Geography of Informal Relations and Informal Labour

This paper contributes to a recent debate in Replika about the signifi cance of József Böröcz’s paper “Kistársadalom – kiskapuk” (Informality Rules), published originally in 2000 and republished in 2019 (for a related English writing see his ‘Informality rules’, also published in 2000). Th is article argues that the conceptualization of informality according to Böröcz sees informality not only as a social relation, but also as a geographical one which makes it relevant for geographical research. First, the paper off ers an overview of Hungarian human geographical literature of the past 40 years and shows that the topic of informality as a multi-scalar relation is largely missing from the analysis of Hungarian society. Second, the article calls for new understandings of Hungarian geographical relations of past decades which take into account the decisive role informality plays in our society. Based on the perspective of the sociology of scientifi c knowledge, it is shown throughout the paper why informal relations and informal labour were not in the focus of Hungarian human geography in recent decades. Th erefore, research questions for further scrutiny are asked, based on the conceptualization of Böröcz’s original paper.