Ana Maria Vargas Falla

Debattinlägg: " Utan stöd utifrån är den fred som var så nära plötsligt mycket långt borta igen. " I likhet med dagarna efter Brexit är många i Colombia nu bedrövade, arga och kan inte riktigt ta till sig vad utfallet av söndagens folkomröstning innebär för dem. Det skriver Torsten Krause och Ana Maria Vargas, forskare vid Lunds universitet. Natten mot igår demonstrerade hundratusentals människor i Colombia för ett fortsatt eldupphör mellan regeringen och Farc gerillan. Bild: Fernando Vergara Under de över 50 år striderna pågått mellan den colombianska regeringen och Farc gerillan har knarkhandel, kidnappningar och brott mot de mänskliga rättigheterna tillhört vardagen. Omkring 200 000 personer har dött under konflikten som också resulterat i 6 miljoner internflyktingar. Många medlingsförsök har ägt rum men aldrig har en fred varit så nära som nu. Villkoret för fredsavtalet, som slöts efter fyra år av förhandlingar, var att det skulle godkännas i en folkomröstning. Eftersom såväl Farc som regeringen var nöjda sågs folkomröstningen mest som en formalitet. Opinionsmätningarna visade på en seger för ja-sidan med 20 procent. Det var alltså ett helt oväntat scenario som omvärlden vaknade upp till i måndags morse när det stod klart att nej-sidan vunnit med 50,2 procent. I likhet med dagarna efter Brexit omröstningen är många i Colombia nu bedrövade och arga och kan inte riktigt ta till sig vad det kommer att innebära för dem.

"Using the concepts of social norms and social reality, this chapter explores why legal reforms that aimed to facilitate the formalization of informal workers have largely failed to influence vulnerable groups in developing countries. It explores the use of legal reforms in order to achieve development and poverty reduction. Using empirical material from a qualitative study conducted in Colombia among a group of internally displaced people engaged in small economic activities, as well as quantitative data from national statistical surveys, this chapter illustrates that there is an overestimation of the impact of legal norms in the decision of people to work in the informal economy. In contrast to the legalist approach supported by international organizations, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, this research confirm the thesis that social norms and informal institutions play a crucial role for this type of small entrepreneurs
The case studied describes the situation of a group of victims of war in Colombia who were displaced from rural areas and were engaged in the informal economy upon arrival to the cities, most of them as street vendors, domestic workers, and small entrepreneurs. For this group, society accepted informality and built a number of reasons, arguments, and social norms to legitimize not following the law. Internally displaced persons were not worried by the formalities of the law and instead regarded the informal economy as a legitimate source of income."

This article is primarily concerned with the way in which legal norms influence the lives of informal vendors in developing countries and explores alternative forms of state regulations to empower the vendors and support them to improve their economic condition. Using the economic empowerment theory, defended by Hernando De Soto (2000), this article will examine to what extent formalization - understood as gaining  legal status - can serve to empower informal vendors to increase their capital and economic development. Economic empowerment is understood here as the ability of people to improve their income and economic condition. The empirical material in this research is based on 169 interviews conducted among street vendors in the capital of Colombia, the city of Bogotá, during July and August of 2012. The city of Bogotá experienced an interesting shift in the regulation of street vending from drastic prohibition and frequent evictions (1998 to 2003) to alternative regulations that supported informal vendors (2004 to 2012). After looking at the impact of formalization on the economic empowerment of the vendors, this research was able to observe a small increase in the vendors’ income. However the increase was not because of access to formal credit, as stated by the theory of formalization but instead due to the ability of the vendors to improve their working conditions. This paper concludes that there is a potential for legal norms to become a tool of empowerment and poverty reduction, when formalization is seen as a way to improve the vendors’ lives. This research highlights the need for governments to look into legal norms from alternative and innovative approaches that use the law as a tool for development and not only as a tool of control.

