The Politics of Street Food: Contested Governance and Vulnerabilities in Dhaka's Field of Street Vending 3515106197, 9783515106191

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Benjamin Etzold

The Politics of Street Food Contested Governance and Vulnerabilities in Dhaka’s Field of Street Vending

Geographie

Megacities and Global Change Megastädte und globaler Wandel

Franz Steiner Verlag

Band 13

Benjamin Etzold The Politics of Street Food

megacities and global change megastädte und globaler wandel herausgegeben von Frauke Kraas, Martin Coy, Peter Herrle und Volker Kreibich Band 13

Benjamin Etzold

The Politics of Street Food Contested Governance and Vulnerabilities in Dhaka’s Field of Street Vending

Franz Steiner Verlag

Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft Angenommen als Dissertation durch die Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn unter dem Titel „Contested Fields and Arenas in the Megacity: A Relational Analysis of Street Food Governance in Dhaka (Bangladesh)“ Umschlagabbildung: Street Food Vendors selling Iftari Snacks at Chawk Bazar in Dhaka, Bangladesh. © Benjamin Etzold

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. © 2013 Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart Druck: AZ Druck und Datentechnik, Kempten Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Printed in Germany. ISBN 978-3-515-10619-1

CONTENTS List of Tables .................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ..................................................................................................... x List of Maps ...................................................................................................xii List of Boxes ...................................................................................................xii List of Case Studies ..............................................................................................xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................... ix SUMMARY .......................................................................................................... xiv ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ..................................................................................... xvi 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Impressions from Dhaka’s Field of Street Food ................................................ 1 1.2 Motivation for this Study ................................................................................... 2 1.3 Structure of this Study ....................................................................................... 8 2 WITH BOURDIEU TOWARDS A RELATIONAL, CRITICAL, AND REFLEXIVE SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY ................................................... 12 2.1 Relevance of Bourdieu’s Theory for Social Geography .................................. 12 2.2 Bourdieu’s Six Central Principles of Social Research..................................... 14 2.3 Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice: Six Central Theorems .................................... 16 2.3.1 Social Space and Fields ......................................................................... 16 2.3.2 The Relation between Social and Physical Space ................................. 19 2.3.3 The Notion of Habitus ........................................................................... 20 2.3.4 The Basic Types of Capital.................................................................... 22 2.3.5 Institutions: The Rules of the Game ...................................................... 24 2.3.6 Playing the Game: From Actions to Practices ....................................... 27 2.4 Interim Conclusion: Navigating through Fields, Arenas and Networks .......... 29 3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE .............. 33 3.1 Street Vending: A Highly Visible Informal Practice ....................................... 33 3.2 Informality as a Practice of Contested Governance......................................... 35 3.2.1 The Informal Economy Debate ............................................................. 36 3.2.2 Analysing Governance Processes with Bourdieu’s Theory................... 38 3.2.3 Contested Governance: Resistance and Street Politics .......................... 44 3.2.4 Reframing Informality as a Practice of Contested Governance ............ 50

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The Politics of Street Food

3.3 The Appropriation of Urban Public Space ...................................................... 59 3.3.1 Urban Public Space................................................................................ 59 3.3.2. Appropriating Public Spaces ................................................................ 62 3.4 Social Practices and Vulnerability ................................................................... 67 3.4.1 Vulnerability Thinking .......................................................................... 67 3.4.2 Incorporating Bourdieu’s Theory into Vulnerability Thinking ............. 72 3.4.3 Street Vending as a Livelihood and the Space of Vulnerability ............ 75 3.5 Street Food Vending and the Urban Fields of Food ........................................ 76 3.5.1 The Field of Urban Food Distribution ................................................... 77 3.5.2 The Social Field of Street Food ............................................................. 82 3.5.3 Food Security and the Field of Urban Food Consumption .................... 84 3.5.4 Street Food Vending and the Field of Food Consumption .................... 86 3.6 Conceptual Synthesis: Contested Street Food Governance ............................. 89 3.6.1 Governance of Fields of Food ............................................................... 89 3.6.2 Contested Street Food Governance ....................................................... 92 4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY .............................................. 97 4.1 Research Approach: Imagining the Field of Street Food ................................ 97 4.1.1 Inductive, yet Theory-informed Research ............................................. 97 4.1.2 Positionality in the Field of Research .................................................... 99 4.1.3 Research Design: Reflexivity through Triangulation .......................... 101 4.2 Study Sites: Investigating Arenas of Street Vending..................................... 103 4.3 Applied Methods: Analysing the Field of Street Food .................................. 104 4.3.1 Primary Data – Qualitative Research Methods ................................... 105 4.3.2 Primary Data – Quantitative Research Methods ................................. 111 4.3.3 Secondary Data .................................................................................... 115 4.4 Interim Conclusion: Relational, Critical, and Reflexive Research in Social Geography ..................................................................................... 116 5 THE SOCIAL FIELD OF STREET FOOD IN DHAKA ................................. 118 5.1 The Megacity of Dhaka ................................................................................. 119 5.1.1 Global Megaurbanisation..................................................................... 119 5.1.2 Extraordinary Primacy: Concentration of Capitals in Dhaka .............. 121 5.2 The Emergence of the Present Field of Street Food ...................................... 126 5.2.1 The Illegalisation of the Street Trade during Colonial Rule................ 127 5.2.2 Street Food Vending in Dhaka during the Pakistan Period ................. 129 5.3 3 Urbanisation and Growing Food Demand after Independence ........... 131 5.3.1 Street Food Vending, Globalisation and Pervasive Poverty................ 135 5.4 The State and the Field of Street Food .......................................................... 140 5.4.1 The Structure of the Field of Power .................................................... 140 5.4.2 Formal Regulation of the Field of Street Food .................................... 143 5.4.3 The Power of Public Discourses on Street Food Vending .................. 146 5.5 Interim Conclusion: Illegalisation and Marginalisation of the Field of Street Food ................................................................................................. 157

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6 STREET FOOD VENDING AND URBAN FOOD SECURITY .................... 159 6.1 Fields of Food and the Field of Labour ......................................................... 160 6.1.1 Formal and Informal Labour in Bangladesh and Dhaka ..................... 160 6.1.2 Employment in Bangladesh’s Fields of Food...................................... 162 6.1.3 Employment in Dhaka’s Field of Street Food: An Estimate ............... 167 6.2 Dhaka’s Field of Food Consumption ............................................................. 170 6.2.1 Food Security in Dhaka ....................................................................... 170 6.2.2 Transformations in the Urban Food Culture ........................................ 175 6.3 Street Food Consumption in Dhaka ............................................................... 177 6.3.1 Street Food as a Supplement to Home-prepared Food ........................ 178 6.3.2 Street Food as a Substitute of Home-prepared Food ........................... 183 6.3.3 Popular Street Foods in Dhaka ............................................................ 185 6.3.4 Is Street Food Unhygienic? Slum Dwellers’ Perceptions.................... 189 6.4 Sites of Street Food Consumption in Dhaka.................................................. 190 6.5 Interim Conclusion: Street Vending contributes to Food Security ................ 195 7 INSIDE THE FIELD: STYLES OF VENDING, SOCIAL POSITIONS AND VULNERABILITY ................................................................................ 197 7.1 Distinctions in Dhaka’s Field of Street Food................................................. 198 7.1.1 Basic Demographic Information on Street Food Vendors .................. 198 7.1.2 Street Food Vending as a Spatial Practice ........................................... 199 7.2 Entering the Field, Claiming Acess to the Arenas ......................................... 202 7.2.1 Street Food Vendors’ Migration Trajectories ...................................... 202 7.2.2 Fluid Working Trajectories.................................................................. 210 7.2.3 Access to the Field of Street Food ....................................................... 214 7.2.4 Access to the Arenas of Street Food Vending ..................................... 217 7.3 Working as a Street Food Vendor in Dhaka .................................................. 225 7.3.1 Self-Owned Family Businesses ........................................................... 225 7.3.2 Connecting the Informal and the Formal Food Economy ................... 227 7.3.3 Working in a Competitive Market ....................................................... 230 7.3.4 Street Food Vendors’ Business Expenditures and Incomes ................ 232 7.4 The Differential Vulnerability of Street Food Vendors ................................. 236 7.4.1 Income Poverty, Housing Conditions and Food Insecurity ................. 236 7.4.2 Drivers of Vulnerability....................................................................... 242 7.5 Social Recognition inside the Field of Street Food ....................................... 248 7.6 Interim Conclusion: Securing Positions in Fields and Arenas ...................... 251

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8 CONTESTED STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE: STREET POLITICS AND EVICTIONS ........................................................................................... 253 8.1 Street Politics: Modes of Governance in Arenas of Street Vending.............. 254 8.1.1 Formal Registration, Licenses and Political Representation ............... 254 8.1.2 Informal Institutions regulating the Street Food Trade ....................... 258 8.2 Encounters and Contestations with the State ................................................. 265 8.2.1 Everyday Encounters between Policemen and Hawkers ..................... 265 8.2.2 Daily Contestations, Encroachments and Evictions ............................ 269 8.3 Street Vendors’ Vulnerability to Police Evictions ......................................... 276 8.3.1 A History of Violence: Evictions against Slums and Hawkers ........... 276 8.3.2 Eviction Drives during the Caretaker Government’s Reign ................ 278 8.3.3 Street Food Vendors’ Vulnerability to Police Evictions ..................... 283 8.3.4 Living with Evictions - Case Studies from Dhaka .............................. 297 8.4 Interim Conclusion: The Dance of Command and Control ........................... 305 8.4.1 The Macro-political Logic of Evictions: Demonstrating Power ......... 305 8.4.2 The Micro-political Logic of Evictions: Keeping them Illegal ................ and Insecure......................................................................................... 307 8.4.3 The Hawkers’ Political Logic: Retaining Agency by Resisting ............... the State ............................................................................................... 308 9 TOWARDS FAIR STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE..................................... 310 9.1 Policy Guidelines for Street Vending in Bangladesh .................................... 311 9.2 Are Fair Practices of Street Food Governance Possible? .............................. 313 REFERENCES .................................................................................................... 326 ANNEX .............................................................................................................. 349

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LIST OF TABLES Tab. 2.1:

Three Pillars of Institutions and their Effects in Practices .................. 25

Tab. 3.1: Tab. 3.2: Tab. 3.3: Tab. 3.4: Tab. 3.5: Tab. 3.6:

Continuum of (In)Formality ............................................................... 52 Styles of Informal Practices based on Agents’ Positions in Fields ..... 55 Different Perspectives on Informal Practices ..................................... 57 Five Appropriation Processes in an Arena.......................................... 63 The Sub-Fields of Food ...................................................................... 78 Typologies of Street Food .................................................................. 83

Tab. 4.1: Tab. 4.2: Tab. 4.3: Tab. 4.4: Tab. 4.5: Tab. 4.6:

Cyclical Process of Field Work and Conceptual Reflections ........... 349 Applied Methods to Collect Primary Data in Dhaka.. ...................... 350 Interviews with Experts, Regulators and Key Informants ................ 351 Codes used to Analyse Qualitative Data .......................................... 353 Information on Study Sites of Food Consumers’ Survey ................ 354 Information on Study Sites of Street Vendors’ Survey .................... 354

Tab. 5.1: Tab. 5.2: Tab. 5.3: Tab. 5.4:

Total Population of selected Cities in Bangladesh ........................... 122 Poverty Rates in Bangladesh and Dhaka .......................................... 355 Number of People below the Upper Poverty Line ............................ 355 Common Discourses on Street (Food) Vending .............................. 147

Tab. 6.1: Tab. 6.2: Tab. 6.3: Tab. 6.4: Tab. 6.5: Tab. 6.6: Tab. 6.7: Tab. 6.8: Tab. 6.9: Tab. 6.10: Tab. 6.11: Tab. 6.12: Tab. 6.13: Tab. 6.14:

Informal and Formal Labour Relations in Bangladesh ..................... 356 Registered Employment in Bangladesh’s Fields of Food ................. 163 Estimate of the Number of Street (Food) Vendors in Dhaka............ 168 The Number of Street (Food) Vendors in Selected Cities ................ 359 Occupational groups, Income, and Food Security in Slums ............. 173 Relative Income Quintiles, and Food Security in Slums .................. 173 Places where Respondents take their Food ....................................... 179 Relevance of Street Food for Slum Dwellers in Dhaka .................... 181 Consumers’ Reasons for taking Street Food ..................................... 184 Occasions, at which Consumers eat Street Food .............................. 184 Street Food Consumption Patterns of Slum Dwellers ...................... 186 Glossary of Street Food Items........................................................... 359 Prices of Street Food Items ............................................................... 363 Consumers‘ Reasons for not taking Street Food.............................. 189

Tab. 7.0: Tab. 7.1: Tab. 7.2: Tab. 7.3: Tab. 7.4: Tab. 7.5: Tab. 7.6:

Categories of Street Food Vending Units in Dhaka.......................... 365 Basic Characteristics of Street Food Vendors .................................. 198 Vending Locations of Street Food Shops ......................................... 201 Types of Street Food sold according to Vending Styles ................... 201 Street Food Vendors’ major Reasons for Migration ......................... 206 Timeline with a semi-permanent pitha vendor ................................. 209 When did the respondents become Street Food Vendors?................ 211

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Tab. 7.7: Tab. 7.8: Tab. 7.9: Tab. 7.10: Tab. 7.11: Tab. 7.12: Tab. 7.13: Tab. 7.14: Tab. 7.15: Tab. 7.16:

Former Professions of Street Food Vendors ..................................... 212 Types of Public Space and Street Vendors Access to them.............. 224 Business Characteristics of Street Food Shops ................................. 226 Consumer Structure of Street Food Shops ........................................ 231 Profitability of all Street Food Shops................................................ 233 Monthly Wages of selected Occupations .......................................... 366 Street Food Vendors’ Poverty Status ................................................ 239 Street Food Vendors’ Food Security Status ...................................... 239 Relevance of Social Capital for Vendors’ Livelihoods .................... 366 Livelihood Risks of Street Food Vendors ......................................... 242

Tab. 8.1: Tab. 8.2: Tab. 8.3: Tab. 8.4:

Formal Regulation and Political Representation .............................. 255 Multiple Institutions in the Social Field of Street Food .................... 257 Security Payments to local Mastaans and the Police ........................ 262 Macro-political Changes in the Field of Power since Bangladesh’s Independence .............................................................. 367 Exposure of Street Food Vendors to Police Evictions ...................... 285 Sensitivity to Police Evictions .......................................................... 287 Immediate Coping Reactions to a Police Raid ................................. 290 Coping with the Effects of Evictions ................................................ 291 Chronology of Hawkers Evictions in Dhaka .................................... 368

Tab. 8.5: Tab. 8.6: Tab. 8.7: Tab. 8.8: Tab. 8.9:

LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1:

Research Framework .......................................................................... 11

Fig. 2.1:

Sketch of key components of Bourdieu’s Theory............................... 29

Fig. 3.1: Fig. 3.2: Fig. 3.3: Fig. 3.4: Fig. 3.5:

‘Seeing and Being the State’ from Bourdieu’s Perspective ................ 43 Components of Social Vulnerability................................................... 71 The Double Structure of Vulnerability ............................................... 72 Crucial Dimensions of Street Food Governance ................................ 94 Nested Scales of Street Food Governance .......................................... 95

Fig. 4.1:

Triangulation of Data Sources and Research Methods ..................... 104

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Fig. 5.1: Fig. 5.2: Fig. 5.3: Fig. 5.4: Fig. 5.5: Fig. 5.6: Fig. 5.7:

Population Growth of present-day Megacities ................................. 120 Population Growth Rate of Dhaka .................................................... 356 Population Growth of the Megacity of Dhaka .................................. 133 Poverty in Dhaka............................................................................... 136 Relation of the Field of Street Food to Fields of Power ................... 142 Circle of Personalization and Criminalisation of Politics ................. 142 Bacterial Contamination of Street Foods in Dhaka .......................... 154

Fig. 6.1: Fig. 6.2: Fig. 6.3: Fig. 6.4: Fig. 6.5:

Dhaka’s Fields of Food and (in)formal Labour Relations ................ 159 Employment in the Dhaka’s Field of Food ....................................... 163 Slum Dweller’s Food Insecurity ......................................................... III ‘Food Basket’ of Slum Households in Dhaka..................................... III Rhythm of Street Vending at Sadarghat Ferry Terminal ..................... V

Fig. 7.1: Fig. 7.2: Fig. 7.3: Fig. 7.4: Fig. 7.5: Fig. 7.6: Fig. 7.7: Fig. 7.8: Fig. 7.9: Fig. 7.10: Fig. 7.11: Fig. 7.12: Fig. 7.13: Fig. 7.14: Fig. 7.15:

Street Food Vendors’ Migration to Dhaka........................................ 204 Relevance of Social Capital for Vendor’s Access to Arenas ............ 218 Venn Diagram with a Mobile Tea Vendor .........................................IX Venn Diagram with a Semi-Mobile Vendor ....................................... X Venn Diagram with a permanent Pitha Vendor. .................................XI Sources of Products and Ingredients used by Vendors ..................... 228 Payment Modes for the Exchange of Food Products ........................ 228 Boxplot Diagram showing the Vendors’ Business Profits .............. XIII Business Expenditures of Street Vendors ........................................ XIII Housing Conditions of Street Food Vendors .................................... 240 Street Vendors’ Vulnerability to Food Insecurity ............................. 240 ‘Food Basket’ of a Semi-Mobile Vendors’ Household ................... XIV ‘Food Basket’ of a permanent Pitha Vendor’s Household .............. XIV Street Vendors’ Judgement of their own Social Position ................. 249 Distinctions in the Social Field of Street Food ................................. 250

Fig. 8.1: Fig. 8.2:

Spatial Appropriation of the Street through Food Vendors ........... XVI Street Vendors’ Coping and Adaptation Strategies to Evictions ........................................................................................... 295

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LIST OF MAPS Map 4.1:

Study Sites on Street Food Vending in Dhaka.......................................I

Map 5.1: Map 5.2:

Megacities of the World in the Year 2015 ........................................ 120 Settlement Expansion and Food Markets in Dhaka City .................... II

Map 6.1:

Rhythm of Street Vending at Sadarghat Ferry Terminal ..................... V

Map 7.1:

Population Density in Bangladesh and Home District of Street Food Vendors .................................................................... VIII Food Wholesale Markets in Dhaka and Resource Flows to Street Food Vending Sites ........................................................................... XII

