Selling hope on credit: women's livelihoods, debt and the production of urban informality in Brazil

ABSTRACT The paper analyses the embeddedness of informality in the city and ambiguities among low-income families around what constitutes the formal and informal in the arenas of housing, lottery betting and labour. Through ethnography of women navigating various dimensions of informality in Salvador, Brazil, the paper portrays the gendered circumstances and vulnerabilities of making a living and maintaining a home in peripheral neighbourhoods in the city. Specifically, the paper examines the implications of debt on women’s lives and life choices in the informal city. The paper demonstrates that formality was often beyond their means and aspirations whereas many informal practices, including credit practices, enable life to continue by providing a meagre income and the opportunity to avoid expenses such as rent and utility bills. Yet these same practices keep women on the margins of the city and the formal economy. Marginality engenders vulnerability, exacerbated during periods of turbulence as seen in the current context of Brazil’s economic downturn and struggle to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper highlights state attempts and failures to reduce informality and sheds light on the production and persistence of informal housing, services and work in the city.