Linguistic Underpinnings

In looking at people who participate in mobility out of necessity in the work place I find and extreme example in street vendors. Their work requires daily, weekly, and monthly shifts in where and how they conduct business, and changes in work settings are often unforeseeable and uncontrollable.

LOOKING AT STREET VENDORS

In countries around the world many people supplement or solely earn their income through selling a wide range of goods and services in the street or in other temporary settings. While in some countries regulations have forced vendors of most sorts out of the public eye, in many places vendors are thriving and providing a sensitive selection of goods to middle and lower class customers.

Around the world, a large and, perhaps, growing share of the informal workforce operates on streets, sidewalks, and public parks, outside any enclosed premise or covered workspace. This includes not only those street vendors who sell goods but also a broader range of street workers who sell services and produce or repair goods, such as: hairdressers or barbers; shoe shiners and shoe repairers; car window cleaners; tailors specializing in mending; bicycle, motorcycle, van, and truck mechanics; furniture makers; metal workers; garbage pickers and waste recyclers; head loaders and cart pullers; wandering minstrels, magicians, acrobats, and jugglers; beggars and mendicants. In Kenya, the Swahili term «Jua Kali» – which means «under the burning sun» – is the traditional name for the informal economy. This is because so many informal activities, not just street trade, take place in the open-air under the burning sun.(1)

In most countries except those where culture restricts women’s lives, women make up a large portion and play equal roles in the street vendor population. The exception is in Africa, where women though present in the informal markets, are more likely to be in high risk or unpleasant locations or situation that are either illegal, environmentally undesirable, depend on the sale of perishable goods, or working as employees under other vendors.

I borrow this excellent description of Street Vendors is borrowed from John C. Cross’s writings concerning informal politics:

Typology of Street Vendors

Street vendors are not a homogeneous group. They can be categorized or grouped according
to e.g. what types of goods they sell, where they trade, and from what type of premise as well as
by their employment status, as indicated below. Also, for some street vending is full-time primary
work; for others it is a part-time secondary job.

Types of Goods: What do They Sell?
Foodstuffs: fruit and vegetables Cigarettes and matches
Cooked food Newspapers and magazines
Snacks and soft drinks Manufactured goods
Candies and sweets Second-hand goods
Ice cream and popsicles

Location of Work: Where Do They Trade?
System of open-air markets in designated Railway stations, subway stations,
areas on designated days bus stops/lorry stations
Concentrations of vendors in particular areas: Construction sites
central business district or residential Sports complexes
neighborhoods Home
Street corners or sidewalks

Type of Premise: From What Do They Vend?
Baskets or bowls placed on the ground Bicycle
or carried on the head or body Wheeled push-carts
Mats or cloths spread on the ground Wheeled stalls with display cases
Stool or table Porch-front or window display
Pole over shoulder Fixed shed, stall, or kiosk

Employment Status: Are They Independent or Dependent?
Independent self-employed: with and Semi-dependent workers:
without employees e.g. commission agents
Dependent employees: paid workers for other
street vendors or for wholesale/retail traders

The Issues street vendors deal with are relatively uniform. In 1995, representatives from street vendor associations and activists, lawyers, and researchers working with street vendors from 11 cities around the world met at the Bellagio International Declaration of Street Vendors in Bellagio, Italy to form an international alliance (now called StreetNet) of street vendor associations and of organizations working with street vendors. The founders of the network drafted the Bellagio International Declaration of Street Vendors. The Bellagio Declaration identifies the following common problems of street vendors around the world:

• No Legal Status, No Right to Vend
• Lack of Space or Poor Location
• Restrictions on Licensing, Costs of Regulation
• Harassment, Bribes, Confiscation, and Evictions
• Lack of Services and Infrastructure
• Lack of Representation or Voice

The Declaration urged national governments to incorporate street vendors in economic policies relating to trade, financial policies relating to micro-entrepreneurs, and social policies relating to the working poor. The Declaration also urges city governments to incorporate street vendors in urban planning processes and urban policies and to promote institutional mechanisms for street vendor associations to voice grievances, make demands, and resolve disputes with other urban stakeholders.(2)

While caught up in fulgurations of government and market, it is interesting to note that there is a sort of equilibrium to be established within the shifting space and market street vendors occupy. Street vendors reside within a pattern of what I think of as “small world migration”- a phrase I’ve concocted to describe that significant travel and exposure to physical and sensory relocation is taking place, but to express that this form of mobility is also reined within a more limited distance than some of the other workplace mobility I will explore. It is certainly not the most static of work place mobility, as I will explore displacement and mobility in intimate and closed spaces in a post to come.

1. John C. Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City, Stanford, California, Stanford University Press.1973

2.
Source: Bellagio International Declaration of Street Vendorsdrafted by founding members from 11 countries of the inter- national alliance of street vendors, StreetNet, at a meeting in Bellagio, Italy, 1995.