Map 7.2: Map 8.1:

Rhythm of Street Food Vending at the University Hospital ............ XVI

LIST OF BOXES Box 7.1:

Food Insecurity and Migration in Bangladesh .................................. 206

Box 9.1:

CAB’s Policy Guidelines on Street Food Vending in Bangladesh ...................................................................................... 312

LIST OF CASE STUDIES Case Study 7.1: A Tea and Snacks Vendor is facing an Entitlement Crisis ..... XIV Case Study 7.2: A Pitha Vendor seeks to cope with the Food Crisis ................ XV Case Study 8.1: Slum Evictions during the Caretaker Government .................. 298 Case Study 8.2: Playing Cat and Mouse – Rapid Reactions to Ordinary Police Raids ............................................................................. 299 Case Study 8.3: Police Raid of Popular Vending Sites on the University Campus .................................................................................... 300 Case Study 8.4: Rice Cakes and Restrictions – Kamal’s Livelihood Struggle ................................................................................... 301 Case Study 8.5: Md. Fulmia’s high Adaptive Capacity to Police Raids ........... 302 Case Study 8.6: Abdur’s Adaptative Capacity to Police Raids ....................... 303

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS No research can succeed in isolation. Without the support and the inspiration of my family, many friends, colleagues and student assistants, it would not have been possible to conceptualise, carry out and finalise this study. Thank you! First and foremost I thank my wife Antje Schultheis deeply for continuous support and company in the last years and for giving me the freedom to follow my ambitions. I also apologise to her – and to my sons Jakob and Jannek – that some of the research trips and this intellectual journey took so much of our time and energy. Many thanks to my family for help with the kids and general support. Academic work, in particular this phase of qualification is not only work, but also a stage in our lives that is made funny, interesting and sometimes also bearable by those with whom we share interests and visions, but also problems on a daily basis. I thank my colleagues at the Geography Department at the University of Bonn for constructive diversion, inspiration, and much fun, in particular Patrick Sakdapolrak, Anna Zimmer, Markus Keck, Johanna Kramm, Michael Eichholz, Sebastian Homm and Thomas Schmitt. Dondobad to the whole Dhaka-MegacityTeam, Harald Sterly, Kirsten Hackenbroch, Kathrin Burkhart, Oliver Grübner, Ronny Staffeld, Shahadat Hossain and Tibor Assheuer for collegial support and for an interesting and inspiring time together in Dhaka. I thank Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Bohle for scholarly inspiration, the belief in my abilities and for providing livelihood security to my family and me. I also thank Dr. Wolfgang-Peter Zingel from the South-Asia Institute in Heidelberg for his networks and knowledge in, on and beyond Bangladesh, and Shafique uz-Zaman from the University of Dhaka for his help in enabling our research project. Thanks to PD. Dr. Eberhard Rothfuß, Prof. Dr. Bernd Diekkrüger and Prof. Dr. Jörg Blasius from the University of Bonn for standing in as referees of my PhD-thesis. The empirical research was only possible with the help of many well-trained research assistants, mostly students from Dhaka University and BUET. I am particularly grateful that Taufique Hassan, Sania Rahman and Afsal Hossain supported me in all facets of work and life in Dhaka with their insights and translations, and their friendship. Back home, many student assistants committed their time to the realisation of this study. I particularly thank Kristina Schlake, Sonja Raupp, Verena Rossow, and Madlen Hornung for literature reviews, data analysis, cartographic support, proof reading and copy editing. I am also grateful that our secretary Irene Hillmer always ‘covered our back’ and supported us in many ways. Last, but not least, I would like to acknowledge the financial support of the German Research Foundation for funding this research within the programme “Megacities – Megachallenge: Informal Dynamics of Global Change” (Grant BO 680/ 35-1/-2) and thank the SPP’s Steering Committee, who are also the editors of this book series.

SUMMARY The street feeds the city. Every second person in Dhaka, a megacity of 15 million people, takes street food every day. In turn, almost 100,000 vendors sell rice dishes, light snacks, fruits or beverages on the streets and footpaths, at markets and transport nodes. Street food is cheap, readily available and nutritious and thus needed. Food vending in public places is a good livelihood opportunity and a significant functional element in the megaurban food distribution system. Street food contributes crucially to urban food security; in particular the urban poor rely on it. Moreover, eating outside is a vital element of urban public life. In the eyes of the law, the vendors’ encroachment of public space is, however, illegal. The authorities and urban elites see it as obsolete, unhygienic, disorderly, and ‘in the way’. From their perspective street food is unwanted and the vendors are therefore regularly evicted from their vending sites. Nonetheless, at most vending sites in the megacity the street vendors are tolerated. This situation poses a dilemma that lies at the heart of this book on “the politics of street food”. On the one hand, hawkers appropriate public space illegally, which calls for rigid state action and their eviction. On the other hand, street food vending is tolerated because the hawkers are protected by local ‘patrons’ and the informal rules that govern the street. Manoeuvring through delicate local governance regimes, most street vendors actively take their right to the city. Dhaka’s urban public space is the arena of politics where the contestations between hawkers and the state are played out. This empirical study is based on research in Dhaka that was carried out between 2007 and 2010. Qualitative and quantitative research methods were used to achieve three overarching objectives. The first aim was to understand and evaluate the role and meaning of street food in Dhaka’s food system. The second goal was to understand decision-making processes, informal negotiations, everyday contestations, and thus the politics in the social field of street food. The third goal of this study, one a more conceptual level, was to lay out and contribute to a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography of the Urban South. These aims cannot be achieved with only one research perspectives. In this study, food-, public space-, vulnerability- and governance-perspectives were thus conceptually integrated on the basis of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. Bourdieu’s key principles of research, such as relational thinking or reflexivity, his key theorems, such as fields and capitals, and his understanding of governance and people’s relation to the state proved to be fruitful for my own approach to analysing the contested fields and arenas of street food vending in Dhaka. In the following, I briefly touch each conceptual cornerstone and some results of my study. As the sale and consumption of food is looked at, an analysis from the vantage point of food systems and food security concepts seems to be adequate. One of my key findings is that the emergence of the field of street food is

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closely tied to megaurbanisation. A locally growing demand for readily-available food and employment and global economic trends are both reflected in the growth and diversification of street food vending in Dhaka. The analysis shows that mobile labourers and many slum dwellers require street food for their food security. As the street food vendors are forced to cope with multiple risks and stresses, I make use of a livelihoods and social vulnerability perspective. As the street is the arena where the vendors play out their social and indeed spatial practices, the debates about the function, value and social construction of public space need consideration, too. Linking both aspects reveals that the vendors’ access to public space, i.e. their spatial capital, relates directly to their business success or vulnerability. Permanent street vendors occupy the best social and spatial positions at the vending sites, while mobile hawkers and in particular also female vendors are highly vulnerable to poverty. The latter groups have the lowest business profit and household income, they face poverty and food insecurity themselves. Analysing the governance of food vending in public space requires a fundamentally political approach in order to deconstruct the prevalent public discourses, formal regulations, informal negotiations and everyday contestations over street food. The study shows that through its regulative and discursive power, the nation state structures the conditions for the informal economy and for street food vending. The “politics of the street”, the everyday encounters with representatives of the state and shifting modes of governance are crucial for the street vendors’ lives, their business failure or success and their quiet encroachment on public space. Moreover, fundamental political transformations have left their marks on Dhaka’s public space and thus also in the field of street food. Eviction drives against thousands of hawkers during the reign of the so called Caretaker Government in 2007/08 showed this quite drastically. In this particular era, the state used street vendors as scapegoats to demonstrate its authority. One of the lessons from the analysis of macro- and micro-political street food governance is that street vendors need to be safeguarded against evictions and harassment. Their rights as vocal and productive citizens have to be recognised. This would be the first, but maybe most important, step towards fair street food governance.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG Jeder zweite Einwohner der 15 Millionen-Metropole Dhaka ernährt sich täglich von street food. Auf den Straßen und Gehwegen, auf Märkten, in Parks und an Verkehrsknoten verkaufen 100,000 Straßenhändler Reisgerichte, Snacks, Früchte oder Getränke. Die Verkäufer sichern ihren eigenen Lebensunterhalt und tragen wesentlich zur städtischen Ernährungssicherung bei. Dies kommt insbesondere den Armen zu Gute, denn das Essen von der Straße ist nicht nur überall verfügbar, sondern auch vergleichsweise günstig und nahrhaft. Street food wird in Dhaka schlichtweg gebraucht und ist ein Zeichen von Urbanität. Für die städtischen Behörden und Eliten ist street food allerdings unhygienisch, unmodern und unordentlich. Und aus gesetzlicher Perspektive eignen sich Straßenhändler den öffentlichen Raum illegal an. So gesehen, ist der Verkauf von street food nicht erwünscht. Die Händler sind ‚im Weg‘ und werden regelmäßig von ihren Verkaufsplätzen vertrieben. Paradoxerweise werden sie ‚normalerweise‘ dennoch toleriert. Dieser Widerspruch zwischen ‚Verstoßen‘ und ‚Zulassen‘ steht im Zentrum dieser Studie über die umkämpfte Regulation des Straßenhandels. Einerseits ist die Aneignung öffentlicher Räume durch die Verkäufer illegal und illegitim; hartes Durchgreifen des Staates und die Vertreibung der Händler werden verlangt. Anderseits wird der Handel zugelassen, da die Verkäufer durch Beziehungen zu mächtigen Akteuren und durch die informellen Gesetze der Straße geschützt werden. Die meisten Verkäufer manövrieren geschickt durch den institutionellen Dschungel im ‚Feld des Straßenhandels‘ und nehmen sich so ihr Recht auf Stadt. Der öffentlicher Raum kann als eine ‚Arena‘ bezeichnet werden, in der subalterne und staatliche Akteure um ‚Raumprofite‘, soziale Positionen und Macht ringen. Diese Studie beruht auf eigener empirischer Forschung in Dhaka. Zwischen Februar 2007 und März 2010 wurden zahlreiche qualitative Interviews mit Straßenhändlern, lokalen Informanten, Polizisten und Experten geführt, die durch quantitative Erhebungsmethoden ergänzt wurden. Drei übergeordnete Ziele wurden verfolgt. Erstes Ziel war die Rolle und Bedeutung des Straßenhandels im Nahrungssystem der Megastadt zu verstehen. Das zweite Ziel war die alltäglichen Praktiken, informellen Aushandlungsprozesse und Spielregeln im ‚Feld des Straßenhandels‘ zu erfassen und zu verstehen. Auf einer eher konzeptionellen Ebene war es das dritte Ziel meiner Dissertation, die wissenschaftlichen Diskussionen in der geographischen Entwicklungsforschung und der Stadtgeographie aus der Perspektive einer relationalen, kritischen und reflexiven Sozialgeographie des Urbanen Südens zu bereichern. Um diese Ziele zu erreichen habe ich mehrere Forschungsperspektiven auf der Grundlage von Pierre Bourdieus Theorie der Praxis zusammengeführt: Nahrungssysteme, öffentliche Räume, soziale Verwundbarkeit, sowie Informalität und Governance. Diese vier Themenfelder werden in vier empirischen Kapiteln erschlossen und miteinander verwoben.

Zusammenfassung

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Es geht um den Handel mit und den Konsum von Lebensmitteln. Ein Ergebnis aus der Perspektive der Nahrungssystemforschung ist, dass die gestiegene Nachfrage, die Ausbreitung und die Differenzierung des Essens von der Straße aufs engste mit den Prozessen der Megaurbanisierung und Globalisierung sowie mit sich wandelnden Ernährungsmustern einher geht. Die Untersuchungen zeigen, dass mobile Arbeiter und die in Slums lebende Armutsbevölkerung in besonderem Maße auf street food angewiesen sind um ihre Ernährung zu sichern. Es geht auch um Lebenssicherung unter prekären Bedingungen und um die Nutzung von Straßen, Parks und Plätzen. Eine Verknüpfung von Verwundbarkeitsforschung und einem stadtgeographischen Blick auf öffentliche Räume zeigt, dass der Geschäftserfolg oder die Verwundbarkeit der Straßenhändler in erster Linie von ihrem gesicherten Zugang zu öffentlichen Räumen abhängt. Die Zugangschancen zu profitablen Plätzen sind zwischen den Händlern ungleich verteilt, und hängen insbesondere von persönlichen Beziehungen ab. Permanente Händler nehmen die besten sozialen und räumlichen Positionen an den Verkaufsstellen ein und können so die größten ‚Raumprofite‘ erzielen. Die mobilen Händler und die meisten Essensverkäuferinnen sind hingegen eher marginal positioniert. Sie haben die niedrigsten Geschäftsgewinne und sind somit äußert verwundbar gegenüber Armut und Ernährungsunsicherheit. Ein guter und sicherer Verkaufsplatz ist das ‚räumliche Kapital‘ der street food-Verkäufer, das in der Arena den „feinen Unterschied“ zwischen Gewinnern und Verlierern ausmacht. Wer in welchem Maße vom Straßenhandel profitiert und wie der Zugang zu öffentlichen Räumen reguliert wird, ist eine grundlegende politische Frage. Aus einer Governance-Perspektive werden die gesetzlichen Regelungen und Diskurse über street food (Makropolitik) sowie die persönlichen Interaktionen, informellen Aushandlungsprozesse und alltäglichen Konflikte zwischen den entscheidenden Akteuren in den lokalen Arenen (Mikropolitik) betrachtet. Einerseits zeigt die Studie, dass der bangladeschische Staat die Rahmenbedingungen für den informellen Verkauf von street food durch seine regulative und diskursive Macht setzt. Straßenhändler werden durch geltendes Gesetz ‚illegalisiert‘ und ihre Lebenssicherungspraxis wird delegimitiert. Andererseits sind es ebendiese alltäglichen Begegnungen mit staatlichen Akteuren, die einen Verhandlungsspielraum für Straßenhändler schaffen. Ihre persönlichen Kontakte zu Politikern, Polizisten und Mittelsmännern sowie ihre Kenntnisse der lokal ausgehandelten ‚Spielregeln‘ prägen ihre Geschäftsaussichten und Lebenssicherungschancen entscheidend. Immer wieder zeigt es sich allerdings, dass sich die Händler nicht auf die informellen Gesetze der Straße verlassen können. Zeiten politischer Umbrüche auf nationaler Ebene hinterlassen auch an den lokalen Verkaufsplätzen ihre Spuren. Mit Vertreibungsaktionen gegen Straßenhändler und der Zerstörung von Slums demonstrierte die vom Militär gestützte Übergangsregierung (2007/08) ihre Handlungsfähigkeit und Macht. Als Sündenböcke gerieten die Essensverkäufer in das Kreuzfeuer der Konflikte um das ‚Feld der Macht‘. Die Verkäufer sind staatlicher Willkür, Vertreibung und Ausbeutung allerdings nicht schutzlos ausgesetzt. Vielmehr haben sie vielfältige Anpassungsstrategien dagegen entwickelt.

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The Politics of Street Food

Die Lebens- und Arbeitsbedingungen der Straßenhändler sollten verbessert werden. Ein erster Schritt wäre es ihre Leistung bei der Nahrungsversorgung der Stadt anzuerkennen und ihre Rechte als Bürger der Stadt durchzusetzen. Soziale Anerkennung und ein auch rechtlich gesicherter Zugang zum öffentlichen Raum würde es den Straßenhändlern ermöglichen ihre tragende Rolle im Nahrungssystem der Megastadt Dhaka angstfrei ausfüllen zu können.

1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 IMPRESSIONS FROM DHAKA’S FIELD OF STREET FOOD Moment 1: During the holy month of Ramadan the early evening hours are quite special and almost sincere moments in the otherwise always buzzling megacity of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. One evening, just after the break of dawn, some university students are sitting on the steps in front of the Shaheed Minar monument that commemorates the Nation’s freedom struggle. As each day during Ramadan, they are sharing Iftar – a meal to break the fastening – and invite me to join them. We are eating tasty fried snacks, local sweets and dates, and are drinking Coca-Cola. I ask them where they bought their Iftari and they praise the street market at Chawk Bazar in the city’s old centre, where one can get the best traditional food snacks. Together we are enjoying Dhaka’s street food culture, a mix of religious and secular, traditional and modern, local and global food, and the peaceful atmosphere in public space. Moment 2: Together with my research assistant I am sitting on a rickshaw. We are riding through the narrow streets of Old Dhaka. Our rickshaw puller is telling us that he does not like to eat full rice meals on the street, but that he often takes nutritious and cheap snacks like bread rolls, bananas and strong sweet tea that help him to get through his arduous working day. Every day, he spends a quarter of his total income on this required street food. Since he came to Dhaka, 15 years ago, he is often buying snacks from the very same food vendor in a quiet side street – although the same food is available at every other corner. He goes there, because he enjoys these short breaks and the conversations with other rickshaw pullers and the street vendor, who became a good friend. Moment 3: A woman, maybe around 40 years, is squatting on a footpath with three bowls in front of her. She sells rice dishes with vegetables or fish curry for only 10 or 15 Bangladeshi Taka per plate to Dhaka’s poor. In a short conversation she is telling me that she prepares the food at her home in the morning, then walks to that site where many rickshaw wallahs drive by, and serves the food to maybe 30 customers throughout the day. When my translator asks her how much money she makes with her little street food business, she is starting to moan about her life and the government. With a meagre profit of only 50 Taka per day, it is extremely hard for her to sustain her own food demand, in particular because the price of rice has doubled within two years. She is saying that she has no other choice, but to sell street food for her livelihood. She is divorced and as there is no social security system in Bangladesh, she now depends completely on her own. Moment 4: The director of the biggest public hospital in Dhaka is explaining to me his efforts to curtail street food vendor’s encroachment on the public space in front of the hospital. While I am expressing my fascination of this very vivid street food market, he becomes increasingly infuriated. When I ask him, why he is

