BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:St Catharine's Political Economy Seminar Series: Kate Meagher - Ka
 te Meagher\, London School of Economics
DTSTART:20151014T170000Z
DTEND:20151014T183000Z
UID:TALK60974@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Philippa Millerchip
DESCRIPTION:Speaker\nKate Meagher is an Associate Professor in Development
  Studies at the Department of International Development\, London School of
  Economics. She has a D.Phil in Sociology from Oxford\, and lectured in ru
 ral sociology at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria from 1991-1997. She ha
 s engaged in extensive theoretical and field research on various aspects o
 f African informal economies\, with a particular focus on Nigeria\, and ha
 s published widely on cross-border trade and regional integration\, rural 
 and urban informal activities\, non-state security groups\, and informal e
 conomic governance in Africa.  Her research interests include informal ins
 titutions and social networks\, inclusive economies\, the comparative stud
 y of informal economies within and beyond Africa\, religion and economic i
 nformality\, hybrid governance\, youth unemployment and the politics of in
 formality.  She is the author of Identity Economics:  \nSocial Networks an
 d the Informal Economy in Nigeria (James Currey\, 2010) and is currently i
 nvolved in research on religious conflict and informal enterprise in north
 ern Nigeria.\n\nTalk Overview:\nKate Meagher will discuss the proposition 
 that rising poverty\, inequality and expanding informal economies across m
 uch of Africa have raised concerns about the social and political risks of
  entrenched austerity policies. An earlier emphasis on rolling back the st
 ate has been replaced by a concern to rebuild the social contract between 
 state and society by taxing large informal economies to fund basic social 
 services. This paper challenges the notion that taxing the informal econom
 y provides a mechanism for rebuilding the social contract in contemporary 
 African countries. It highlights important weaknesses in the taxation and 
 informality literature\, relating to a tendency to gloss over historical d
 ifferences in the role of taxation in state formation\, and adherence to a
  fiscally essentialist and undifferentiated notion of the informal economy
 . Drawing on fieldwork in northern Nigeria\, the paper considers how taxat
 ion of informal activities affects inter-group and state-society relations
  in a context of socially divided societies with high levels of poverty. T
 he research focuses on a range of common informal activities\, including m
 otorcycle taxis\, tyre traders\, pepper soup producers\, butchers and tail
 ors\, with a focus on experiences of and attitudes to taxation\, its impli
 cations for livelihoods and social solidarity\, and the effect of taxation
  on relations with the state. \nDrawing attention to key social divisions 
 within the informal economy\, the paper focuses on how indigeneity\, relig
 ion and gender affect the ability of taxation to strengthen public account
 ability\, and highlights the potential for taxation of the informal econom
 y to exacerbate social tensions within poor and divided societies.
LOCATION:McGrath\, St Catharine's College
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR