Author's note: I gratefully acknowledge the support and assistance of Dr. Leila Bisharat, Principal Investigator of the Amman Health and Population Assessments; Dr. Hisham Zagha, Director of the Urban Development Department in Amman; and the staff of the Population Affairs Division of the UDD. Without them, this research would not have taken place. I would also like to thank Peter Doan, Nathan Browne, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on the various drafts of this article.

¹ Janice, Perlman, The Myth of Marginality: Urban Poverty and Politics in Rio De Janeiro (Berkeley, Calif., 1976).Google Scholar

² Alejandro, Portes and John, Walton, Labor, Class and the International System (Orlando, Fl., 1981).Google Scholar

³ Jane, Hacker, Modern Amman–A Social Study (Durham, Eng., 1960), pp. 61–62.Google Scholar

⁴ Dept. of Statistics, Annual Statistical Yearbook of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: Amman 1950–1966 (Amman, 1966);Google ScholarHacker, , Modern Amman, pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

⁵ Nurit, Kliot and Arnon, Soffer, “The Emergence of a Metropolitan Core Area in a New State: The Case of Jordan,” Asian and African Studies, 20, 2 (07 1986).Google Scholar

⁶ Naseer, Aruri and Samih, Farsoun, “Palestinian Communities and Arab Host Countries,” in Khalil, Nakhleh and Elia, Zureik, eds., The Sociology of the Palestinians (New York, 1980), p. 117.Google Scholar

⁷ Peter, Gubser, Jordan: Crossroads of Middle Eastern Events (Boulder, Colo., 1983), p. 26.Google Scholar

⁸ Avi, Plascov, The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan: 1948–1957 (Totowa, N.J., 1981), p. 16.Google Scholar

⁹ lbid.; Peter, Dodd and Halim, Barakat, “River Without Bridges: A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Palestinian Arab Refugees,” Institute for Palestine Studies (Beirut, 1969);Google ScholarIan, Seccombe, “Labour Emigration Policies and Economic Development in Jordan: From Unemployment to Labour Shortage,” in Bichara, Khader and Adnan, Badran, eds., The Economic Development of Jordan (London, 1987);Google ScholarCharles, B. Keely and Bassem, Saket, “Jordanian Migrant Workers in the Arab Region: A Case Study of Consequences for Labor Supplying Countries”, The Middle East Journal, 38, 4 (Autumn 1984).Google Scholar

¹⁰ I refer here to both refugees and migrants since many West Bankers came to Amman between 1948 and 1967 in search of employment. They are not technically refugees, but the economic stagnation of the West Bank was indirectly a result of the war of 1948 and subsequent Jordanian policy.

¹¹ Rosemary, Sayigh, “Palestinians in Camps: The New Reality, 1948–1965,” in Talal, Asad and Roger, Owen, eds. Sociology of “Developing Societies”: The Middle East (London, 1983).Google Scholar

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¹³ See Bryan, S. Turner, Marx and the End of Orientalism (London, 1978);Google ScholarJames, Bill, “Class Analysis and the Dialectics of Modernization in the Middle East”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 3 (1972), 417–34 for recent versions of the debate.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Portes, Castells, and Benton, , The Informal Economy, pp. 20–25. Studies also document a return to informal employment relations as a result of oppressive government policy regulating access to jobs and firms in the formal sectorGoogle Scholar (see Hernando, de Soto, The Other Path: the Invisible Revolution in the Third World [New York, 1989]).Google Scholar

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 31.

¹⁶ Urban Development Department (UDD), Health and Population in Squatter Areas of Amman: A Reassessment after Four Years of Upgrading (Amman, 1986).

¹⁷ These four areas were the first to undergo a squatter area upgrading project implemented by the Amman Municipality. It entailed the regularization of tenure, the provision of public services, and the construction of community facilities, The areas were selected for project reasons and are not representative of uncontrolled settlements in Amman; they are, however, representative of refugee settlements.