2

The Politics of Street Food

so keen on evicting the street food vendors, the director – an army general – replies angrily that one has to “eradicate this kind of profession in Dhaka, because unsafe food cannot be allowed in this age of civilization”. He therefore instructs the hospitals security guards to keep the entry gates as well as the footpath in front of the hospital clear of hawkers. The gatemen do follow their orders, but interestingly only when the director is present during the daytime. Each working day, one can thus witness a distinct rhythm on the street as the food vendors have adopted a flexible business mode that suits this particular spatial governance regime. Moment 5: One morning, I am coming to the site of a highly frequented street restaurant opposite the hospital in order to have a little breakfast. To my surprise, I find the street food stall completely destroyed. Tables and benches, on which customers normally sit, are broken and food is spilled on the ground. The cook Anwarul is telling me that last night there was an ‘unexpected’ police raid. Normally, they hear rumours about upcoming eviction drives or get warnings from middlemen who have good contacts to the police. That late evening they felt safe and business was going very well. But the police came quickly with two trucks full of men who demolished all the street food shops along the street. The street restaurant owner, the boys who work as waiters and Anwarul himself could do nothing, but take valuable equipment and their money and flee – otherwise they would have been arrested. Two weeks after this eviction drive all food shops at this site are running again and it seems as nothing had ever happened. The owner, however, is telling me that he lost a lot of money and that it was difficult for him to get credit to repurchase necessary equipment. Nonetheless, he always supports his staff even if is street restaurant has to remain closed due to state violence. 1.2 MOTIVATION FOR THIS STUDY These impressions were collected in 2007 at one particularly contested arena of street vending, the street in front of the university hospital where almost 100 vendors sell prepared food. The narratives reflect the broad range of perspectives on street food vending, such as consumers’ tastes and desires, changing urban food cultures under the impact of globalisation, common public discourses on street food, regulatory regimes of street food markets, distinct contestations between street vendors and the state, and the livelihood struggles of the street food vendors themselves. Touching upon all of these themes, this study aims at analysing the social field of street food and the arenas of street vending in their full breadth. Why Do I Look at Street Food Vending in the Megacity of Dhaka? Street food vending is one of the world’s oldest and most widespread occupations and an integral part of urban food systems. Despite repeatedly uttered predictions of its disappearance in modern and globalised economies, its importance seems to increase in this urban 21st century, not only in the cities of the South, but also in

Introduction

3

the metropolises of the North. The academic interest in the street trade dates back 50 years to the pioneering work of Clifford Geertz (1963) on “Peddlers and Princes” in Indonesia and Terry McGee (1973) on hawkers and urban planning in Hong Kong. Since then, numerous authors studied street vending (cf. Tinker 1997; Brown 2006b; Cross & Morales 2007b; Bhowmik 2010b; Ha & Graaf 2013). They focussed on seven key themes that are all relevant in the megacity of Dhaka. First, street vending is a particularly visible component of the urban informal economy. In 2010, approximately 14.9 million people lived in Bangladesh’s capital, making it the world’s ninth biggest megacity. More than 20 percent of its people live below the poverty line, while two third of all urban employment relations are informal. In between 120,000 and 300,000 hawkers work on Dhaka’s streets. Second, street vendors sustain their livelihoods in a context of poverty, risk and insecurity. The 97,000 street food vendors provide a living for at least 400,000 people. Their lives are, however, marked by relative poverty, irregular income and pertinent stresses with which they have to cope on a daily basis. Third, street vendors appropriate public space, which evokes conflicts with the state. Hawkers’ “quiet encroachment” (Bayat 1997) of streets, footpaths and squares is not only illegal, but also an eyesore for many. Hence, the police regularly evict them. But vendors need access to public space and have to ignore the law to sustain their livelihoods. Fourth, street vendors provide vital services for the city. Hawkers sell clothes, goods for daily use, as well as books, music and films, and thereby contribute to functioning services across large metropolises. The sale of prepared food in public space is particularly important, but also evokes some more food specific issues. Fifth, street food vendors link actors in urban food systems. All of Dhaka city dwellers rely on functioning and resilient food markets for the daily provision of food (cf. Keck et al. 2008; Bohle et al. 2009a; Etzold et al. 2009; Keck et al. 2012; Keck & Etzold 2013). With 2.9 million people, or one third of the labour force, the production, processing, transport, trade and preparation of food, is the most important field of employment in Dhaka. Street food vendors provide a link in the food chain between market traders and the consumers. Sixth, street food vending is an important aspect of urban food security. More than half of the city’s population buys street food every day. Street food serves as a supplement or a substitute to home-prepared meals that are traditionally valued more in Bangladesh. Like the rickshaw pullers who eats cheap rice meals or fatty snacks in between, many slum dwellers depend particularly on cheap, readilyavailable and flexible food services; they require street food for their own food security (Zingel et al. 2011). But due to often unsatisfactory hygienic conditions, food safety and public health are crucial themes, too. Seventh, street food vending reflects a specific street culture that enriches urban life. Like the students who enjoy snacks and sweets in their leisure time, many like to eat outside and take tasty pleasure street food. The sale of food on the streets contributes to a vivid public life. Street food vending should then not be considered as a marginal informal practice, but as an important livelihood style, a crucial food service, and a vital aspect of urban life.

4

The Politics of Street Food

Why is Street Food Vending Contested? In Dhaka, street food vending is illegal. Although it is not wanted, it is needed. Given a high demand, vendors sell food on the streets, at transport nodes, markets and at other niches in the city. Like in many other cities, Dhaka’s street food vendors encroach on public space and thereby challenge the authority of the state (cf. Brown 2006b; Low & Smith 2006; Cross & Morales 2007b; Bhowmik 2010b). The contestations between hawkers and the state over the access to and use of public space turn the street into an “arena of politics” (Bayat 1997: 15). Moreover, the social space (or the field) of street food is contested, too. Although most street food vendors do not live in extreme poverty (about one third of them are below the lower poverty line) and most can fulfil their basic needs with their income, they are being marginalised: Neither their struggle for their livelihood, nor their contribution to food distribution and food security are acknowledged. Even more so, the state drives their vulnerability through erratic evictions and thus puts into question their citizenship. Public discourses that are advocated by state actors and the media contribute to the symbolic marginalisation of hawkers and to the denial of their ‘right to the city’ (Etzold 2011a). The modes of governance of the field and the arenas of street food are contested, too. A broad governance concept includes formal law and its (erratic) enforcement by state actors, public discourses as well as social norms that structure everyday life. It also contains operational rules that come into effect in local arenas through informal negotiations as well as the self-governance of food needs and desires. Contested street food governance is about the social practices, negotiations and contestations revolving around the sale and consumption of street food and the formal and informal modes of governing public space. These contestations showed strikingly during empirical research that was conducted between 2007 and 2010. These years have been marked by political transformations in Bangladesh, which had significant implications for the structural conditions of the field of street food, for the governance of the local arenas and for the livelihoods of the street vendors. What is the Research Context of this Study? The urban turn of 2009 as well as the scope, speed, complexity and dynamics of urbanisation in the Global South have brought the theme ‘megacities’ into the academic discourse, which is reflected by a number of interdisciplinary research programmes that have started since 2005.1 Although food is the most basic human 1

The International Human Dimensions Programme has a sub-project called “Urbanisation and Global Environmental Change” (www.ugec.org). The Resilience Alliance has a programme on “Urban Resilience” (http://www.resalliance.org). The German Helmholtz Association is funding the programme “Risk Habitat Megacity” (www.risk-habitat-megacity.ufz.de). The German Ministry of Education and Research funds the programme “Emerging Megacities:

Introduction

5

need, most of these research programmes hardly touch the critical questions of food production, supply, distribution and consumption in megacities. While population growth, poverty and slum settlements, infrastructure and basic services, the (informal) economy and labour markets, environmental pollution and natural hazards, public health, and governance challenges are discussed in depth in policy reports and academic literature, a functioning food system is largely taken for granted or only marginally addressed under the category of “satisfying basic needs” (cf. Drakakis-Smith 1995, 1996; Pelling 2003; Bronger 2004; Burdett & Sudjic 2007; Davis 2007; Kraas 2007b; UNFPA 2007; Birkmann et al. 2010). The historic legacy and fundamental importance of food systems for urbanisation is often crudely overlooked: Only if food markets grew, could cities expand in demographic, spatial and economic terms (Satterthwaite 2005: 15). Yet, fairly few studies analysed urban food systems in the Global South (cf. Lam 1982; Guyer 1987; Pryer & Crook 1988; Drakakis-Smith 1991; Gertel 1995; 2010; Lohnert 1995; Smith 1998; Ruel & Garrett 1999; Bohle & Adhikari 2002). In the past decade, however, flows of food in and out of cities, inner-urban food distribution, changing urban food cultures and food governance regimes have become more prominent themes on the research agenda (cf. Koc et al. 1999; Aragrande & Argenti 2001; Ingram et al. 2005; Sánchez-Rodriguez et al. 2005; Smith et al. 2007; Bohle et al. 2009b)2 and are acknowledged in flagship reports of international organisations, too (cf. UN-Habitat 2008: 218ff). Given the blending of global trends such as on-going urbanisation, informalisation of labour relations, restructuring of food systems under the impact of economic globalisation and environmental change, as well as local, national and global governance challenges (cf. Gertel 2010; Ingram et al. 2010), more research on urban food systems is certainly necessary. This study has been part of the research programme “Megacities - Megachallenge: Informal Dynamics of Global Change” (SPP 1233) that is being funded by the German Research Foundation. Research was undertaken in the Pearl River Delta in China and Dhaka in Bangladesh and should provide findings on the organisation of society, economy, and space in these megaurban regions. One of the fundamental goals was to (re)conceptualise informality in order to deepen the understanding of structures and governance processes in in megacities.3

2 3

Research for Sustainable Development of the Megacities of Tomorrow” (www.emergingmegacities.org). The German Research Foundation enables the programme “MegacitiesMegachallenge” (SPP 1233). The EU funds a “North-South-Network on Urban SelfOrganisation and Public Life in Europe, India and China” (http://urbanself-fp7.eu/). In the BMBF-project “Hyderabad as a Megacity of Tomorrow: Sustainable Urban Food and Health Security and Environmental Resource Management” transformations in food systems are also analysed. See www.sustainable-hyderabad.de and reports (cf. Lohr & Dittrich 2007). Website of SPP 1233: www.megacities-megachallenge.org/Objectives.html (15.05.2012).

6

The Politics of Street Food

A sub-project on the “Megaurban Food System of Dhaka” was a part of this research endeavour.4 The project’s central propositions was that the analysis of food systems in megacities offers special insights into the discontinuities, contentions, fragmentations and conflicts that global processes generate in local arenas. The project aimed at understanding the dynamics of flows of food, capital, information and people into and within the megacity of Dhaka, the differentiation of the urban economy, and the formal and informal governance of urban space – all of these issues are central to the megacity research programme. Empirical research was undertaken in two sub-projects. Markus Keck and Wolfgang-Peter Zingel shed light on economic and political dynamics of Dhaka’s rice and fish wholesale markets in order to assess which actors and institutions govern the overall resilience of the food system. Hans-Georg Bohle and I focussed on the most vulnerable groups of people in terms of food insecurity, on the livelihoods of street food vendors, and on the governance of public space. Taking the megacity of Dhaka as an example, our research shows the crucial importance of urban food system for people’s livelihoods, the interconnectedness of different segments of the urban food economy, the complexity of food supply chains to and within the megacity, the role of social networks and informality in governing the distribution of and the access to food, the impacts of global food system trends such as the 2007/08 food crises on the vulnerability of the urban poor, and the very local contestations over space that take place at wholesale markets and at street vending sites (cf. Etzold 2008; Keck et al. 2008; Bohle et al. 2009a, b; Etzold & Keck 2009; Etzold et al. 2009, 2011a, b; Zingel et al. 2011; Etzold et al. 2012; Keck 2012; Keck et al. 2012; Etzold 2013a, b; Keck & Etzold 2013; Keck et al. 2013). What are my Research Objectives? Three overarching objectives guided the research process: (1) The first aim was to understand and evaluate the role and meaning of street food in Dhaka’s food system, and indeed in the urban society. (2) The second goal was to understand the decision-making processes, informal negotiations and everyday contestations between differently powerful agents with regard to the access to food, the formation of livelihoods, and the regulation of public space.

4

The project was chaired by Professor Dr. Hans-Georg Bohle, Geography Department at the University of Bonn, and Dr. Wolfgang-Peter Zingel, South Asia Institute (SAI) at the University of Heidelberg. The projects’ key hypotheses and research questions can be read on: www.megacities-megachallenge.org/dhaka2.php (15.05.2012).

Introduction

7

Such a comprehensive assessment of the social field of street food vending and its governance structures needs to integrate several research perspectives. As the sale and consumption of prepared food is looked at, an analysis from the vantage point of food systems and food security concepts seems to be adequate (chapter 3.5). As the street food vendors are the key actors in this social field, the research could make use of a livelihoods and vulnerability perspective (chapter 3.4). As the street is the arena where the vendors play out their social and indeed spatial practices, the debates about the function, value and social construction of public space need consideration (chapter 3.3). As it is inevitable to address the governance of food vending in public space, a critical approach needs to be employed in order to deconstruct the prevalent public discourses, formal regulations, informal negotiations and everyday contestations over the field and its arenas (chapter 3.2). Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (cf. 1976; 1998) is a useful conceptual basis to connect these four lines of enquiry. (3) The third goal has been to lay out and contribute to a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography in the Urban South. The chosen concept is relational, because the “field of street food” stands at the heart of my research. I define this field as a social space that is constructed through the practices and networks of relationally positioned agents, and as a distinct business sector with its own rules and operational logic as well as its distinct history and inherent conflicts. The field of street food is a sub-field of society that stands in a relation to other fields, in particular the fields of food distribution and consumption and the field of power. Relational thinking helped me to understand the networks, in which the vendors are embedded and the vendors’ styles of appropriating their ‘own’ place. “Arenas of street vending” are the physical spaces, in which the hawkers are relationally positioned. They sell their goods, for instance, close to or distant from the most profitable hot spots of vending. My study sites were public accessible places, i.e. streets, public squares, transport nodes, markets and slums in Dhaka city, that represent different economic, social and political conditions. These places need to be seen in relation to another as well. The taken approach is critical, because the political processes as well as the open and “hidden mechanisms of power” (Bourdieu 1992a) stand at the centre of my analysis. Power relations, in particular the hawkers relation to the state, frame the social field of street food, structure the practices of the vendors, and evoke “quiet resistance” (Scott 1990; Bayat 1997) by these subaltern actors. The analysis is reflexive, because my empirical research was guided by an inductive ‘bottom-up’ approach in the sense that I was open for encounters and surprises during research, and, yet, circularly inspired by social theories, own conceptual reflections and debates with colleagues that led to shifting foci of research and analysis. Reflexivity was strived for through the triangulation of primary and secondary data, of qualitative and quantitative methods, and of theories, and through a self-critical evaluation of the used data sets, methods, categories and concepts (chapter 4). Last not least, in doing research, I entered into a social rela-

8

The Politics of Street Food

tion with vendors and consumers of street food and with the very local regulators of public space. Some difficult and at times emotionally straining encounters in the field led me to reflect upon my position in the research process. 1.3 STRUCTURE OF THIS STUDY In the following section the structure of this thesis is presented and the central research questions are introduced. As indicated, conceptual debates and empirical evidence on urban food systems, social vulnerability, public space, informality and governance are linked with the help of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. Chapter two introduces Bourdieu’s principals of research (chapter 2.2) and the key theorems (chapter 2.3) that could provide a basis for a critical, reflexive and relational social geography (chapter 2.1). The concepts of social fields and appropriated physical space, the notions of habitus and capital are particularly important for this study. Moreover, looking at the ‘rules of the game’ has been the starting point for understanding the dialectical relation between institutions and social practices (Etzold et al. 2012). The Theory of Practice is illustrated by looking at three structural dimensions and how they shape human agency (chapter 2.4). Chapter three then presents the conceptual framework for this study. The street trade is described as a highly visible informal practice that raises four crucial issues (chapter 3.1). The informal economy debate is briefly touched and reframed for the purpose of a critical analysis of street food governance, in which formal and informal institutions, social networks and negotiations at the very local level of the arena, and thus “street politics” (Bayat 1997), play a prominent role. Everyday resistance to the state and its institutions is important in this regard as well as the double power of state agents and their capacity to play with or by formal rules (chapter 3.2). On this basis a concise view on street vendors’ appropriation of public space is elaborated. The vendors appropriate the physical space of the street; they take on social positions in the field; they learn and negotiate the institutions that come into effect in their arena; and they act accordingly. The symbolic and actual value of public space in the urban fabric also matters for their quiet encroachment (chapter 3.3). Bourdieu’s theory is then linked to social vulnerability thinking through the focus on practices and the notion of habitus. The vendors’ habitus can be operationalized as livelihood styles and trajectories that depend on their past and present positions in the field. The vending style, in turn, shapes the vendors’ vulnerability (chapter 3.4). As street food vending is an integrative element of urban food systems and contributes crucially to food security, these concepts are introduced, too (chapter 3.5). In the last step, my conceptual considerations are brought together under the roof of my core research topic: Contested street food governance (chapter 3.6). Chapter four provides an overview of my research design, the applied and indeed triangulated methods of data collection and analysis, and explains the selection of study sites in Dhaka. I also address questions of positionality and reflexivity that are particularly important for empirical research in the Global South.