Access to justice for disadvantaged groups continues to be a challenge in the World and in high income countries like Norway ethnic minorities and immigrants face more difficulties than other groups. This article discusses the problems that immigrants faced when trying to get legal advice Oslo, the capital of Norway. Based on fieldwork at the JussBuss, one of Oslo largest legal aid office run by law students, we were able to identify different barriers in access to justice for immigrants. At the JussBuss immigrants can access legal aid and legal counseling at no cost; however most of the advice is delivered through self-help. Clients are provided with verbal advice and they have to make the legal claims by themselves. Using the concept of vulnerability developed by Martha Fineman, we were able to illustrate that immigrants are not vulnerable because of their condition as being immigrants per se but because of the individual limitations that hinders them to understand the new legal culture of Norway. Thus, self-help is limited in its approach to empower immigrants because the complexities of the new legal system often requires for people to use special legal argumentation in order to effectively protect their rights.

With around 3 million affected people, Colombia has the second highest number of internal displaced persons (IDPs) in the world after Sudan (ACNUR 2007). They are basically refugees inside their own country. One of the main problems of IDPs living in the cities is the difficulty to generate income that allows them to satisfy their basic needs. Looking to solve this problem, the government of Colombia implemented a program to support IDPs to start small businesses so that they can provide for themselves. The issue under focus in this research states: what is the role of legal empowerment in the policy of income generation for IDPs in Colombia?
Legal empowerment is a practical concept and depends on its concrete application. For that reason I have made a case study. I have analyzed the program history and I also conducted semi-structured interviews with participants of this program, to obtain a complete understanding of how legal empowerment operates in development programs.
After conducting this study I conclude that legal empowerment can contribute to people’s freedom, but it can also undermine it. It can enhance people’s freedoms when it fosters effective access to justice to protect fundamental rights, as I will show with the use of tutela in Colombia. However, legal empowerment can also be perceived as unnecessary, expensive and useless when trying to formalize the businesses of poor people working inside the informal economy.

Möjligheten för kubaner att resa utomlands är en viktig symbolfråga och en av de rättigheter som det kubanska folket efterfrågat. Att fler reformer genomförs på Kuba den närmaste tiden är, som vi ser det, självklart. Utvecklingen går inte att skruva tillbaka.
Sannolikt är resereformen bara början på ett liberalare Kuba. Det kommer ytterligare att aktualiseras när de som styrt landet sedan revolutionen 1959 måste ersättas inom de närmaste åren.
De reformer som skedde innan den nya resereformen antogs fokuserade på ekonomisk liberalism. Resereformen är ett trendbrott genom att den fokuserar på medborgerliga rättigheter. Förhoppningsvis är det ett steg på vägen också mot ökad åsiktsfrihet, pressfrihet och rätten att fritt välja politiska ledare.

Street vending is one of the most accessible occupations for many individuals living in poverty in today’s world. However, local governments argue about the need to formalize street vending in designated markets in order to control disorder and invasion of public space. This paper explores street vendors’ ideas and practices of resistance to local regulations that make illegal street vending. Drawing on field data from Bogotá (2012-2014), this research illustrates that street vendors regard livelihoods as ‘honest living’ and a way to survive. They rejected formalization and state control and claim their right to earn a livelihood in the streets. While they worked outside the formal regulations of the state, they organized their work based on a social practice they called “acreditar”. This practice translated into the social norm of “first come, first served with rights” and signals that people tend to respect the spots where vendors have displayed acts of ownership of on a regular basis. Contrary to urban development approaches that argue about state regulation and formalization of rights for the poor, this paper illustrates an alternative view about the use of public space based on self-regulation.

