Reclaiming Their Place in the City: Narratives of Street Food Vendors of Bengaluru During the COVID Crisis

Puja Guha (), Annapurna Neti () and Roshni Lobo ()
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Puja Guha: Azim Premji University
Annapurna Neti: Azim Premji University
Roshni Lobo: Azim Premji University

Chapter Chapter 14 in Reimagining Prosperity, 2023, pp 237-257 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Street vending is considered a lucrative livelihood especially among migrants coming to Indian cities. The pandemic-induced lockdowns in India brought out the precarity of these street-based livelihoods. This paper focuses on street food vendors of Bengaluru. Through narratives from in-depth interviews conducted across the city, it tries to capture the struggles of street vendors as they navigate the pandemic. With the streets being completely shut down with the lockdowns, these vendors lost their means of livelihood. Many of them who were living in the city for over a generation were forced to move back to their native villages. Those who managed to stay back had sunk into debt. Even when the lockdown was eased and streets became accessible, the vendors’ struggles continued—to get back their customer base and to reclaim their physical space on the street which, during the prolonged lockdown, was appropriated for other purposes.

Keywords: Street food vendors; Rural–urban migration; Informal sector; Urban space struggles; Production of space; Street Vendors Act 2014; Belongingness to the City (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-19-7177-8_14

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-19-7177-8_14

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