Introduction

9

Chapter five marks the start of the presentation, analysis and discussion of empirical findings. It is asked. What is the position of the field of street food in Dhaka? The emergence of this social field is sketched from a historical perspective and therefore linked to a brief history of megaurbanisation, which is the growth and concentration of people, financial capital and power in the ‘capital’ city (chapters 5.1 and 5.2). As the nation state and its regulative power do structure the conditions for the informal economy, the urban governance architecture is explained and the relevant laws on street (food) vending in Dhaka are described. Moreover, the symbolic power of public discourse, through which street food vending is acknowledged and legitimized or criminalised and delegitimized, is elaborated (chapter 5.3). In chapter six it is asked: How does street food vending contribute to urban food security? As labour relations are crucial for people’s access to food in cities, basic employment trends in the formal and informal economy as well as in the fields of food are shown. An up to date estimate of the number of street food vendors in Dhaka is provided, too (chapter 6.1). The availability, accessibility and utilization of food in Dhaka are discussed with a particular focus on the urban poor and their respective food habits and needs (chapter 6.2). Street food consumption patterns are then introduced, pleasure street food is distinguished from required street food, and food safety is addressed (chapter 6.3). Looking at the sites of street food consumption reveals distinct daily dynamics that relate to the flows of customers and changing food demands throughout the day (chapter 6.4). Chapter seven answers the following question. How do differently endowed street food vendors sustain their livelihoods and cope with risks and uncertainties? It is assumed that hawker’s styles of vending are spatial expressions of their social position in the arena and thus of their habitus (chapter 7.1). I show how people have entered the social field of street vending and thereby reflect on the vendors’ migration, work and livelihood trajectories. Their access to the vending site is problematized, too (chapter 7.2). Using data from qualitative and quantitative methods, the factors that determine vendor’s relative social position and the consequences for their business model, working conditions and vending success are explained. The hawkers’ exchanges with and social relation to wholesalers, retailers and other actors in the field of food distribution are outlined, too (chapter 7.3). The reasons for vendors’ differential vulnerability to poverty and food insecurity are sketched as well as the livelihood risks that they are dealing with on a daily basis (chapter 7.4). The distinctions inside the field are objectified in the vendors’ spatial rights and their differential business success, but they are also internalised as their perception of their own social position shows (chapter 7.5). In chapter eight, the conceptual considerations on street food governance are fully integrated in order to answer two questions: How is power distributed inside the field and arenas of street food? How are street vending sites and thus Dhaka’s public spaces regulated? First, the de facto existing formal and informal modes of governance on street food vending and the use of public space are explained. It is shown that the “politics of the street” (Bayat 1997), the everyday encounters with the state and shifting modes of governance are crucial for the street vendors’ lives

10

The Politics of Street Food

and their quiet encroachment on public space (chapters 8.1 and 8.2). Crises in Bangladesh’s field of power also manifest themselves in Dhaka’s public space. This is proven by the next section that deals with the eviction of thousands of hawkers during the reign of the Caretaker Government, when the state used the street vendors as scapegoats to demonstrate its authority. Not being mere victims, most of the interviewed street food vendors managed to cope with repeated police raids and were able to continue their businesses under such difficult conditions (chapter 8.3). The vendors’ adaptive capacity can be interpreted as a form of “everyday form of resistance” (Scott 1990) against the state (chapter 8.4). In the concluding chapter nine, some policy implications of the findings are discussed. These reflections on fair street food governance might be relevant for urban planning, governance and development cooperation. They centre on the relation between street vendors and the state, and the notion of legitimacy. One of the lessons from the analysis of the politics of street food is that street vendors need to be safeguarded against evictions and harassment. Their rights as vocal and productive citizens have to be recognised. This would be the first, but maybe most important step towards more fair street food governance

11

Introduction

Contested Fields and Arenas in the Megacity A Relational Analysis of Street Food Governance in Dhaka (Bangladesh) Research Focus: Contested Street Food Governance Street food vending is a social and spatial practice that reflects the contestations between different agents and between formal and informal modes of governing public space in Dhaka

Key Agents Vendors and consumers of street food and the regulators of public space in Dhaka

Research Objectives 1. Understand and evaluate the role and meaning of street food vending in Dhaka’s fields of food. 2. Understand the decision-making processes, informal negotiations and everyday contestations between differently powerful agents with regard to (i) the access to food, (ii) the formation of livelihoods, and (iii) the rules of access to and use of public space in Dhaka. 3. Contribute to a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography in the Urban South. Conceptual Framing On the basis of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice four concepts are connected … 1) Food Systems and Food Security 3) Appropriation of Urban Public Space 2) Vulnerability and Livelihoods 4) Informality and Contested Governance Central Assumptions 1. The social field of street food reflects Dhaka’s history of (mega-)urbanisation, social change and globalisation. 2. Street food vending is part of and contributes significantly to a functioning and resilient urban food system and, in particular, to the food security of the urban poor. 3. Street food vendors’ livelihoods are structured by their economic and social capital, i.e. their position in fields, and their adaptive capacity in the context of multiple risks and constraints. 4. The mobility styles of street food vending, and thus the ways of appropriating public space, reflect the social positions of street vendors and the symbolic value of specific vending sites. 5. The rules of access to, use and control of public space are always in the making. These operating rules are informally negotiated, but highly contested modes of governance. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Central Research Questions What is the position of the field of street food in the megacity of Dhaka? (chapter 5) What is the contribution of street food vending to urban food security? (chapter 6) How do differently endowed street food vendors sustain their livelihoods? (chapter 7) How is power distributed inside the field and arenas of street food? (chapter 7 and 8) How are street vending sites and thus Dhaka’s public spaces regulated? (chapter 7 and 8)

Study Sites of Empirical Research Streets, public squares, transport nodes, markets and slum settlements in Dhaka (Bangladesh) Empirical Research Methods Semi-structured interviews with street vendors, customers, and regulators; PRA-methods; Consumers’ Survey (n= 207); Street Vendors’ Survey (n=120); mapping and counting; media analysis Fig. 1.1: Research Framework

2 WITH BOURDIEU TOWARDS A RELATIONAL, CRITICAL, AND REFLEXIVE SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY “Research without theory is blind, and theory without research is empty” (Pierre Bourdieu in Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 162).

Power relations structure the interactions between social actors and manifest themselves in institutions and in space. Dissecting the “hidden mechanisms of power” (Bourdieu 1992a) is one of the fundamental goals of social geography (see Werlen 1997: 65). As the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu points exactly in this direction, his work can be seen as an influential conceptual foundation for a relational, critical, and reflexive social geography (cf. Werlen 1997; Lippuner 2005a, b; Rothfuß 2009; Dörfler 2010). It has also inspired development geography and livelihood studies that seek to shed light on the power relations, negotiations and contestations taking place in the Global South (cf. Dörfler et al. 2003; de Haan & Zoomers 2005; Graefe & Hassler 2006; Deffner & Haferburg 2013; Sakdapolrak 2013). Moreover, the Theory of Practice has been used to analyse governance processes (cf. Kalpagam 2006; Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012) and the production of public space (cf. Frey 2004; Etzold 2011a). His theory thus seems to be an adequate approach for an empirical investigation of street food vending in Dhaka. The following two chapters build the conceptual foundation of this case study on street food governance in the megacity of Dhaka. In a first step, the basic principles and theorems in Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice are outlined (chapter 2). In a second step, Bourdieu’s ideas are linked to other concepts, which illustrate specific dimensions of street food vending, namely an understanding of informality as a practice of contested governance, the appropriation of public space, social vulnerability, and the food systems approach (chapter 3). 2.1 RELEVANCE OF BOURDIEU’S THEORY FOR SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY The French philosopher and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) is one of the most influential intellectuals of the last decades. His academic legacy inspired an uncountable number of social scientists, philosophers and critical thinkers who refer to Bourdieu’s epistemological principles, use his theory of practice and adopt his terminology in articles and books (for an overview see Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992a; Painter 2000; Papilloud 2003; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005). His academic and political work lives on; not only in sociology, anthropology and

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philosophy, but also in geography. “Bourdieu’s work is so central now because the real world has changed to a point at which it has come to agree with Bourdieu’s world” (Lash 1993: 210; cited in Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 320f). In Germany, only few human geographers referred to his work in the mid1980s (cf. Werlen 1987),5 but since the late 1990s his theory received increasing attention. His concepts of habitus, field and capital where particularly influential in social, cultural, urban and historical geography as they offered new ways of thinking about society and space (for references see Werlen 1997; Lippuner 2005a, b; Dirksmeier 2007, 2009). In development studies, Bourdieu’s work arrived a few years later. In recent years, one of the central analytical concepts in this academic field was the livelihoods approach (Chambers & Conway 1992; Scoones 1998; DFID 2003). The influential Sustainable Livelihoods Framework has been criticised for being too static and ahistorical and thus for largely ignoring how structural conditions and power relations shape human agency (cf. Dörfler et al. 2003: 13f; de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 33ff; Bohle 2009: 527f). Moreover, Dörfler and colleagues (2003: 21) argued that development studies should not only look at the (in)capabilities of vulnerable actors or groups, but rather turn to a more structural approach that focuses on power relations and historically rooted dependencies. They therefore proposed a re-orientation of development geography along the lines of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. To put it in the words of de Haan and Zoomers (2005: 41), livelihoods research should move away “from Giddens towards Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’”. Along the lines of these critiques and anticipating or following pleas for more theoretically grounded research in development geography (cf. Graefe & Hassler 2006; Müller-Mahn & Verne 2010; Bohle 2011; Deffner & Haferburg 2013), a growing number of German geographers have employed Bourdieu’s concepts for their own empirical work in countries of the Global South.6 While some of Bourdieu’s central principles of research and his conceptual considerations seem to be widely recognized nowadays, it is nevertheless necessary to briefly describe them here and operationalize them for this case study of street food governance in Dhaka.

5 6

In Germany, Werlen (1987) was among the first who incorporated Bourdieu’s theory in his own approach (cf. Werlen 1997: 65, 91, 313ff, 401ff, etc.). Nevertheless, Werlen largely builds his social geography on the structuration theory developed by Giddens (1984). In the German-speaking development geography community, Bourdieu’s key ideas and theorems have been operationalized, employed and also extended in several detailed dissertation theses. See for instance Rothfuß’ (2004) study on pastoralists in Namibia, Haferburg’s (2007) work on urban differentiation in South Africa, Deffner’s (2010) analysis of social exclusion in favelas in Brazil, Sakdapolrak’s (2010) assessment of health vulnerability in Indian slums, Thieme’s (2006) study on Nepalese labour migration to India, Eichholz’ (2012) analysis of water supply governance in Bolivia, or the contributions in the 2006 and 2013 special issues of the journal Geographica Helvetica (edited by Graefe & Hassler 2006; Deffner et al. 2013). Watts and Bohle (1993) also adopted Bourdieu’s understanding of a multidimensional social space for their analysis of the “Social Space of Vulnerability”.

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2.2 BOURDIEU’S SIX CENTRAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RESEARCH The sociology of Bourdieu follows six basic principles (cf. Wacquant 1992; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005) that serve as points of reference for this case study. First, Bourdieu emphasises the close interdependence of empirical research and theoretical reflections. For him, theories are research programmes that should not evoke mere theoretical discussions, but rather encourage application in empirical research in order to generalise or reject theoretical assumptions. Theoretical concepts should be used as tools to identify, understand, explain and reflect upon the social reality and the particular social phenomena that are being studied. In turn, research methods are practical skills that cannot be selected and applied without theoretical reflections. In order to achieve this goal, the empirical researcher cannot simply ask ‘his’ questions, for instance in an interview, he also has to engage with the research subjects and enter into a social relation, which requires respect, trust, the ability to listen attentively and to put oneself into ‘the other’s’ position (cf. Bourdieu 1992b: 225ff; Wacquant 1992: 26ff; Bourdieu 2005b; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 96ff, 217ff). Second, multi-disciplinary research should not only apply tools and skills from different disciplines, but rather overcome artificial and fruitless disciplinary boundaries and the division of labour between these disciplines. For Bourdieu social science is an inseparable combination of disciplines that seek to understand the social world, in particular sociology, anthropology, history, political science and – one might add – social geography, economics and development studies (Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 227ff). Third, research itself must be understood as a particular social practice of researchers who themselves are situated in a field of contest and competition, “the academic field” (Bourdieu 1988). Academics should thus be critically aware of their practices and of their own position(s) in the field, from which they draft their research programmes, meet their research subjects, and write their theses, articles or books. According to Bourdieu’s plea for self-reflexivity, the whole research process, the underlying assumptions, used terms, constructed categories, and used methodology, should be questioned constantly in order to achieve the best possible objectivity, as outlined in Bourdieu’s work on the academia and the production of knowledge (Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 249ff). Lippuner (2005b) therefore suggests to take on the “Invitation to Reflexive Sociology” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992a) in the academic field of geography in the sense of a ‘reflexive social geography’. Fourth, a critical or political social science should detect asymmetric power relations. For Bourdieu, the fundamental task of sociology is “to uncover the most profoundly buried structures of the various social worlds which constitute the social universe, as well as the ‘mechanisms’ which tend to ensure their reproduction or their transformation” (Bourdieu 1989 cited in Wacquant 1992: 7). Moreover, academics themselves should be politically engaged in order to give people weapons against unjust systems of domination: “Those who have the good fortune to be able to devote their lives to the study of the social world cannot stand aside,

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neutral and indifferent, from the struggles in which the future of that world is at stake” (Bourdieu cited in Hillier & Rooksby 2002: 7).7 Fifth, just like other leading analysts of the present conditions of the social world like Arjun Appadurai (1996), Manuel Castells (1996) or Zygmunt Bauman (2000), who focus on relational or liquid space-time-regimes and who can, thus, be subsumed under the “paradigm of a liquid modernity” (Etzold 2009: 27-37), Bourdieu is an expressive and convincing advocate of relational thinking. One of his central assumptions is that the social reality is made of relations, and that we can only understand the social practices of agents, if we begin research by looking at their relative (power) position in social fields, and not limit the analysis to their function (cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 94ff; Bourdieu 1998: 48). Such a relational approach is gaining more and more recognition in human geography, in particular in economic geography (cf. Bathelt & Glückler 2003) and in development studies (cf. Dörfler et al. 2003; Graefe & Hassler 2006). Sixth, through his concepts of field, habitus and capital Bourdieu transcends the antagonism between objectivism and subjectivism. Sociological research in the line of objectivism, for instance structuralism, looks at the objective relations such as functional systems, organisations or rules that structure or even determine social life. In contrast, social scientists in the tradition of subjectivism, for instance interactionism, ethnomethodology or rational choice, focus on actors and their imagination of the social world, their conscious (rational) decisions and their perceptions of their own actions, or in other words, on actors’ agency (Bourdieu 1989: 14f; Painter 2000: 241; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 238ff). Critics have noted that Bourdieu’s theory tends to lean itself towards objectivism, as the structures that are embodied in actors through their habitus seem to (pre)determine social practices (Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 244, 249).8 But Bourdieu connects structure and agency through the dialectics of “the internalisation of the exterior and the externalisation of the interior” (Bourdieu 1976: 147, translation BE). Social practices are structured through acquired dispositions (habitus), and structures, for instance institutions, are in turn constructed and negotiated in and through social practices (cf. Etzold et al. 2012). Social practices are socially embedded “orderly improvisations” (Bourdieu 1993: 107) that follow a certain process-related logic – a practical sense. Bourdieu’s theory is thus neither a structural 7

8

Bourdieu himself rejected the label ‘critical´ or ‘radical´ sociology, because he was irritated by the Frankfurter School’s “aristocratism of that totalizing critique” (Bourdieu 1987 cited in Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992a: 193). Yet, he was fundamentally critical in his analysis of empirical case studies and of the academic field itself in the sense that he deconstructed systems of power and domination. As active ‘political sociologist´, he contributed vividly to political debates, e.g. on housing policy, immigration and segregation processes (Bourdieu et al. 2005) and many other issues (Wacquant 1992: 53ff; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 297ff). In turn, Werlen’s (1987, 1997, 1999) conceptual foundation of social geography that largely builds on the actor-oriented theorems of the British sociologist Giddens (1984) has been criticised for putting too much emphasis on the freedoms and the capabilities of autonomous subjects and thus not paying enough attention to the structural constraints of individual actions (cf. Blotevogel 1999: 19ff; Oßenbrügge 1999: 39f).

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nor an actor-centred social theory, but can best be described as a Theory of Practice in the sense that it focuses on social practices that are aligned to the logic of social fields in which ‘agents’9 are positioned. Following these principles, I seek to contribute to a theory-led, yet empirically grounded, reflexive, critical, relational and practice-oriented social geography. 2.3 BOURDIEU’S THEORY OF PRACTICE: SIX CENTRAL THEOREMS While it is not possible to elaborate Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice in detail,10 it is necessary to discuss and operationalize his central theorems regarding space and fields, habitus and capital, institutions, and social practices. These terms are crucial for explaining the logic of practices in the field of street food in Dhaka. 2.3.1 Social Space and Fields “The imagination of space contains in it already the principle of a relational perception of the social world” (Bourdieu 1998: 48, emphasis in original, translation BE). For Bourdieu, space is thus a fundamentally dynamic and relational concept. Similarity and difference, distance and proximity, integration and segregation, expansion and contraction, symmetry and asymmetry, and relative distribution or spatial order (expressed by terms such as above, below, far away from, next to, between, etc.) matter in material space just as much as they do in social space. Analytically, he distinguishes between three basic types of spaces –social, physical and appropriated physical space – which will be explained in the following.11 Instead of using the term society,12 Bourdieu generally speaks of social space(s). Social space consists of a conglomerate of semi-autonomous horizontally and vertically aligned sub-spaces or fields that are structured by and through the uneven distribution of capital and thus power.

9

As further delineated in chapter 2.3.6, I use the term agent instead of actor in order to emphasize the structural embeddedness of social practices, yet noting people’s agency. 10 Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice is lined out well in his most influential books (cf. Bourdieu 1976; Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b; Bourdieu 1998, 1999, 2001). Bourdieu’s theory and vocabulary is introduced and explained by an increasing number of books (Wacquant 1992; Calhoun et al. 1993; Painter 2000; Diaz-Bone 2002; Ebrecht & Hillebrandt 2002; Hillier & Rooksby 2002; Krais & Gebauer 2002; Papilloud 2003; Reckwitz 2004; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005; Florian & Hillebrandt 2006). 11 See Painter (2000) for a critical reflection of Bourdieu’s understanding of “space”. Being aware of other theorists’ conceptualisations of space that are to some extent more elaborate (cf. Lefebvre 1991; Soja 2003; Massey 2005; Harvey 2006b), this study also follows Bourdieu’s three types of spaces for the sake of consistency. (See chapter 3.2 on public space). 12 In earlier writings Bourdieu sometimes still used the term society or social formation, which he defined as a “system of relations of power and relations of meaning between groups and classes” (Wacquant 1992: 7), but later Bourdieu refrained from using the term society at all.