¹⁸ Research Triangle Institute (RTI), Jordan: Urban Development Assessment (Raleigh, N.C., 1985).

¹⁹ Jofeh is one of the case studies included in HABITAT, Survey of Slum and Squatter Settlements, vol. 1 (Dublin, 1982), pp. 88–89; it includes a brief historical description.

²⁰ See William, Armstrong and McGee, T. G., Theatres of Accumulation: Studies in Asian and Latin American Urbanization (London and New York, 1985), p. 13, for a concise summary of the debate over the conceptualization of the informal sector; also Portes and Walton, Labor, Class, and the International System.Google Scholar

²¹ Alejandro, Portes and Saskia, Sassen-Koob, “Making it Underground: The Western Informal Sector,” American Journal of Sociology, 93, 1 (1987), 40.Google Scholar

²² To my knowledge, neither Portes nor Bromley have referred to this group as a separate class position. In this study, it is assumed that their ownership of capital sets them apart.

²³ Raymond, Bromley and Christopher, Birkbeck, “Urban Economy and Employment: A Framework for Analyzing the Economic Activities of the Urban Poor under Peripheral Capitalism,” in Michael, Pacione, ed., The Geography of the Third World: Progress and Prospect (London, 1988), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

²⁴ See Rebecca, Miles Doan, “Class and Family Structure: A Study of Child Nutritional Status in Four Urban Settlements in Amman, Jordan” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1988) for greater detail on the measurement of class.Google Scholar

²⁵ Alison, MacEwen-Scott, “Who are the Self-Employed?,” in Bromley, R. and Gerry, C. eds., Casual Work and Poverty in Third World Cities (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

²⁶ The survey did not specifically ask whether or not the petty traders were licensed. The experience of those involved in the squatter area upgrading project however suggests that before the project, none of the petty traders were licensed. As a result of the project, every attempt was made to license them all; how successful this was remains to be seen.

²⁷ At the time of the survey, one Jordanian dinar was worth approximately $2.50.

²⁸ By the time of the 1985 survey and as a result of the municipality's upgrading project, living conditions in the uncontrolled settlements in this study had vastly improved and residents were in the process of buying their plot of land at reasonable rates. Those included in the survey are therefore those who chose to remain in the areas rather than to move to temporary shelter elsewhere or to buy into one of the low-income housing schemes located on the outskirts of the city.

²⁹ Larissa, Lomnitz, “Mechanisms of Articulation between Shantytown Settlers and the Urban System,” Urban Anthropology 7–8 (1978–1979), 185.Google Scholar

³⁰ Portes, , Castells, , and Benton, , Informal Economy, p. 299.Google Scholar

³¹ Alejandro, Portes and Lauren, Benton, “Industrial Development and Labor Absorption”, Population and Development Review 10, 4 (1984), 597–98.Google Scholar

³² Middle East Economic Digest, Jordan (London, 1980), pp. 29–30.Google Scholar

³³ The survey did not specifically ask respondents why they “chose” a job in the informal sector, but detailed information is available on both individual and household income and can be obtained from the author.

³⁴ Portes, , Castells, , and Benton, , Informal Economy, p. 301.Google Scholar

³⁵ Unless otherwise noted, all of the macroeconomic information for this section was taken from the collection of papers compiled by Khader, and Badran, , The Economic Development of Jordan, and from the Economist Intelligence Unit Quarterly Economic Review of Jordan (London, 1985).Google Scholar

³⁶ UDD, A Baseline Health and Population Assessment for the Upgrading Areas of Amman (Amman, 1982).

³⁷ Portes, and Sassen-Koob, , “Making it Underground”; Lourdes, Beneria and Martha, Roldan, The Crossroads of Class and Gender: Industrial Homework, Subcontracting, and Household Dynamics in Mexico City (Chicago, 1987).Google Scholar

³⁸ See Doan, “Class and Family Structure,” for the write-up of one such attempt.