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Redefining Street Vending as a Global Practice  

Review by Megan B. Hinrichsen 

 

Street Vending in the Neoliberal City: A Global Perspective on the Practices and Policies of a 

Marginalized Economy  

by Kristina Graaff and Noa Ha 

Berghahn Press, 2015 

 

In the increasingly urban landscape of the twenty-first century, cities are becoming centers of 
cultural interaction and settings in which the challenges of future human and economic 
development are writ large. In Street Vending in the Neoliberal City, the authors of the 
volume’s eleven chapters edited by Kristina Graaff and Noa Ha center on our increasingly 
urban lives and livelihoods though the lens of street vending. Scholars of urban life have a 
long history of interest in the broader “informal sector” of labor that includes activities like 
street vending. Broadly, street vending is typically cast as a traditional, or even regressive, 
economic activity of the developing world. The long-held assumption was that street vending 
would decline as countries in the Global South went through the process of “development.” In 
the modern industrialized context, labor is synonymous with full-time, stable, and regulated 
(formal) work. The authors in Street Vending in the Neoliberal City rebut this common 
conceptualization that sees street vending disappearing. Indeed, they recognize that street 
vending persists and is growing not only in the Global South, but in the “developed” world as 
well. 

 This volume is an analysis of street vending from an interdisciplinary and global perspective 
looking at the dynamics of this informal, and often marginalized, activity in the cities of New 
York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Calcutta, and Dhaka. The themes that 
emerge from this volume include urban planning as a hegemonic project that “[amplifies] 
structural discrimination (95),” the use and (re)claiming of urban space, strategies of 
resistance to urban planning projects that limit or criminalize street vending, and new 
challenges and barriers that street vendors must contend with in the contemporary world. 
Although focused on different vending activities among members of different ethnic groups in 
diverse urban settings, the chapters in this volume all add to the knowledge that street 
vending is precarious, urban spaces are contested, and that local lives are shaped by global 
developments. 



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Like other research focused on the use of urban space for informal activities, several chapters 
in this volume focus on urban planning and policies as hegemonic projects that discriminate 
against marginalized peoples. Patricia Acerbi, the author of the book’s final chapter, gives a 
historical view of this project in her chapter on street vending regulation in Rio de Janeiro. In 
the early twentieth century, policies of urban renewal authoritatively declared that street 
vending was a “backward” practice (245). Over a century later, the marginalization of street 
vending continues. Writing about contemporary Mexico City, Veronica Crossa portrays the 
rhetoric of revamping and revitalizing urban spaces by driving out vendors and artisans as a 
force of social erasure. Rather than addressing the socioeconomic issues that bring people to 
engage in informal labor, government policies “push them into spaces where they are less 
visible, not heard, smelled, and felt” (74). In Dhaka, Benjamin Etzold writes that street 
vendors face more overt forms of violence in addition to the “cultural violence of the 
hegemonic discourse” about street vending that adds legitimacy to discrimination against 
vendors (165). Not only is street vending declared illegal and forced removal of street vendors 
disguised as ensuring public security, but the people who make their living through vending 
are also made illegal and vulnerable to direct violence and discrimination. Other authors, such 
as Noa Ha’s chapter about vending in Berlin, also demonstrate that the regulation of street 
vending is complicit in the structural discrimination. These regulations, often under the guise 
of promoting safety and hygiene, mostly target people who are already marginalized in their 
societies. 

Another important theme that emerges from this volume is the use and (re)claiming of urban 
space. While street vendors across the world face the challenges of public declarations, 
policies, and scrutiny that further marginalize them, street vendors also engage in the act of 
using and claiming public space on their own. Chapters in this volume document these actions 
from above, and also from below. Laws and policies attempt to remake space. Street vendors 
do, too. In his chapter about a vendor advocacy group in New York City, Ryan Thomas Devlin 
demonstrates how the Street Vendor Project uses neoliberal discourses of self-reliance and 
entrepreneurialism to skillfully argue against restrictions placed on vendors. Devlin, however, 
notes that using the dominant discourse might reinforce the same structures they are 
challenging. Devlin writes that vendors in this group do not “value public space outright for its 
open and inclusive nature” but as a way for them to reach their individual goals in a capitalist 
society (56). Veronica Crossa’s chapter based in Mexico City goes against this approach. 
Vendors and artisans there made strides to prove that their neighborhood of Coyoacán is 
where “an alternative lifestyle is possible” (60). Despite the disparate approaches and 
contradictory narratives utilized by the vendors in each city, they are actively involved in 
remaking the case for their use of urban space. 

Both the hegemonic messages of urban planning and the contested use of urban space are well 
established lines of study. A contribution the authors of this volume make to take our 
understanding of informal street vending further is their documentation on the ongoing 
patterns of resistance that street vendors employ to protect themselves and claim their (rights 
to) space. One of the unique contributions of this volume is its focus on the United States 
where street vendors are involved in (re)claiming urban space through vending on their own 
terms.  In a chapter by Lorena Muñoz, immigrant street vendors in Los Angeles use informal 
economic opportunities to create a sense of place as they reproduce “vending landscapes that 
remind them of ‘back home’” (101). Also writing on Los Angeles, Kenny Cupers explains how 
the mobile strategies of street vending in this sprawling, car-based city not only allow vendors 
to adapt to the city but also actively shape the rhythms of life in the city. Harlem is the setting 



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for Kristina Graaf’s chapter on street literature and Mark Naison’s historical account of street 
vending as community building. Naison declares that street vendors remain on the “front 
lines of community struggles” and that street vendors in Harlem should continue their 
historical role as activists for their community.  Other strategies of resistance include drawing 
upon social resources and working cooperatively instead of in competition, with other vendors 
like the vendors in Kathleen Dunn’s chapter on Brooklyn. 

A final major theme, and particular strength of this volume, is identifying some of the new 
challenges and barriers that street vendors must endure in the twenty-first century.  In 
Brooklyn, Dunn writes about the rise of the food truck as a legitimized form of street 
commerce and the associated rising costs of vending permits. Graaf, writing about 
contemporary Harlem, explains the competing claims for space and market saturation 
affecting vendors from different ethnic backgrounds. These two examples show how 
challenges in the lives of street vendors will continue to be in flux, especially in an urbanizing 
world. The varied contexts, interpretations, and theoretical views of each of the author’s in 
this volume show the strength of the accumulated knowledge on street vending as a global 
practice and show new directions that future research can take. Indeed, many of the resistance 
strategies featured in this volume are ongoing. 

The volume is divided into four sections: Responding to Urban and Global Neoliberal Policies, 
Street Vending and Ethnicity, The Spatial Mobility of Urban Street Vending, and Historical 
Accounts of Street Vending. I did not find these headings particularly useful, mostly because 
each of the eleven chapters brings in several of these concepts. Most chapters involve racial 
and ethnic minorities and the use of urban space in the historical and contemporary context 
of neoliberalism. Nevertheless, this interdisciplinary volume is a strong contribution to our 
understanding on the lives of street vendors. The authors featured in this book are from many 
fields including sociology, urban studies, history, public administration, geography, and 
architecture. Although none of the chapters were written by an anthropologist, 
anthropologists interested in the topic covered will find compelling additions to our 
theoretical and conceptual understanding of life in the “informal sector” and how it is 
changing in the twenty-first century. 

Megan B. Hinrichsen, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Monmouth College, is a 
medical anthropologist who has researched street vending, child labor, and malnutrition in 
Quito, Ecuador. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University. 

 

 

© 2017 Megan B. Hinrichsen 