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What are Social Fields? In its internal formation, social space resembles a “field of struggles” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 101), in which actors take on relative social positions in the sense of ranks in a social order (Bourdieu 2005a: 117). “Agents” are positioned on the basis of their endowment with capital, their habitus and their objectives. They play with and against each other, compete and struggle over the distribution of resources, their own positions, and the preservation or transformation of that field and thus shape its historically specific relations. While there are actual linkages, connections and flows of exchange between agents in a network (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 114), direct interactions not necessarily need to exist in fields as these are rather characterised by the relative position of agents and the nature of their – most often asymmetric – power relations (Sakdapolrak 2007: 55). Bourdieu often uses the analogy of a game to explain the internal formation of a field and the difference between fields (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 98f; 1996b: 127f). In different fields there are different players involved, the resources (capital) that are brought in by the players have different values, there are different aims of the game (what is at stake?) and there are specific norms, immanent rules or regulative principles that structure the game. Each field, thus, has its own logic (nomos) – or in other words its own political economy – that is imperative for the players engaged in it. As the players belief in the stakes of the game and in playing the game (doxa), the logic of the field largely structures (not determines!) the relational positions of the fields’ agents and their reading of the game that both result in a certain strategic orientation as well as in a distinct potential to act in a specific way (habitus). Social practices are the actual moves of the players (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 99). While each agent, for instance a street vendor in Dhaka, has its own position in a field, the field of street food, social classes can be identified within a field in terms of marked similarities and differences. A distinct group of agents might share similar characteristics (volume and structure of capital) and a similar marginal or central position in the field. The “closer the agents, groups or institutions which are situated within this space [are], the more common properties they have; and the more distant, the fewer” (Bourdieu 1989: 16). There is always a hierarchy within a field between dominant and dominated agents, who are positioned against another on the basis of the differences between their positions. Difference thus contributes significantly to the identity of a group (Bourdieu 1999: 279). Scales and Borders of Social Fields Bourdieu demonstrated in his manifold studies that fields can be imagined on very different scales as long as contests over capital and relative positions occur. This can be the case within a family; within a single economic unit such as a company or a street food shop; within a residential apartment building, a whole slum settlement or a (mega)city; within an economic sector such as a food market or a

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whole retail system; within a nation-state, for instance in the literary field or the field of national party politics; or within an international regime, as for instance the negotiations on international trade and investment agreements show (Bourdieu 2002c; Schultheis 2010). The agents themselves define and contest the boundaries within which the field has its effects. In this sense a field resembles a magnetic field with a centre of gravity, where key agents of power set the rules of the field – including the rules for entering or for being excluded from the field – and marginal positions, at which agents are attracted to the centre and thus follow its logic without having the power to influence its rule. The size of a field in terms of the number of players involved and its extent in terms of its manifestation in physical space are thus empirical questions (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 100; 1996a: 130; Bourdieu 2002a: 206f; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 147ff). In this sense, street vendors are not only individual agents who seek to sustain their livelihoods in competition with other agents in one broad field that one might label ‘the megacity of Dhaka’. They are also part of a particular social class of people, who live under similar circumstances, possess similar traits and have similar objectives like street vendors, rickshaw pullers, day labourers or other workers in the urban informal economy of Dhaka. Relations between Fields The relative position of a specific field needs to be assessed in relation to other fields, in particular with regard to the field of power. If the logics (in terms of the stakes, the rules and the required resources) of two different fields overlap significantly, then they are heteronomous fields; they are closely intertwined, and one is largely dependent on or even governed by the other. Moreover, it is more likely that particular agents are ‘playing’ in both of these two fields. If, in turn, two fields differ significantly in their operational logic and function independently according to their own rules, then they are autonomous (Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 142). But always, fields are in a horizontal and vertical relation to another. The distinction between horizontal and vertical alignment13 can be justified with the distance of the respective fields to the field of power that influences all other fields and where the exchange rates between different types of capital are being established and fixed. More specifically, the field of power can be “defined as the space of play within which the holders of capital (of different species) struggle in particular for power over the state, that is, over the statist capital granting power over the different species of capital and over their reproduction (particularly through the school system” (Bourdieu 1994: 5, emphasis in original). The distance or proximity to state power is, thus, a fundamental characteristic of a field. 13 Two autonomous fields are positioned towards another horizontally, if they have the same distance to state power, e.g. the field of sports and the field of music. Two heteronymous fields can (also) be vertically aligned, e.g. the field of music is dependent on the field of education, which in turn is closely related to the nation-state controlled field of power.

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For two reasons, the relation of fields, but also of individual agents, towards the field of power is highly important for this analysis. On the one hand, it is a theoretical question, because the whole discourse about governance and informality revolves around the notion how close (then labelled as formal) or distant (then labelled as informal) specific economic sectors, groups of actors or institutions are in relation to the state (which in turn goes in hand with the power to recognize and determine what formal or informal means). But on the other hand, it is an empirical question, too. As to be demonstrated, struggles by political agents (mainly members of the national parties) over key positions in the central government, and thus winning the field of power, is of fundamental importance for all social fields in Bangladesh and has considerable repercussions for the governance of public space in Dhaka and thus for the social field of street food. 2.3.2 The Relation between Social and Physical Space Physical space is the material abstraction of space, in which the laws of nature determine the relative position of (physical) elements. A distinct physical space, or locality, is characterized by a distinct physical setup, for instance a defined set of buildings or a geomorphologic structure, by a distinct surface such as grass or pavement and other measurable physical characteristics of this place such as its air quality. A locality is largely defined by the relation to its surroundings, in the sense of distance or proximity, and how places are separated from another through natural or man-made borders (Bourdieu 1991: 26; 2005a: 117). Social and physical space relate to one another, “inasmuch as power is distributed spatially as well as socially” (Painter 2000: 257). Nevertheless, while a field cannot be expressed (solely) in terms of spatial boundaries, physical space matters in defining the field, because their inherent social order becomes realised in distinct places through the spatial distribution of people, goods and services. The field’s agents are bounded in places – insofar as their bodies cannot be at two places simultaneously (Bourdieu 2005a: 117). Their place of origin and their residence matters in the social hierarchy; they use specific locations as platforms to meet; at distinct sites different interests are played out and struggles ‘take place’. Moreover, the spatial distribution of goods and services is not accidental, but subject to the structure of social space: Where, for instance in a megacity, are the shopping centres and hospitals? Which households do have access to clean drinking water and which not? Appropriated Physical Space or Arenas As the appropriation of physical spaces is a typical expression of power, the relational positions of agents in social spaces becomes visible in distinct places in both material and in symbolic form. This aspect is addressed by a third spatial term that Bourdieu uses: occupied or appropriated physical space is a social con-

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struction and a projection of social space on the level of physical space. It is, thus, the result of the simultaneous objectification of social space and the internalisation of physical space. This “realised social space” (Bourdieu 1991: 29) manifests itself in the spatial distribution of different goods and services and in the differentiated chances of individual agents and groups to appropriate these goods and services. Accordingly, the material space that is occupied by an agent and his own “sense of place” are good indicators of an agent’s position in social space (Bourdieu 1989: 17; 1991: 26; 2005a: 118). Some scholars have noted a putative spatial determinism in this assumption (cf. Schroer 2006. 88f; Dörfler 2010: 31ff). Lossau and Lippuner (2004: 206), for instance, argue that Bourdieu’s argumentation of the relation between social and physical space runs the risk of falling into a “spatial trap”. Empirical research thus needs to prove whether the specific localisation of agents in material space and the respective spatial distances are really the expressions of their social position (and the appropriated space is thus a good indicator), whether other factors play a role in the appropriation process, or whether there is no clear relation between social positions and the consumption of material space at all (see also Etzold 2013a). Nonetheless, social space owes its persistence partly to the very fact that dominant social structures are seemingly permanently inscribed into physical space; modern architecture and city planning clearly proves that (cf. Bauman 2000; Castells 2000: 448ff). In turn, distinct spatial settings often seem to be equated with distinct economic, social and political positions as the stigmatization of “marginal” city quarters as slums, ghettos or areas of risks, insecurity and violence indicates (cf. Bourdieu 2005a: 118ff; Deffner 2007; Sakdapolrak 2010: 149ff). In this study the term arena is used synonymously with Bourdieu’s notion of the appropriated physical space in order to describe street food vending sites as distinct spatial representations and effects of the structural conditions in social fields (chapter 2.4). 2.3.3 The Notion of Habitus Four central parameters structure an individual agent’s position and his practices within a field: the field itself, the agents’ habitus and capital, and institutions. In turn, the immanent social order in a field is always exemplified on two levels: it is objectified in the institutions or regulative principles of the field, which also define the specific value of different types of capital; and it is incorporated in the bodies of the agents who are engaged in the field (Bourdieu 1993: 160). The relation between individual agents and the field is theorized through the habitus concept, which builds the core of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. As indicated, Bourdieu strongly rejects rational action theory that is expressed in the sociological current of methodological individualism (cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 123ff). There, the “homo oeconomicus is seen as a rational agent, who chooses the best means, the best strategies by a conscious calculation oriented towards the maximisation of profits” (Bourdieu 2002b: 44). He rather

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favours a dispositional philosophy of practice when he argues that social practices are not so much a product of agents’ intentions and goal-oriented rational decisions, but a result of the dispositions, which they have acquired through socialization, and which are (re)produced in their present relative position in and through the logic of the field (Bourdieu 1998: 167f; Dörfler et al. 2003: 15). The term habitus then refers to this “system of dispositions, that is of permanent manners of being, seeing, acting and thinking, or a system of long-lasting (rather than permanent) schemes or schemata or structures of perception, conception and action” (Bourdieu 2002b: 43, emphasis in original). Three points are important to note here. First, a person’s habitus is a product of the internalisation or embodiment of the position in the field, which is a function of time. An agent’s habitus is not natural, “not a fate, not a destiny”, but a specific “product of history, that is of social experience and education, [and] it may be changed by history, that is by new experiences, education or training […]. Dispositions are long-lasting: they tend to perpetuate, to reproduce themselves, but they are not eternal” (Bourdieu 2002b: 45, emphasis added). Second, on the cognitive level, habitus can be seen as “a sense of one’s (and other’s) place and role in the world of one’s lived environment” (Hillier & Rooksby 2002: 21). An agent’s habitus structures (but not determines!) the particular way in which he perceives, understands, appreciates and evaluates himself and his own position, others and their position, and the field in which he is engaged (Sakdapolrak 2007: 56). In this sense, the habitus is a durable schemata of perception and classification – as an agent takes note of differences – and a schemata of appreciation and evaluation – as an agent notes what makes a difference and what has a value in his field. On this basis, habitus is also a schemata of action – the explicit or implicit recognition of differences enables an agent to interact adequately in fields (cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 126f; 1996a: 160; Bourdieu 1998: 21; 1999: 278f). Agents’ dissimilar personal life histories (trajectories), unequal endowments with capital, different power positions, different knowledge of the rules and different skills to ‘bend the rules’, result in different kinds of habitus. So just like the social positions, habitus are differentiated, but also differentiating, and “they make the difference” (Bourdieu 1998: 21): The habitus serves as a basis for social distinction and manifests itself in different (life) styles that are marked by specific perceptual patterns, tastes and consumption habits and, thus, an aptitude to act in a particular way. Nonetheless, a habitus is not necessarily an individual category as it can be socially shared by agents in similar field positions. The social space is, therefore, sub-divided into distinct spaces of lifestyles (Bourdieu 1999: 277ff). Third, through the dialectic relation between habitus and the field, Bourdieu transcends the dichotomies of determination vs. freedom, conditionality vs. freedom, consciousness vs. sub-consciousness, or individual vs. society (Bourdieu 1993: 103). On the one hand, the relation between field and habitus “is a relation of conditioning: the field structures the habitus” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 127; emphasis in original). The habitus, in turn, governs the social practices; not in terms of an inevitable mechanical determinism, but in terms of the limitations

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and boundaries for actions that are inscribed in agents’ habitus from the outset, for instance in the Hindu caste system. But on the other hand, “it is a relation of knowledge or cognitive construction. Habitus contributes to constituting the field as a meaningful world, a world endowed with sense and value, in which it is worth investing one’s energy” (ibid). 2.3.4 The Basic Types of Capital The next important factor that helps to explain social practices is capital, which is the “energy of social physics” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 118) and only exists and functions in relation to a field. Capital consists of resources that enable agents to act. Capital can be conceived as “social energy” or power that can be accumulated, inherited and transferred, and thus, utilized. The appropriation of capital can be an individual or a collective process that always requires time: the social world can, thus, only be understood in its history. Moreover, at a particular point in time, the distribution of (different types of) capital among a set of agents mirrors the distribution of the positions that these agents take on in society and structures the constraints and chances of their social practices (Bourdieu 2004: 217). To put it simply – the more capital an agent has, the more choices he has in his actions. Bourdieu (1983, 2004) distinguishes between four basic types of capital14 that can be converted into another: economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital.15 Economic Capital Economic capital is accumulated labour and compromises all forms of material possessions that can be exchanged (goods, products), and which are institutionalised, for instance in the form of money, acquired property or ownership rights (Bourdieu 1983: 185; 2004: 218). Economic capital is regarded to be the most crucial type of capital that serves as a basis for accumulation of the other capital types. But as Bourdieu showed in numerous studies, economic capital alone cannot explain the noticeable differences in a society. It is rather the relative distribution of economic and cultural capital that structures social space in differentiated societies (cf. Bourdieu 1998: 18f; 1999: 212ff).

14 Capital is everything that counts or makes a difference in a field. Many more sub-types of capital thus exist. For instance the capital of physical force, statist, political, juristic, technological, organizational, financial, or commercial capital, etc. (cf. Bourdieu 1998; 2002a). 15 The conversion of capital can entail significant transformation costs. Transforming economic into social capital, for instance, requires not only money, but time, attention, trust, etc. Actors risk a diminution of capital if the esteemed transformation fails, or a lack of recognition if they, for instance, try to convert economic capital too candidly into social capital, i.e. through the open payment of bribes. In some cases, it might therefore be appropriate to disguise the capital transformation process (Bourdieu 2004: 226-229).

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Cultural or Informational Capital Cultural or informational capital refers to incorporated knowledge, skills and qualifications, but also to the internalisation of values, social norms and world views that are acquired through own formal education and social experience. It exists in three different states. Embodied cultural capital refers to the internalisation of the structure of the field through the body of an agent. While the family, the neighbourhood, the social milieu and schooling shape the preconditions for acquiring skills, abilities and knowledge, one can only accumulate embodied cultural capital through personal effort – and thus by investing one’s own time. Objectified cultural capital refers to the material carriers of culture such as books, works of art, historical monuments, and scientific instruments that require special skills to be read and used. Formal educational or professional credentials, such as recommendation letters, certificates, and academic titles, represent formalised or institutionalised cultural capital. This capital form requires persons, who set the categories for eligibility, who test the candidate, who judge the quality of the accomplishment and, then, if legitimate, authorise the certificate. These are (most often state) agents with institutional power, who can make the difference (Bourdieu 1983: 185ff; 2004: 218ff; Hillier & Rooksby 2002: 24). Social Capital Social capital is an actual and potential social resource that can be obtained through belonging to a durable network of reciprocal recognition and mutually beneficial obligations (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 119; Bourdieu 2004: 224). It encompasses the ability to ask for advice, a favour or help, and other benefits that are only available to members of a certain, sometimes institutionalised, group. The overall capital, both in a material and symbolic sense, that is possessed by all friends, family members, neighbours and/or business partners in the group means security and credibility for the whole group and can only be (re)produced through trust and reciprocity. Whether an agent can mobilise and utilise the common resources in his network or not depends on the extent of his social relations, the available capital stock in his network as well as on his own network-position and his own endowment with different capitals (Bourdieu 1983: 191ff; 2004: 224ff). While social capital can be considered as multiplier of the other types of capital, it should not be forgotten that gaining and retaining it requires ceaseless and (time) costly investments – such as the exchange of friendly words or goods within one’s own network – in order to (re)establish trust and mutual recognition (Bourdieu 2004: 226). Moreover, there is an ambivalence to social capital that is sometimes overlooked: there are good or positive sides as social capital builds the foundation for cooperation and enables access to other people’ resources; and there are down or dark sides as social capital includes some and thus excludes others from getting access to exclusive networks, highly valued capital types or specific sites (cf. Fine 2001; Harriss 2002; Bohle 2005; Bebbington 2007).

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Symbolic Capital A fourth capital type encompasses all the other three: Symbolic capital is „any given characteristic (any given form of capital, physical, economic, cultural, social capital), if it is perceived by social agents, whose perceptional categories are constructed in such a way that they recognize and appreciate its value” (Bourdieu 1998: 108, translation BE). Symbolic capital refers to social recognition and prestige, as agents explicitly or implicitly acknowledge the sum of economic, cultural and social capital that other agents have accumulated and, thereby, give it a high value. Symbolic capital also refers to legitimacy, as agents need to acquire their ‘capital stock’ in a socially accepted way. Generally, powerful players possess not only the largest volume of capital, but also the right combination of different types of capital that secures their dominant position in the field. Based on this high symbolic capital, they can use and transform the rules of the game in concordance with their own interests, exercise control over and influence other people. 2.3.5 Institutions: The Rules of the Game “In a field, agents […] constantly struggle, according to the regularities and the rules constitutive of this space of play (and, […], over those rules themselves)” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 102).

Institutions, understood as the regularities and immanent rules of the game, are the fourth crucial component that helps to explain social practices in fields. Bourdieu does not address institutions as explicitly as fields, habitus and capital – on which most other authors base their practice-oriented interpretations. However, the constructivist and socially embedded understanding of institutions that is laid out in his theory can be seen as a fundamental contribution to neo-institutional theory (cf. DiMaggio & Powell 1991; Florian 2006; Scott 2008; Etzold et al. 2012). Rules “refer to prescriptions commonly known and used by a set of participants to order repetitive, interdependent relationships” (Ostrom 1986: 5). Such a definition is in line with rational choice theory and implies that well-informed actors follow rules consciously and in a goal- or norm-oriented manner. The economist Douglas North (1992: 3) argues that institutions reduce the complexity and inherent insecurity of each and every situation and, thereby, constrain agency, but also enable more secure and orderly interactions. He defines institutions as social practices that structure interactions and which are, in turn, (un-) intentional products of interaction. At first glance, Bourdieu’s understanding of institutions is quite similar. The social conditions of a field always “take effect” on two layers: structures are incorporated in the bodies of the agents (habitus) and simultaneously inscribed in institutions (Bourdieu 1993: 106). Institutions are implicit and binding rules that are “permanently socially (re-) produced”, that “enable, constrain, and give meaning to social practices and that comprise regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive or constitutive elements” (Etzold, et al. 2012: 186).

