JONGHAK KIM

PhD Student

Research Title: Study of State-Society Negotiation Shaping Urban Informality in Hanoi, Vietnam
Research Group: Politics, Economies And Space (PEAS)
Thesis Advisor: Dr Shaun Teo

Cities have long been a key battleground between urban authorities and actors engaged in the informal sector. Such encounters are particularly prevalent in cities of the Global South, prompting longstanding interest in critical urban geography on how urban informality should be comprehended, perceived, and engaged with.

My research takes interest in the politics of urban informality in Hanoi. How are claims on land use negotiated between the social and the state agents? How and to what extent do civil society organizations have an influence in these negotiations? How are these negotiations shaped by prevailing institutions? Such questions are important insofar as the goal is to extend extant understandings on informal urban governance in cities of the global South which have tended to draw on punitive and overly critical accounts.

In particular, I am interested in the ways through which marginalized and disenfranchised communities are able to secure their ‘right to stay put’ and extend their political claims on the city. In this sense, my research aims to delineate state-society relationships germane to urban informality and its contribution to institutional innovation that allows the preservation and enfranchisement of the informal sector.