Flor works as street vendors, selling aromatic water, a kind of tea made from the infusion of different herbs and fruits. Because she only attended primary school, Flor had difficulties to find a job when she moved to the city. At the age of 69 and like most senior citizens in this country, Flor does not have a pension since she always worked informally. Instead, she hopes to continue working as street vendor as long as she can. Flor starts her day early in the morning when she goes to the farmers market and buys the equivalent to three dollars in herbs and fruits. She goes straight from the market to the 'vending zones' located in front of the hospital of Pescadito, where she has a tent she received from the government as part of a program to formalize street vendors. Inside the tent, there is a small stove, a large pot a table with some chairs for the costumers of Flor's business. She charges the equivalent to one quarter of US$ for a cup of tea, and from her sales she makes about ten dollars a day. Flor has worked vending tea in front of that hospital for about 10 years, but four years ago she was able to formalize her business and enter the vending zone, located only few meters away. Flor is happy to be working in the vending zones because as she said, 'here in the tents I have a roof that protects me from the sun and the rain'. However, there are rumours about the government being upset with the vendors for not following the process of formalization all the way. Flor thinks the government may come and take away the tents because vendors failed to achieve the goals of formalization. At her age Flor does not understand what the goals of formalization are. She is better off in the vending zones, but the government wants to get ride of the vendors and take away the tents. Working as a street vendor is a way for Flor to support herself and in her words, a way to 'bring food to the table'. I met Flor in one of my first visits to a formalization program called 'transitional vending zones' in the city of Bogotá. Vendors refer to this program as the tents, the vending zones, or the formalization zones. Like Flor, most of the vendors I met appreciated the legal status that followed after the formalization of their businesses because now they were not exposed to police harassment or confiscations. They also enjoyed shelter from harsh weather conditions because in the zones, a green tarpaulin protected them from the rain and the sun. The transitional zones appeared as an empowering public policy that enabled vendors to work under better conditions. Yet, Flor was worried about the government dismantling the tents because vendors were not able to follow the formalization process. I wondered what the outcomes of formalization were and why vendors and policy makers seemed to have different expectations about the process of formalization. Furthermore, understanding whether and how street vendors could improve their working conditions after formalization in the vending zones were some of the question that inspired this research. In most cities in the world, street vendors face exclusion, poverty and harsh working conditions due to laws that criminalize their work (Austin, 1993; Bromley, 2000; Crossa, 2009). While street vendors contribute to the economy and constitute an emerging frontier for poverty reduction strategies at the bottom of the economic pyramid, they often work under irregular legal status. Vendors are considered as pre-modern, a nuisance and a source of congestion (Meneses-Reyes, 2013). Formalization, understood as gaining legal status to develop their businesses, is the mainstream policy to regulate the work of street vendors in most cities in the

Millions of people worldwide work outside the law as street vendors in order to earn a living. However, they often work in fear of police evictions and confiscations since their work is in many places considered illegal. In this context, formalization (steps towards legalization) is often portrayed as a model for empowerment that allows poor street vendors to improve their well-being. Formalization, as a model to manage street vending, is widely promoted by various international development organizations. While important, studies of formalization show that street vendors often resist state control, and the majority continues to work outside the law.
The main research question guiding this study is: how does formalization of street vendors in Bogotá enable and/or hinder their well-being? To examine this question, this study uses an ethnographic approach and the concept of social control within the tradition of sociology of law. The data for this study was collected through ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2012 and 2014 in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. Three groups were studied: vendors within the transitional zones (a formalization program), two rickshaw driver associations, and itinerant ice cream vendors.
The main findings illustrate that although street vendors work outside the law, they do not operate in a state of chaos or anarchy. Quite the opposite, law and other forms of social control are present in their work. These practices of control often affect their well-being. Despite harsh working conditions, well-being according to them means more than economic survival, and often, street vendors strive to improve their lives and gain independence in their work.
Another finding is that formalization is often directed toward the more established vendors and does not account for the fact that new individuals arrive on the streets every day trying to make a living. Often, the most vulnerable groups (immigrants, women, the newly unemployed) lack the time and knowledge to formalize or simply are not targeted in formalization programs. Without a deep understanding of how social control already operates, the state runs the risk of developing formalization initiatives that undermine the well-being of the most vulnerable groups. Thus, this study of everyday forms of social control provides empirically based insights into the ways law influences the lives of those working outside the law.