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Dimensions of Institutions and Social Practices Following Scott (2008: 48ff) one can differentiate between three different pillars of institutions, each having a distinct constitutive logic, a certain basis of legitimacy and thus structure social practices in different ways (see Table 2.1). regulative instrumentality

normative appropriateness

cultural-cognitive orthodoxy

regulative rules

normatively binding social expectations social obligation

constitutive cultural scripts, discourses taken-for-grantedness, shared understanding

coerciveness, legal sanctions

morally governed

comprehensible, recognizable, practicable, meaningful

practices are aligned to explicitly formulated rules, contracts and state-law; practices are influenced by the fear of sanctions and feelings of guilt or innocence

practices are aligned to explicit and implicit moral obligations and social expectations; practices are influenced by the fear of social exclusion, feelings of shame or honour

recognition of social practices

recognized by others as legal or illegal practices

largely defined by

the nation-state (field of power), companies and other hierarchic systems of domination

recognized by others as right, appropriate, legitimate or wrong, inappropriate, illegitimate practices society, organisations, peer groups, family, and by more powerful agents in the field

practices are based on an implicit understanding of the logic of the field (nomos), on common beliefs and shared lifestyles that express the relative position in the field (habitus); practices are partly expressed in unreflected routines and shaped by feelings of (un)certainty or confusion recognized by others and one’s self as normal, adequate, thinkable or abnormal, inadequate, unthinkable practices

constitutive logic basis of order basis of compliance basis of legitimacy alignment of social practices

expedience, utility

cultural frames and personality (as a result of internalisation of the structure and one’s own position in the field)

Tab. 2.1: Three pillars of Institutions and their Effects in Practices Source: adapted and extended from Scott (2008: 51, 79) and Florian (2006: 93)

Regulative rules are explicitly formulated and legally sanctioned, for instance formal law and directives, while the normative pillar of institutions refers to values, norms and social obligations that guide social interaction. Institutions are also regularities, because they only become effective or operative in and through continuous and repeated application; institutions are thus (re)produced through the social practices of agents (Bourdieu 1976: 203ff). Here, the recognition of institutions by the agents in the respective field – largely an aspect of the culturalcognitive pillar of institutions (Scott 2008: 57ff) – is important to note. Institu-

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tions must be perceived by agents whom they address as practical, plausible and meaningful in order to be embodied in their dispositions and accepted as reasonable reference points for actions (Florian 2006: 85). Practicability, plausibility, and social validity or legitimacy are key aspects of institutions that are granted or denied by the agents in a field through social practices. Bourdieu’s notions of nomos, doxa and illusio help to illustrate the relation of institutions and social practices in the field. The nomos is the constitutional logic or the dominant ‘principle of vision and division’ in a field (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 98). This logic appears to be an inevitable, indisputable and, hence, “powerful matter of course” (doxa, Bourdieu 1998: 118). The field’s logic cannot be changed by the agents in the field insofar as they are either not aware of the hegemonic logic or they tacitly recognise it just like players who (have to) collectively believe in the stakes and the rules of a game if they (want to) play it (illusio). Agents therefore do not necessarily follow or break explicitly formulated rules, contracts or state-law consciously out of a fear of sanctions. Neither do they only align their practices to the moral obligations and social expectations, which are part of their social roles’ requirements (i.e. mutual expectations, social taboos), out of a fear of social exclusion. As agents internalise their own position in their field and its dominant logic in their perceptions, expectations, aptitudes and habitual routines through their socialisation (habitus), they inadvertently choose those practices that are expected of them and their social position. More importantly even, a certain set of practices is seen by the agents themselves being normal and adequate, whereas other alternative options to act are being regarded as unthinkable or unimaginable (see Table 2.1). If agents are not aware of their own relative position in the social field and how it structures (not determines!) their practices, they navigate in their field in “doxic submission” (Bourdieu 1998: 118). In turn, a set of institutions that guide the practices of actors in a specific field is not being questioned, if the inherent logic of the social order is perceived to be natural or self-evident (Bourdieu 1976: 206; Florian 2006: 86). Changing and Playing with Rules Through their practices agents collectively re-produce the immanent rules and the logic of a field and thereby the field as such. It is therefore rather the exception than the norm that institutions remain stable over a long period of time. Typically, institutions change just as the structure of the field changes: the power relations might shift, established agents might leave and new players might enter the arena, or the value or composition of capital that is most crucial in that field might be transformed (Florian 2006: 87f). If institutions remain unchanged while the overall socio-economic conditions have transformed, their appropriateness, efficiency and effectiveness as well as their legitimacy come into question. The logic of a field and the way its institutions structure interactions often favours some agents over others. Therefore, institutions themselves are constantly subject to contestation between players with different interests; or as Bourdieu

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(1976: 206; translation BE) has put it: “playing with the rules is part of the rules of the game”. The established and more powerful players in the field seek to maintain the present rules by applying conservative strategies in order to profit from their slowly accumulated symbolic capital and to further strengthen their own position of power. If the newcomers, in contrast, want to gain power in the field, they have to apply subversive strategies, for instance by trying to re-define the value of a specific type of capital that they can accumulate more easily (and likewise de-valuate the capital configuration of the established) or by attempting to modify the set of rules in the field in their own favour. The more powerful an agent or a group of agents with a joint agenda is (high symbolic capital), the more likely is the persistence of these very same institutions that perpetuate the position of symbolic power. In a field, domination – or symbolic violence – is not simply expressed in direct actions of an individual or a group who possess direct and symbolic violence over a subordinate agent or group. Domination is rather inscribed in the logic of the field and its institutions that are instrumental for the practices of all agents (Bourdieu 1998: 52; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 149f). To sum up, institutions are social constructions that require constant recognition, re-affirmation and re-investment in order to persist. They serve as the mediating units between the field and agents’ social practices (Florian 2006: 86). The existence of institutions, the recognition of these by the players, and a fundamental belief in the stakes of the game are the preconditions for a game to actually take place. Institutions define the value of both habitus and capital in a social field and thereby frame the players’ practices. In this case study of street food governance those institutions are particularly relevant that assign agents a specific position in the field of street food vending and that regulate the access to public space. 2.3.6 Playing the Game: From Actions to Practices Three fundamental epistemological shifts took place in the history of actionoriented theories (Reckwitz 2004: 306ff). The first was the shift from models of teleological (individual) action (homo oeconomicus) to norm-oriented social (inter)action (homo sociologicus). The second, the social-constructivist turn, led to a relative devaluation of the latter approach, while the reconstruction of culturalcognitive orders of knowledge that guide human interactions was emphasised. A third turn is currently taking place within cultural theories as the culturalcognitive framings of actions are recognized. At the same time, however, the material basis and the bodily experience of practices are stressed. This ‘praxeological’ turn can best be characterised through a shift in the terminology from actors to agents and from action to practices. Bourdieu contributed significantly to these three paradigmatic turns (cf. Reckwitz 2004; Everts et al. 2011). He speaks of agents – not actors – in order to highlight that individuals are active bearers of capitals. Individuals are neither mere illusion, nor “biological individuals, actors, or subjects”, nor “‘particles’ that are mechanically pushed and pulled about by external forces”(Bourdieu &

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Wacquant 1992a: 107/8). They are rather agents, who depending on their own trajectory and their position in the field “are socially constituted as active and acting in the field […] by the fact that they possess the necessary properties to be effective, to produce effects, in the field” (ibd: 107). In turn, a field is constructed by agents, by their ‘points of view’ and their efforts to position themselves. While the term action has the connotation of a singular act by individual actors with specific interests and orientations at a particular place and at a specific point in time (Reckwitz 2004: 321), the term practice is more comprehensive, more explicit and fundamentally relational. Based on their position in social space, agents develop a disposition to perceive and evaluate the social reality in a specific way and to exercise distinct social practices. Social practices are – – – – – – – – – – – –

socially embedded in the sense that they are expressions of the relative positions of agents in social space; embodied in the sense that fields are incorporated in the habitus and that practices are performances of bodies, which are bound in time and space; material in the sense that material conditions evoke specific practices and that material artefacts and thus physical spaces are products of practices; skilful in the sense that they are based on agents’ specific endowment with capital; meaningful in the sense that they rest on a certain process-related logic – a practical sense – that is typical for the respective position in the field; interest-oriented in the sense that most agents have clear intentions and strategic orientations, and all have ‘stakes in the game’ in which they are positioned (illusio); regulated in the sense that they are more or less explicitly aligned to systems of rules; regulative, as institutions are reproduced and come into effect only through practices; contingent in the sense that they depend on the history of agents – their individual trajectories – and the genealogy of the field; processual in the sense that practices are always ‘in the making’; repetitive, because punctual rational decisions are less frequent and less important than the routines that are learned through everyday experience; creative in the sense that despite the prevalent social order it is (still) possible to break with practical routines and improvise.

The agency of agents, in the sense of the capability to do things that affect others and the freedom to choose how to act (Giddens 1984:9; Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 107; Obrist & Pfeiffer 2010: 290), lies in the combination of these points. While, for instance, certain rules demand reciprocity in interactions and agents see this as an irreversible fact – if you receive a gift you have to respond adequately – the temporality of re-action is often not regulated, which gives the agents more flexibility and room to manoeuvre. It is an agent’s own choice how (exactly) and when to pay back. Reciprocal practices are thereby not inevitable and mechanical

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actions in succession (Bourdieu 1976: 226). Nonetheless, an agents’ social position frames the degree of freedom in his practices. Power relations thus enable him to play out his agency or not. Bourdieu’s theory is, thus, neither a structural nor an actor-centred social theory, but can best be described as a Theory of Practice in the sense that it focuses on agents’ social practices, which are aligned to the logic of the social field in which the respective agents are positioned. 2.4 INTERIM CONCLUSION: NAVIGATING THROUGH FIELDS, ARENAS AND NETWORKS The basic ideas of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice have been appropriately illustrated by Sakdapolrak (2007: 55; 2010: 61). For this study, I extended his schematic sketch. It now shows three socio-structural layers that matter as frames for agents’ social practices: the field, the arena and the network (see figure 2.1).

Fig. 2.1: Sketch of key components of Bourdieu’s Theory

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The Politics of Street Food

First, in a social field all agents (circles) take on relative positions vis-à-vis one another. The agents’ position depends on their endowment with capital and leads to a position-specific habitus. The lines indicate the social relations of each and every agent, which does not necessarily mean that they know (of) one another or even enter into an exchange relation. The agents’ practices are structured by their habitus and the sum of their accumulated capital. The larger a circle in the figure, the more capital, and thus, power an agent possesses in the field and the more options he has for (inter)action. Both, the field as such and the position of the agents depend on the nature of the conflicts and contestations, the inherent practical logic (nomos), the agents’ understanding and (explicit or implicit) acceptance of the field’s institutions (doxa), the belief of the agents in the stakes and their mastery of the game (illusio), and importantly, the genealogy and temporal dynamics of the field. Moreover, some agents can play several games simultaneously and are thus positioned in different fields. Fields can overlap if they share a particular logic. Therefore, a specific field has to be seen in its relation to other fields. In this study the social field of street food vending and its relations to the field of urban food security and the field of power are at the centre of analysis. Second, the term arena is used in the following synonymously with Bourdieu’s notion of the occupied or appropriated physical space in order to describe the spatial representations or effects of social fields (cf. Bohle 2007b; 2007a; Etzold et al. 2009). According to the social interactionist Strauss (1993: 227), an arena is an interactional platform in which agents debate, negotiate and fight over controversial issues. Bayat, in turn, refers to sites of interaction as passive networks in the sense that “atomized individuals with similar positions [are] brought together through space” (Bayat 1997: 18). The term arena thus stays within the image of a “space of conflict and competition” (Wacquant 1992: 17), in which actors compete over the access to resources, own positions, and the profits that are generated at specific places. Moreover, it is the contest over physical space as such that fundamentally shapes the practical logic in the arena. In contrast to the space-less notion of a field, the actual physical presence of (space based and nonspace-based) agents, the spatial distance or proximity between them, their own spatial practices, and the visible material manifestations (products) are crucial aspects of the arena concept (Bohle 2007a). Streets and other public spaces are good examples of arenas. They are distinct physical places, where agents know one another and recognise their common interests. A shared identity, in turn, builds the foundation for their interaction and enables collective and political action (Bayat 1997). Arenas are thus distinct locations, where “human freedoms and rights are struggled for, negotiated, lost and won” (Bohle 2007b: 130). Third, the difference between an arena, where some agents might only share the same operational logic and the same physical space, and a network lies in the personalisation and materialisation of the relation. Agents in an active network not only know one another personally, but also depend on another. A network comes into existence through direct interactions, flows of exchange (money, goods, information, etc.), mutual obligations, and relations of trust, solidarity and integrity. Networks are thus characterized by social, but not necessarily spatial or functional

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proximity. A great distance between the agents’ social positions reduces the likelihood, but not the possibility, of them being in the same network of interactions and exchanges (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 114; Bayat 1997: 16ff). According to the density of networks and the power differentials between agents, it has become quite common in development studies to describe specific sub-types of social capital (cf. Woolcock & Narayan 2000; World Bank 2000: 128; Harriss 2002: 10; Bohle 2005: 68; 2007b: 141ff): Bonding social capital is based on trust, solidarity, kinship and emotional ties between horizontally-aligned agents, who interact on a daily basis, share resources, and who are literally ‘close’ to another. The family, close friends and neighbours thus represent the most intimate level of close personal network relations. Bridging social capital is based on the day-today interactions in a horizontal network, where the common needs, shared interests and similar intentions build the foundation of the agent’s cooperation and mutual understanding, i.e. street vendors at their vending site. Linking social capital, in turn, denotes the vertical network of agents with unequal endowment with capital, and thus power. Powerful agents are in central positions of a field and possess highly valued resources that other more deprived agents lack, but occasionally require; such as money, political influence or specialised skills. The latter agents thus structurally depend on the former. As follows, the relations to more powerful agents require particularly careful nursing, because good links to a ‘power broker’ could provide a dependent agent with the opportunities and information that ‘make the difference’ in relation to the condition of other marginal agents, for instance obtaining credit or getting access to the most popular vending sites in the case of street food vendors. In turn, the prospect of losing the courtesy of the more powerful person could even be more important as this could entail serious consequences for the livelihood of the dependent. In Bangladesh, for instance, personally knowing somebody at an important position in the political party that is in power can open up ways to appropriate public goods and services for private benefit. This particular variation of social capital has been described by Bourdieu (1998: 30) as political capital. In Dhaka, being embedded in networks of support is fundamental for street food vendors. Having social capital crucially matters for their access to their vending site and the sustenance of their livelihood in times of crises. Fields, arenas, and network, these three structural layers frame the social practices of all agents that are positioned in them. In practice-centred empirical research, it is therefore not only crucial to understand the background, assets and motivations of the individual agents, but also to analyse the structure of the field, the arena and the networks and to map the relative position of agents in these. As outlined by Dörfler et al. (2003), Lippuner (2005a,b) and Graefe and Hassler (2006), and vividly demonstrated by Rothfuß (2004), Thieme (2006), Haferburg (2007), Deffner (2010), and Sakdapolrak (2010), Bourdieu’s relational, critical and reflexive Theory of Practice has certainly the potential to enrich the research of geographers who attach great value to a sound theoretical foundation of their empirical research – no matter whether this is in the Global South or in other places of the world. The same objective underlies this study. In the following, the

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research perspectives, theorems and the terminology of the Theory of Practice are thus related to four other conceptual strands that are relevant for an empirical analysis of the “field of street food” in Dhaka, namely informality as a mode of urban governance, the politics of public space, social vulnerability, and food systems. Each concept is tested against the Theory of Practice in order to bring forward the conceptual debates in these fields and to develop an operational terminology and methodology for this study.

3 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE After having outlined the more general conceptual foundation of this thesis – Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice – the following chapter elaborates how this foundations links with other concepts that are relevant for this thesis: street food vending as a social practice (chapter 3.1), informality and governance (chapter 3.2), the appropriation of public space (chapter 3.3), livelihoods and social vulnerability (chapter 3.4), and food systems and food security (chapter 3.5). Each of these themes is discussed and it is asked how the Theory of Practice is able to contribute to the development of an operational terminology and to bring forward the central hypotheses and research questions of this study on contested street food governance in Dhaka (chapter 3.6). 3.1 STREET VENDING: A HIGHLY VISIBLE INFORMAL PRACTICE “Small merchants and handicraft persons occupied in activities of exchange and petty commodity production […] express the cultural values and economic needs of a given society. […] In this sense, they are not ‘marginal’ but basic elements of a commercial structure geared to popular consumption, as well as key elements for the cheap reproduction of labour power in the overall economy” (Castells 1983: 23ff).

Like in most cities – not only in the Global South – the streets of Dhaka are lined with vendors who sell food to by-passers: full dishes, snacks, fruits, sweets, tea or other beverages. Street vending is one of the world’s oldest and most widespread occupations (Bromley in foreword to Cross & Morales 2007b). Although its importance is likely to increase even further in this urban 21st century, street vendors have received fairly little attention in the academia or by the development community (Tinker 1999: 332; Brown 2006a: 3; Cross & Morales 2007a: 1). As the above quote from Castells indicates, street vending is not a marginal economic activity, but a normal social practice that is economically efficient, profitable and deeply embedded in the urban economy and in urban life as such. What differentiates street vending from many other practices in the informal economy is the sheer number of the street food vendors and their high visibility in public spaces (cf. Chen 2005: 1; Bhowmik 2010b: 15). The street vendors’ visibility can be regarded as their greatest advantage, but it also raises a number of crucial problems (Brown 2006a: 7). First, the hawkers’ visibility and their decentralised spatial distribution in the public spaces of a city enable economic exchanges. Street vendors provide those specific services and products for which there is a great demand in the popular consumption culture of a city, such as clothes, household utensils or food, at prices often below those of permanent shops and stores (cf. Bhowmik 2010b). As street foods are accessible even to the poor, street food vending contributes cru-

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cially to food security. Moreover, through their position in urban food supply networks the street vendors serve as hubs of the flows of food, money and information and thereby connect the formal and the informal strings of the economy (cf. Lam 1982; Chen 2005; Brown 2006c; Dittrich 2008; chapters 3.5 and 6.3). Second, street vendors use public spaces to actively pursue their ‘right to a livelihood’ since in Bangladesh and India this right is even inscribed in the national constitutions (cf. ILO 2002b: 50; Bhowmik 2010b: 6f). The hawkers are thus visible examples of how to make a living in the city. Other agents, for instance recently arrived rural-urban migrants, can easily assess that street vending is one among many urban livelihood opportunities (cf. Tinker 1997; Meikle 2002; Brown 2006b). However, as the hawkers operate in public spaces, they are directly exposed to heat and cold, rain and snow, dust and air pollution, but also to state violence and to the informal politics of exploitation. If they do not have adequate adaptive capacity in the light of these risks they can be highly vulnerable agents (chapters 3.4, 7.4 and 8.3). Third, in contrast to the legality of their products, their highly flexible business model (no license, not tax-paying, low investments and transaction costs) is considered to be illegal, or at least not authorised and thus also not legally protected, in most countries of the world (Castells & Portes 1989: 15; Bromley 2004: 273; Brown 2006c: 193).16 This ambivalent position in the “shadow-zone of legality” (Altvater & Mahnkopf 2002: 92), makes the vendors particularly vulnerable subjects in conflicts with state authorities. In turn, their informal status is a product of the political decisions of those in power who can keep them in an insecure, semi-legal and, under particular circumstances even, exploitative situation, and who can set the categories accordingly (what is informal, what is not?). From a constructivist perspective the street vendors are ‘informalized’ by the state:17 “A street seller of food is informal if s/he has no license to sell, but s/he is exercising a right to do business as a means to generate income and is simultaneously providing a service by making food available to the public. In such cases the condition of informality may be produced by a municipality which refuses to issue new licenses; which imposes high charges or tedious bureaucratic procedures on those who seek licenses; or which allows police and inspectors to harass vendors in search of bribes” (Bromley 2004: 273; emphasis added).

