in developing countries. Each of these dualistic conceptualiza tions is helpful in directing attention to phenomena not ordinarily attended to by economists. As guides to policy, however, they tend to mislead by directing attention away from the diversity of such enterprises, their varying attractiveness to participants, their specific linkages to the rest of the economy, and the institutional arrangements and market structures which are their context.