Street Entrepreneurs People, Place, & Politics in Local and Global Perspective

Whether they are at relatively sedate farmers markets in the United States and Europe or the more chaotic street bazaars of Latin America, Africa and Asia, street traders are making a comeback after a century in which they were supposed to disappear, replaced by the more "sanitary" and "efficient" Supermarket. But both consumers and government planners are finding that street vendors and markets energize social landscapes, whether in urban or rural locations, as well as providing an important source of employment and the efficient supply of vital goods, especially for the neglected urban poor. However, while they are no longer universally seen as pariahs, street traders still face considerable harassment from officials in many locations as well as the general perception that they are merely relevant at the local level as "curiosities" and survival mechanisms.This volume collects essays from authors around the world about the markets and vendors they know best. The essays speak to the struggles that vendors have faced to legitimize their activity, the role that they play in helping societies adapt or to survive catastrophes, as well as the practical role that they play in both the local and global social and economic system within which we live. They speak to the ways in which street traders challenge the dominant system of control of space, as well as the conception of property rights in other ways.While focusing attention on the importance of street markets as a phenomenon of interest in itself to a growing body of scholarship, the essays also show how the study of street vending can provide insights not only into economic anthropology, but also urban studies, post modernism, spatial geography, political sociology and globalization theory.Cross, John C. is the author of 'Street Entrepreneurs People, Place, & Politics in Local and Global Perspective', published 2007 under ISBN 9780415770286 and ISBN 0415770289.