Fourth, and most importantly, is the vendor’s visible appropriation of public spaces. The conflicts between street vendors and municipalities about the ‘appropriate’ use of urban public space are at the forefront of more general contestations be16 The differentiation of legal/formal, extra-legal/informal and illegal/criminal is based on a separation of the ends and means of production, as Bromley nicely explained with reference to the work of De Soto (2000): “If means and ends are legal, the activity or property is legal (formal). If ends are legal, but means are blocked by unnecessary bureaucratic procedures or unjust charges, or prohibited by an unjust law or arbitrary administrative decision, the activity or property is extra legal (informal). If both means and ends are illegal, the activity or property is illegal (criminal)” (Bromley 2004: 273). 17 The informalisation of street vendors works similarly to the social construction of the category ‘illegal immigrants´, i.e. not-wanted international migrants who are de facto illegalized (Etzold 2009).

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tween the disenfranchised urban poor and the state (cf. Bayat 2004): “Control over public space by the state and/or the civic authority is seen as control over the people, especially the working poor” (Bhowmik 2010b: 9). This string of the debate revolves around the spatial practices of the vendors, the formal policies on street vending and the locally-specific informal modes of governance, and the consequences of both for the vendors. As examined in many studies, police raids of vending sites and the informal politics of exploitation are among the most crucial threats to the livelihoods of the hawkers (cf. Brown 2006b; Cross & Karides 2007; Bhowmik 2010b). The conflicts over street vending and the use of public spaces unleash the contested nature of urban governance as such and, even more generally, the radically changing relations between nation states and city municipalities and their citizens in (post)modern metropolises (cf. Holston & Appadurai 1999; Roy & AlSayyad 2004; Davis 2007)(see chapters 3.2/3.3 and 8). 3.2 INFORMALITY AS A PRACTICE OF CONTESTED GOVERNANCE Street vending is often referred to as one of the crucial components of the informal economy (cf. ILO 1972; Bromley 2004; Chen 2005; Brown 2006b). Yet, street vending is not a mere economic activity, but a practice of agents who are embedded in social fields and local arenas. As the vendors’ use of public space and Dhaka’s governance as such are highly contested (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004), it seems to be worth to link the debates of informality and urban governance. Starting from the informal economy debate (chapter 3.2.1), a micro-political understanding of governance that puts institutions and practices of agents into the centre of analysis is laid out. According to Bourdieu (1998: 93ff), the nation state and its agents still play the major role in governing both socio-economic relations and space. But as top-down governance structures often work against the interest of the most vulnerable, it is discussed how resistance to these formal modes of governance is formed, articulated and sustained (chapter 3.2.3). It is argued that informal practices are important practices of subtle contestation and open resistance to the state. Informality is thus seen as a crucial aspect of agency (Etzold et al. 2009). Informal modes of governance rely on informal institutions that are based on trust, reciprocity, direct interactions, and personalized power relations. Focusing on institutions and enacted forms of everyday governance, the informality debate is thereby reframed from a nation-stated centred discourse of irregularity, non-conformity and illegality to an alternative discourse of resistance, contestation and negotiation (chapter 3.2.4).

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3.2.1 The Informal Economy Debate Current Understandings of the Informal Economy Since the International Labour Organisation (ILO) introduced the term ‘informal sector’ in 1972, the concept has encompassed an increasing number of meanings, particularly in the context of employment in urban economies. While the term ‘informality’ has remained somewhat fuzzy during the last decades, demarcation lines of three major schools of thought on the concept of the informal sector emerged: the dualist (cf. ILO 1972; Hart 1973; Sethuraman 1981), the structuralist (cf. Moser 1978; Portes et al. 1989) and the legalist school (cf. de Soto 1992, 2000).18 A descriptive and rather reductionist analysis of the informal sector, most often based on the assumptions of the dualist school, was considered to be practical for the interventions of state or international development agencies along the lines of growth-oriented development models. However, the failure of most interventions trying to formalise the informal sector points to the fact that the concept of all these three schools of thought must be questioned regarding their usefulness in explaining informality as a broader social phenomenon (cf. Bayat 1997; Gertel 1999; AlSayyad 2004; Bromley 2004). After almost 40 years of research, the notion of a continuum of economic, social and political relations at different stages of organisation, legal and social security, official recognition and record, control, tax-paying practices and governmental regulatory power has been addressed by many scholars (Moser 1978; Castells & Portes 1989; de Soto 1992; North 1992; ILO 2002b; Sassen 2007; Revilla Diez et al. 2008; Etzold et al. 2009; Kulke & Staffeld 2009).19 As Chen (2005: 8) notes, the “production, distribution and employment relations tend to fall at some point on a continuum between pure formal relations (i.e., regulated and protected) at one pole and pure informal relations (i.e., unregulated and unprotected) at the other, with many categories in between.” Along with a paradigm shift towards its Decent Work agenda (Lee et al. 2000: 21ff; ILO 2002a: 12ff; 2008: 153ff) the International Labour Organisation also shifted the focus from characteristics of enterprises, i.e. an informal sector, to the nature of employment relationships:20 The informal economy is not only comprised of informal enterprises as such, but rather includes “informal employment 18 For an overview of these schools of thought see AlSayyad (2004), Chen (2005), and Etzold et al. (2009). Gertel (1999); Bromley (2004), Davis (2007) have critically deconstructed some of these schools myths of informality. 19 The thinking in dualistic categories of ‘us´ and ‘them´, ‘the formal´ and ‘the informal´, ‘the West’ and ‘the Rest´, ‘the developed´ and ‘the developing world´, has been often criticized and deconstructed (Escobar 1995; Hoogvelt 2001; Bromley 2004; Deffner & Haferburg 2013). This dualism cannot be transcended through introducing a continuum of informality as the reality of social life is far more complex and fragmented. 20 This qualitative definition was adopted by the ILO, but many statistical bureaus use a quantitative approach. In Bangladesh “formal employment is defined as employment in establishments employing 10 or more workers. By implication the informal sector is comprised of enterprises with less than 10 workers” (Amin 2002: 9).

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(without secure contracts, worker benefits, or social protection) both inside and outside informal enterprises” (ILO 2002b: 12). Informal employment includes “all remunerative work – both self-employment and wage employment – that is not recognised, regulated, or protected by existing legal or regulatory frameworks and non-remunerative work undertaken in an income-producing enterprise” (ibid). In contrast, the formal economy comprises the state bureaucracy and public services, state-owned enterprises and officially registered private companies, where employees are employed with written contracts and benefit from social protection schemes, such as protection against dismissal, minimum wages, social security benefits and retirement provisions (Chen 2005: 15; (Zingel 1998). Regulated in this context means that a “formal regulatory environment: comprised of government policies, laws, and regulations” (Chen 2005: 15), exists and that the respective laws, norms and working standards are actually implemented. This includes the notion that economic activities, which are not in compliance (extralegal) or even in conflict (illegal) with existing formal rules, are being sanctioned by respective authorities that are accepted by all agents. As a consequence of the complex interplays and power geometries between the agents involved and due to different levels of acceptance through formal regulatory bodies such as state, city or municipal authorities, there are limited ways in which informal economic practices can be influenced, planned, channelled and managed. Conditions of Informality Informal working conditions have always been a reality for the majority of the global population. While the share of workers in informal employment relationships of the total labour force and their contribution to the national economy varies significantly in different countries (cf. Portes et al. 1989; Altvater & Mahnkopf 2002; ILO 2002d; Nurul Amin 2002; Chen 2005; Donovan 2008; Maligalig et al. 2009) the conditions and social effects of the informal economy are quite similar worldwide, although unequal in qualitative terms. Altvater and Mahnkopf (2002: 90ff) summarise what it means to work and live under the condition of informality in six assumptions, circumventing the alignment of their central ideas to the different ideological schools. First, informality means that access to work is easier than in the sector of formal employment. Second, informality is associated with a low degree of human security and no protection through the institutions of the welfare state, and thereby with a high degree of social vulnerability. Third, informality comes along with a lack of institutionalisation of rights, a low level of transparency of ‘social bookkeeping’, favouritism of those included in particular social networks and exclusion of those outside of these networks. Fourth, small- and large-scale enterprises both compensate a lack of competitiveness in the world market by ‘going informal’, although using different means. Fifth, informality stands for a low level of societal valuation and recognition. Finally, informality means not only a grey-zone of transition to formality, but also a ‘shadow zone’ of transition to illegality and criminality.

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But where the borders of these zones are drawn, is a fundamentally political question that depends on the power structure and political culture in a country and on the global modes of governance, too: The definition of informality itself is a discursive battle field (Altvater & Mahnkopf 2002: 92). Any analysis of informal practices therefore needs to encompass the social and political processes that govern a society as such. 3.2.2 Analysing Governance Processes with Bourdieu’s Theory Governance Research How are specific fields such as the field of street food or specific arenas such as a nation’s territory or a public square in a city regulated? And which role do nation state(s), civil society organisations, economic interest groups and individual agents play in these governance processes? These questions have been addressed by many scholars in political science, economics, human geography, anthropology, and development studies (cf. Ostrom 1990; North 1992; Görg 2001; Corbridge et al. 2005; Benz et al. 2007; Risse & Lehmkuhl 2007; Biermann et al. 2008; Young et al. 2008; Schmitt 2011). Most generally, governance can be defined as the process of coordinating or steering actions towards the pursuit of collective goals (cf. Risse & Lehmkuhl 2006: 7; Betsill 2009: 9; Schmitt 2011: 22). Addressing governance as an analytical concept thus involves looking at the contextspecific, historically contingent and fundamentally political processes of the establishment, the operation, the negotiation and contestation of social institutions and how these are consistently ‘brought to life’ through social practices (Young 1997: 4; Etzold et al. 2012). Different modes of governance can be distinguished according to the degree of involvement of the state in the design and implementation of these institutional settings. A macro-political perspective on governance refers to the steering capacities of centralised forms of power and the efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy of the institutions of nation states. In this line of thinking, governance is “sovereign action on part of the state (Governance by Government)”(Risse & Lehmkuhl 2006: 7). But the decentralisation of state functions and the enhanced coordination among state and non-state actors, i.e. Public-Private-Partnerships, in the last decades has shown that governance also works “via networks of public and private actors (Governance with Government)”(Risse & Lehmkuhl 2006: 7). However, such a narrow governance concept of more or less coordinated forms of top-down government is inadequate to capture the politics and power relations inherent in the reality of everyday life. A broadened governance perspective has to include the social practices of agents, their networks, their informal institutions and their access to decision-taking and rule-making. In this line, the term governance not only covers the “regulation by non-state actors or selfregulation by civil society (Governance without Government)”(Risse & Lehmkuhl 2006: 7), but also addresses the power relations between those authoritative agents

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who govern and those agents who are governed. The governance debate therefore points directly to the following questions, which are independent from the specific field of governance, e.g. environmental, cultural, risk or urban governance,21 that is studied (cf. Schmitt 2011: 23ff): How do states and other authoritative agents govern their subjects, for instance street vendors? How are the governed “seeing the state” (Corbridge et al. 2005) and other powerful rule-makers? How are the prevalent power relations reflected in the dominant social and political institutions? And why, in turn, do actors align their social practices to the set of institutions in place and in effect (Etzold et al. 2009: 7)? Understanding the appropriation processes, the negotiations and the contestations around space that arise in specific local arenas, for instance on the streets in Dhaka, requires a shift in focus from the macro-politics to the micro-politics of governance. The notion of micro-politics refers to the political relations and contestations, which are inherent in the social practices of everyday life, and which are characterised by often diffused and decentred forms of power (cf. Best & Kellner 1991: 5; Bayat 1997: 5; Zimmer 2009: 10; Zimmer 2012; Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012).22 Mapping micro-politics requires a recognition of the ways in which power is embodied in and exercised through authoritative agents who have the power to change the rules of the game according to their own interests. Many authors that address governance issues draw on Michel Foucault’s (2005) concept of governmentality (cf. Dean 1999; Watts 2003; Burchell 2005; Corbridge et al. 2005; Füller & Marquardt 2009; Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012).23 In this section it is argued that the work of Pierre Bourdieu offers an extended perspective on governance that defers from Foucault’s decentred notion of state power. Moreover, the Theory of Practices opens up an innovative way to integrate the macro- and micro-political perspectives to governance. With Bourdieu a comprehensive understanding of the power relations between and within social fields can be achieved. Governance analysis then aims at dissecting how rules, rulemaking systems and contestations work in society (to use the terms of Biermann 21 Urban governance refers to the political relations between nation state(s), city municipalities and different interest groups, including the urban poor. Urban governance can be understood as the process of steering and coordinating political decisions and systems of rule that address the economy, the administration, the cultural and social life, and the natural environment within the defined boundaries of a city, as well as the relation of the city to its hinterland (cf. DiGaetano & Strom 2003; Siddiqui 2004; Breitung et al. 2007). 22 I hereby would like to thank my colleague Anna Zimmer for introducing the notion of ‘micropolitics´ to me. See Zimmer (2012) and Best and Kellner (1991) for a detailed account of micro-politics as one aspect of postmodern theories. 23 Foucault (2005: 88) sees the “problematic of government” as the problem of “how to be ruled, how strictly, by whom, to what end, [and] by what methods” . He defines governmentality as the “ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses, and reflections, the calculations and tactics, that allow the exercise of this very specific albeit complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security” (ibid: 102). The state embodies governmentality, and thus power over a population, through control of knowledge systems and through its formal institutions, which are enforced by state agents (Kalpagam 2006: 89).

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et al. 2008), and at deconstructing a field’s logic, the positions of agents in it and the field effects of their practices (cf. Kalpagam 2006; Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012). Such a view is particularly constructive for an understanding of informality as a practice of contested governance. In order to conceptualise governance through the Theory of Practice, we first need to understand Bourdieu’s view on the state. For him the state (still) plays the central role in structuring social relations. Three aspects are important to note here: the specific genesis of the state as a process of capital-concentration, the symbolic power of the state to mould the habitus of its citizens, and the ‘double power’ of agents in the bureaucratic field. Seeing the State Pierre Bourdieu is “seeing the state” (Corbridge et al. 2005) as an entity that “successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical and symbolic violence over a definite territory and over the totality of the corresponding population” (Bourdieu 1994: 3). This claim has been (and often still is) contested. As Bourdieu (1994; 1998: 99-125) shows by looking at the emergence of the modern European nation state, the state is a historic result of the concentration of different types of capital in his hand, namely the concentration of the capital of physical force that can be mobilised towards threats from outside in form of the military, and towards threats of the public order in the inside in form of the police apparatus (ibid: 100f); the concentration of economic capital, in particular through an efficient taxation system and the formation of national markets (ibid: 102ff); and the concentration of informational capital, for instance through the homogenisation of rule systems, the collection of statistics, the use of a common language, or the embodiment of cultural codes and knowledge in the education system (ibid: 106ff). Yet, most importantly, this concentration process goes hand in hand with the concentration of symbolic capital of recognition and legitimacy (Bourdieu 1994: 6). The state‘s symbolic capital is generated by the citizens (all agents in the field) through their recognition and appreciation of the specific “statist capital (capital étatique)” (ibid: 4), which is the sum of all forms of capital concentrated by the state, and which enables the state to exercise power over all subordinate social fields, in particular through setting the institutions and the exchange rates between the different forms of capital (see also Bourdieu 1998: 101). Legal capital is the most codified and institutionalised form of statist capital as it is under the direct control of the state who codifies, delegates and protects – and thereby bureaucratises – it in the juridical field (ibid: 109ff). The juridical field derives its legitimacy through those citizens, who act in concordance with formal institutions. In turn, the state itself functions like a “bank for symbolic capital” (ibid: 114) by allocating positions of authority, licenses and academic titles that serve as the base for the accumulation of symbolic capital by their bearers.

