Street Vending in the Neoliberal City

A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a Marginalized Economy

Kristina Graaff, Noa Ha, Kristina Graaff, Noa Ha

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781785335129, 9781782388340
• eBook ISBN: 9781782388357
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Examining street vending as a global, urban, and informalized practice found both in the Global North and Global South, this volume presents contributions from international scholars working in cities as diverse as Berlin, Dhaka, New York City, Los Angeles, Calcutta, Rio de Janeiro, and Mexico City. The aim of this global approach is to repudiate the assumption that street vending is usually carried out in the Southern hemisphere and to reveal how it also represents an essential—and constantly growing—economic practice in urban centers of the Global North. Although street vending activities vary due to local specificities, this anthology illustrates how these urban practices can also reveal global ties and developments.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Figures
• Introduction — Street Vending in the Neoliberal City: A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a Marginalized Economy
• Part I — Responding to Urban and Global Neoliberal Policies
• Chapter 1 — Flexible Families: Latina/o Food Vending in Brooklyn, New York
• Chapter 2 — Street Vending and the Politics of Space in New York City
• Chapter 3 — Creative Resistance: The Case of Mexico City's Street Artisans and Vendors
• Part II — Street Vending and Ethnicity
• Chapter 4 — Metropolitan Informality and Racialization: Street Vending in Berlin's Historical Center
• Chapter 5 — Selling Memory and Nostalgia in the Barrio: Mexican and Central American Women (Re)Create Street Vending Spaces in Los Angeles
• Chapter 6 — Ethnic Contestations over African American Fiction: The Street Vending of Street Literature in New York City
• Part III — The Spatial Mobility of Urban Street Vending
• Chapter 7 — The Urbanism of Los Angeles Street Vending
• Chapter 8 — Selling in Insecurity, Living with Violence: Eviction Drives against Street Vendors in Dhaka and the Informal Politics of Exploitation
• Chapter 9 — The Street Vendors Act and Pedestrianism in India: A Reading of the Archival Politics of the Calcutta Hawker Sangram Committee
• Part IV — Historical Accounts of Street Vending
• Chapter 10 — Street Vending, Political Activism, and Community Building in African American History: The Case of Harlem
• Chapter 11 — The Roots of Street Commerce Regulation in the Urban Slave Society of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Index