‘Give me some cognac and I’ll help you’: informal practices of land use in the suburbs of Irkutsk

The ever more populated suburbs of Irkutsk are a unique space in which state regulation tends to zero, and there come problems related to distribution of key resources and to the necessity to make communication predictable. In such a context, a great number of informal economic practices emerge that involve all of the suburban actors, including state bodies. The article presents informal practices of using land - as discussed on some web forums - as one of the key resources in the suburbs. It contains a list of actions that ignore contract law in terms of purchasing, selling, and using land in the suburbs, and of actors involved in these processes; it as well shows the role of social media in the reproduction of informal land use practices. The web forums are considered as one of the mechanisms of integrating people who resettle in the area of suburban ‘frontier’, in the local informal networks, and at the same time as a way of reducing risks in transactions. The article also gives examples of how state bodies get involved in the informal networks in relation to the ‘suburban’ land use and of related risks. It describes the mechanisms of group interaction in the context of weak formal regulation and illustrates the ways of resolving conflicts between local administrations and suburban dwellers. The shift in the interaction between ‘the state’ and individuals towards the informal leads to the administration itself - with no legal mechanisms at its disposal to receive rent and to control transactions otherwise - becoming integrated into the informal networks and trying to put these under control. This, in turn, enhances the unpredictability of such transactions for suburban dwellers who seek to reduce risks via building informal relationships with local administrations with the help of numerous mediators and through organizing groups for protection of their interests.

Keywords

Authors

References