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Navigating the Grey Areas

The Informal Economy in Jamaica

Navigating the Grey Areas cover

Navigating the Grey Areas

The Informal Economy in Jamaica

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Pre-order. Available 04 Mar 2027
$144.00 RRP $180.00 Website price saving $36.00 (20%)

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Description

While informality is often seen as marginal or illegal, in Jamaica it functions as a critical survival strategy that sustains livelihoods and provides social protections where the state has retreated. Jamaica's informal economy has developed and persisted in the face of shifting global and domestic pressures. Tracing the historical trajectory from colonial dependency to neoliberal restructuring, Navigating the Grey Areas: The Informal Economy in Jamaica highlights how internal governance challenges and external pressures from international financial institutions have constrained state capacity, deepened inequality, and reinforced reliance on informal networks. Through case studies and sectoral analysis, it demonstrates the resilience and adaptability of informal actors, who create their own systems of support and community-based protections. Rather than treating informality as a problem to be eliminated, Navigating the Grey Areas contends that it is a central component of Jamaica's political economy, one that both reveals the limits of state governance and underscores the creativity and agency of its people.

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Table of Contents

PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS AND FRAMEWORKS
1: Navigating the Grey Areas
2: Informal Economies, Neoliberalism, and Peripheral Capitalism
PART TWO: STRUCTURES AND TRANSFORMATIONS
3: Globalization, Development, and the Jamaican State
4: Community-Based Development, Clientelism, and Liberalized Markets
PART THREE: CASE STUDIES
5: Higglers, Informal Commercial Importers, and Semi-formal Entrepreneurialism
6: Cooperative Rastafari Economies
7: Informal Cultural Entrepreneurs in the Tourism Sector
CONCLUSION
8: The Informal Economy in Jamaica: Implications for Economic Development
References

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published 04 Mar 2027
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Pages 256
ISBN 9781978764279
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Illustrations 6 tables
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

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