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The Symbolic Power of the State Bourdieu (1998: 115-122) introduced the notion of habitus in the analysis of the state. He asserts that through the concentration of informational capital, in particular through the education system and bureaucracy, “the state moulds mental structures and imposes common principles of vision and division, [and] forms of thinking” and thereby “contributes to the construction of what is commonly designated as national identity” (Bourdieu 1994: 7f). As all individuals in one nation undergo the same (or at least similar) school education, they learn the ‘right’ classification systems, which are (said to be) significant for their culture. According to their position in social fields, agents acquire their habitus that is not only expressed in specific social practices, but also in specific ways of thinking. Agents grow into their (most often fairly durable) dispositions that shape the way they are (re)constructing their own social reality, for instance in terms of perceiving their own position as marginal in relation to the state and the ‘field of power’, in terms of helplessness and disillusion with regard to the options that are available to them, and thereby also in terms of their own vulnerability. It is one of the state’s central functions to introduce, standardise and harmonise the shared forms and categories of perception, thinking and evaluation. A nation state thereby ‘frames’ the social practices of its citizens. But only those agents accept the symbolic order that has been set by the state and are willing to align their social practices in “doxic submission” or “silent compliance” (Bourdieu 1998: 118f) who believe in the legitimacy of the state, and to whom the state makes sense (illusio). The legitimacy of the state, and its capital accumulation process, is central to the (re)construction of state power. If citizens believe in the state’s legitimacy, the “state does not necessarily have to give orders to exercise physical coercion in order to produce an ordered social world, so long as it is capable of producing embodied cognitive structures that accord with objective structures and thus of ensuring the […] doxic submission to the established order” (Bourdieu 1998: 120; translation Kalpagam 2006: 92). Being the State: The Double Power of State Agents Bourdieu largely agrees with Foucault’s notion of decentralised and diffused power when he argues that power is “no longer incarnated in persons or even in particular institutions, power becomes coextensive with the structure of the field of power” (Bourdieu 1998 cited in Kalpagam 2006: 92). Nevertheless, as Foucault (1999: 191f) also highlighted in one of his later writings, power does not exist as a mere abstract fact, but is rooted deeply in the social fabric and can only be exercised through social interactions between agents: an agent wields power over another only if the social practices of the, then, subordinate agent are possibly, directly, prospectively or actually affected or altered. Bourdieu too argued that although power is primarily wielded invisibly and anonymously through apparently abstract and anarchical social processes, these ‘mechanisms of power’ or authority

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are always embodied in the agents of the social field in form of their position in the social field and in its institutions, which they have deeply internalised. The notion of symbolic violence understood as the potential to enforce meanings and to achieve their recognition is thus central for an analysis of a fields’ symbolic order, its power structure and historic formation (Bourdieu 1998: 119ff; FuchsHeinritz & König 2005: 207; Kalpagam 2006: 92). In order to understand the functioning logic of the state, one has to understand the functioning logic of the bureaucratic field, which is the micro-cosmos of the state agents who struggle over the profits that can be derived from the state’s monopoly of physical and symbolic violence (Bourdieu 1998: 122f). A basic tension between the formal rule of law in theory and its implementation in practice is an inherent problem of state bureaucracy (ibid: 124). On the one hand, the agents involved in a state’s bureaucratic apparatus are obliged to set aside their personal interest in order to serve the common interest of the state and its citizens on the basis of the official roles that have been assigned to them. On the other hand, being the state means to be in a strategic position of relative freedom to allow an exception of the rule or to ‘turn a blind eye’ if the specific circumstances of the state agent permit – the higher a person is in the bureaucratic order, the larger is this freedom (Bourdieu 2006: 28). As playing with the rules is part of the rules of the game, formal institutions are not necessarily guiding principles for social practices, but rather “weapons” (ibid: 27) that are strategically used by authoritative agents in order to accumulate material or symbolic profits from their political position (Bourdieu 1998: 30). The profits of state agents, who can be seen as bricoleurs,24 can be high in both cases: If the bureaucrat ‘plays by the rule’ on the front stage and enforces formal standards rigorously, he can earn recognition by his peers as a tough advocate of the rule of law. And if a public official ‘plays with the rule’ on the backstage and circumvents formal regulations for the benefit of himself or a protectorate, he can earn appreciation by subordinate, dependent or closely related agents (Bourdieu 1994: 17; 1998: 124f; Bourdieu 2006: 26ff). This double power of state agents in their official roles can manifest itself in the abuse of authority, misappropriation of (public) funds, corruption, rent-seeking and other forms of profit-making, and through the non-application or non-enforcement of the rule of law, which are all too apparent phenomena (not only) in post-colonial developmental states such as India or Bangladesh (cf. Bayat 1997 for insights from Iran; Cleaver 2002 for Tanzania; Siddiqui et al. 2004 for different megacities in South Asia; Corbridge et al. 2005, Kalpagam 2006 and Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012 for India). From a practice-oriented perspective of governance it is possible to decipher how state power operates through its agents, and thus to develop an agents- and practices-oriented analysis of governance that is highly relevant for understanding 24 The concept of institutional bricolage proposed by Cleaver (2002): 19ff) points exactly into this direction: how do authoritative agents (the bricoleurs) play with institutions – in all their facets as regulative rules, social norms and cultural-cognitive frames (see Scott 2008: 52ff) – and their own roles in order to achieve particular goals.

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the contestations between street food vendors and state officials such as the police. In a case study from Caracas, Garcia-Rincon’s (2007: 44f ) presents a compelling example, how micro-politics and personalised power works in the field of street vending.

Draft: B. Etzold (03/2011)

Fig. 3.1: ‘Seeing and Being the State’ from Bourdieu`s Perspective

Figure 3.1 illustrates elements of a governance analysis that is inspired by Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. The nation state is at the centre of the field of power. The concentration of the capital of physical force, of economic, cultural and symbolic capital leads to the existence of a nation state that sets formal rules to govern its territory. State agents are representatives of the nation state and endowed with power and legitimacy through their formal position. This position at the heart of the field of power gives state agents a ‘double power’ that they can use to generate

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benefits. They can enforce formal institutions and then ‘play by the rule’, or they can turn a blind eye and refrain from a strict enforcement of the law. They are then ‘playing with rules’ or act on the basis of more powerful informal institutions. The effects of state agents’ practices can differ for agents, depending on their own closeness or distance to the field of power, thus their social position. If citizens believe in the state and align their practices to formal rules they reproduce these and the state’s power. If agents, no matter whether they are close or distant to the field of power, recognise state agent’s personal power and follow personal agreements and informal institutions in their own actions, they re-produce informal institutions and legitimize the state agent’s personal power. They then delegitimize formal rules and the nation state as such. 3.2.3 Contested Governance: Resistance and Street Politics „[A]s soon as there is a power relation, there is a possibility of resistance. We can never by ensnared by power: we can always modify its grip in determinate conditions and according to a precise strategy” (Foucault 1988: 123, cited in Best & Kellner 1991: 55). “Those who dominate in a given field are in a position to make it function to their advantage but they must always contend with the resistance, the claims, the contention, ‘political’ or otherwise, of the dominated” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 102).

In governance research most scholars look at the functioning of institutions, at rule making procedures and the processes of political participation and negotiation, i.e. the open confrontations and debates, in which agents who want to influence the modes of governance require a detailed knowledge of the situation and good negotiation skills. But only authoritative agents with a sufficient bundle of capital, and particularly high cultural capital, can participate in open negotiations. In contrast, the often very subtle contestations of subaltern agents with less capital are disregarded. But these disguised “everyday forms of resistance” (Scott 1985) are fundamental aspects of governance too as they represent the “weapons of the weak” (ibid) under conditions of inequity, injustice, and vulnerability. They are an important element of the agency of subaltern agents. Everyday Resistance to Hegemonic Modes of Governance A micro-political perspective to governance helps to address these contestations, in particular in contexts where there is localised resistance to hegemonic discourses that are carried by nation states and supra-national players. Openly declared and organised opposition movements to neoliberal globalisation and large-scale development projects, which are often loaded with imaginations of rational agents, functioning institutions, formality and orderly public space (cf. Power

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2003), have been widely studied.25 But the unorganised and disguised everyday practices of resistance against the state on the very local level – the subversive micro-politics of the subalterns – are less well documented. In this regard, the studies from James Scott (1985, 1990) and Asef Bayat (1997, 2004) have been path-breaking. In “Domination and the Arts of Resistance” Scott (1990) laid out a critical theory of the manifestations of power relations in everyday life and showed that practices of domination are always entangled with everyday practices of resistance (see also Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 102). According to Scott (1990: 2), in each society the public discourses reflect the prevalent power relations. The scripts of these discourses are being written by the state agents and politicaleconomic elites, who monitor and seek to establish control over subordinate actors and who sanction inappropriate behaviour through formal law as well as dominant norms and values. The elites constantly seek to legitimate and consolidate their own superior positions close to the field of power, which enables their continued domination over subordinate groups. The public discourse appears to be an inevitable, indisputable and “powerful matter of course” (doxa; Bourdieu 1998: 118)26 that “is designed to be impressive, to affirm and naturalize the power of dominant elites, and to conceal or euphemize the dirty linen of their rule” (Scott 1990: 18). Controlling the public discourse is an effective way of maintaining hegemony in a society and thus a fundamental aspect of effective governance. This will be shown in this study through the elaboration of the discursive “story lines” (Hajer 200. 56) that are repeatedly reinforced in Dhaka to legitimize the eviction of hawkers (chapters 5.3, 8.2, and 8.3). The subalterns employ everyday practices of resistance to dominant ideologies, to hegemonic discourses and to suppressive instruments of governance. It is argued here that understanding resistance provides a key to understanding informality. Routledge (1997: 361) defines resistance as “any action imbued with intent that attempts to challenge, change or retain particular circumstances relating to societal relations, processes and/or institutions [that] may involve material, symbolic or psychological domination, exploitation and subjection. Resistances are assembled out of the materials and practices of everyday life and imply some form of contestation, some juxtaposition of forces involving all or any of the following: symbolic meanings, communicative processes, political discourses, religious idioms, cultural practices, social networks, physical settings, bodily practices and envisioned desires and hopes”.

The question is, however, how openly or disguised resistance is enacted. Scott (1990: 198) distinguished two basic forms of resistance: “the open, declared forms of resistance, which attract most attention” take the form of petitions, demonstra25 See, for instance, Routledge (1996) for a debate of social movements through the concept of “terrains of resistance”; Castells (2004: 71-167) for a detailed account of social movements against the new world order. 26 Scott (1990; 47f, 75f, 105f, 133) notes in the foreword that he was influenced by Bourdieu and often refers to his work (i.e. 1976; 1998; 1999), for instance to the notion of doxic submission and to symbolic capital.

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tions, boycotts, strikes and open revolts and dare to convey political messages revolving around equity, justice and rights in the public sphere. In contrast, “the disguised, low-profile, undeclared resistance” takes on the form of squatting, i.e. encroaching on public space, silent non-compliance and risk evasion. This “resistance below the line” (ibid: 183ff) is the subversive politics of those people who cannot dare to risk open confrontation in public political discourses as they “continue to be not citizens, but subjects” (ibid: 199).27 Disguised resistance is the informal or “silent partner of a loud form of public resistance” (Scott 1990: 199). Street Politics: Governing Fields from Below The existence of asymmetric power relations is a defining aspect of social fields, in which domination naturally activates resistance.28 Even if agents are in a marginal position, they can nonetheless influence its modes of governance: “The dominated, in any social universe, can always exert a certain force, inasmuch as belonging to a field means by definition that one is capable of producing effects in it” (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 80, emphasis in original). A disposition to resist (or a habitus of resistance), can only be understood against the specific positions in the field and the agents’ personal trajectories, i.e. how they came into their present position and what exactly it is that evokes their resistance. However, subordinate agents often seem to be ‘entrapped’ in their positions. Their silent obedience to a social field’s logic and the most powerful agents, i.e. their doxic submission (Bourdieu 1998), is rather the norm than the exception as it resides “in the unconscious fit between their habitus and the field they operate in” (Wacquant 1992: 24). A habitus of submission is often deeply internalised and does not enable the dominated to imagine acts of resistance: Subordinate groups often “refuse what is anyway refused and to love the inevitable” (Bourdieu 1976: 77). Nonetheless, contestations of hegemonic rules and practices of resistance against powerful agents are possible in fields. In the following, I will address these contestations by subaltern agents and groups on the basis of Asef Bayat’s (1997, 2004) work on “Street Politics”. Bayat looked at the appropriation of public spaces by squatters and street vendors in Teheran through silent and disguised forms of resistance. Central in his approach is the notion of the “quiet encroachment of the ordinary”, which he characterises as the “silent, protracted, but pervasive advancement of ordinary people in relation to the propertied and powerful in order to survive and improve their lives” (Bayat 2004: 90). Five aspects of Bayat’s concept of the quiet encroachment are particularly relevant to this study of street food governance in Dhaka: 27 See Holston and Appadurai (1999) for reflections on the difference between being a subject and a citizen. 28 Bourdieu acknowledges the work of resistance scholars (also Scott 1990), but rejects a simplistic and dualistic understanding of resistance and submission (see Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 80f; Wacquant 1992: 23f).

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First, conflicts over space are particularly blatant in cities of the Global South, where the state or the city authorities formally wield power over the citizens and regulate the city territory, but do not adequately address the basic needs of the urban poor, which evokes protests about distributional justice (Bayat 2004: 79f). The city thus becomes the arena of contestations between hegemonic agents, i.e. state and city authorities, political parties, etc., and the “urban disenfranchised”, i.e. slum dwellers, street vendors, etc., who are often referred to as being poor, passive, socially excluded, or in a marginal position (ibid: 80ff). Second, instead of the collective political struggles and negotiations of workers or students movements, the political resistance of the urban disenfranchised is rather diffuse and unorganized and often takes on “the form of a silent repertoire of individual direct action rather than collective demand-making protest” (Bayat 1997: 9). This is so because street vendors and squatters are often “groups in flux; they are the structurally atomized individuals who operate outside the formal institutions of factories, schools, and associations” (ibid). Nonetheless, by the power of their sheer number (an inevitable fact in a growing megacity like Dhaka), the many silent, diffused and unorganised individual acts of resistance can turn into a great potential for social transformation. Moreover, the resistance of the subalterns is not only a defensive practice, in the sense that they seek to protect the little what they have, but also highly pro-active in the sense that they “expand their space by winning new positions to move on” (Bayat 2004: 91). The successive encroachment of streets and pavements by hawkers comes at the cost of the state, the rich, and the powerful. Quiet encroachment is thus a fundamental aspect of the agency of subaltern agents (Bayat 1997: 5, 2004: 87). Third, the political struggles of the subalterns are not driven by a deliberate political strategy, but rather by the “force of necessity” (Bayat 2004: 92) as they need to live somewhere and have to sustain their livelihoods somehow. In turn, the urban poor legitimize their claims and thus also their illegal appropriation of public space on a normative basis, for instance by referring to their own poverty and their disadvantaged position: “Necessity is the notion that justifies their often unlawful acts as moral, and even ‘natural’ ways to maintain a life in dignity” (ibid). Street vendors’ ignorance of and resistance to formal rules that do not make sense in their life world – they are seen as not practical, plausible and meaningful (see chapters 2.3 and 8.1) – is inscribed in their habitus. Their own informal practices are thus perceived by themselves as normal, appropriate and morally right. In turn, informal institutions not only depend on mutual understanding, reciprocity and personal trust (Etzold et al. 2009: 8), but also on dignity, honour and a distinct code of justice that is informed by the force of necessity: “one who has a basic need may and should fulfill it, even if illegally, so long as he does not harm others like himself” (Bayat 1997: 13). Fourth, the power of the state “is far weightier, more concentrated, and ‘thicker’” (Bayat 2004: 89) in some place than others. Locally-specific practices of resistance can only be understood, if the positions of subaltern agents are analysed in relation to the field of power. According to Bayat, quiet encroachment indicates two major claims of the subalterns vis-à-vis the state (or the municipal govern-

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The Politics of Street Food

ments): They want redistribution of public goods and autonomy from the state. The first goal, a fair redistribution of goods and opportunities, refers to the direct appropriation of public services such as the provision of land, housing, electricity or drinking water, or the access to education and health services. In this sense, public spaces are ‘taken’ by the street vendors as they are seen as a direct resource for their livelihoods. The second major goal is attaining autonomy from the state, in terms of being culturally and politically independent from formal institutions and the discipline of the modern state: “The disenfranchised express a deep desire to live an informal life, to run their own affairs, without involving the authorities or other modern formal institutions” (Bayat 1997: 10). They do so not because they want to rely on informal modes of governance, but because they have to, as they do not trust the state, its representatives and institutions. Moreover, they are seeing the state as a source of their own vulnerability, as their antagonist or even as their enemy that threatens their very existence. In turn, squatters and street vendors are seen by state representatives as a (potential) threat to the existing order, an eyesore in their imagination of a modern, beautified and functional city, and a challenge for urban governance (cf. Bayat 2004; Cross & Karides 2007).29 Fifth, the conflicts and open or disguised contestations between the subalterns and the state are fundamentally “shaped and expressed episodically in the physical and social space of the streets – from the alleyways to the more visible sidewalks, public parks, or sport places” (Bayat 1997: 15). For two reasons, streets can turn into an “arena of politics” (ibid). On the one hand, public space is contested because all city dwellers depend on these sites of traffic, exchange, communication, and/or political representation. And yet, the chances of benefiting from these key functions are unevenly distributed in society. Moreover, as the up-keeping of public order is a basic and yet crucial responsibility of the state, any social practice outside the state’s definition of the legal and appropriate use of public spaces poses a challenge to the authority of the state as such (Bayat 1997: 15). On the other hand, the materiality of public space is a crucial aspect of street politics. The disguised forms of resistance are rooted in informal networks of kin, neighbours and friends, which also require sites that are save from control and surveillance from above (Scott 1990: 200). Distinct physical spaces such as the market, the neighbourhood or the street provide both a structure and a cover and serve as “terrains of resistance [that] are assembled out of the materials, practices, becomings and 29 Nonetheless, states often benefit directly from quiet encroachments. In the wake of the structural adjustment polices in the 1980s and 90s, many states in the Global South did cut down their welfare structures and, in turn, encouraged self-help, informal working relations and also tacitly tolerated quiet encroachers. The loss of formal control over their citizens was compensated by the economic growth that the informalisation of labour induced, reduced welfare budgets and a shift of collective burdens and state responsibilities to individual citizens (Castells & Portes 1989: 27; Bayat 2004: 90). As a consequence, the subalterns had to rely on their own networks and themselves – their autonomy from the state increased, but so did their vulnerability. Ironically, the self-help of the urban disenfranchised has been praised by some analysts of the informal economy as ‘new´ entrepreneurship, social and economic avant-garde and pool for innovation (cf. De Soto 1992: 44).

Conceptual Framework: Street Food Governance

49

knowledges of everyday life” (Routledge 1996: 517). On the streets atomised individuals with similar positions are brought together in one common space, which enables direct communication. The potential exposure to the same threat, such as the threat of eviction in the case of street vendors, might lead to the recognition of a common identity and shared interests, and thus also enables political mobilisation and open resistance (Bayat 1997: 16f). In short: the social field turns into an arena of politics. As a consequence, the streets are contested between the state and subaltern agents. The Dance of Command and Control: Dominance, Resistance and Counter-Insurgency The urban disenfranchised, e.g. street food vendors, and state agents, e.g. bureaucrats or policemen, can be seen as antagonists who compete over good positions in the field of street food and struggle over the command over operating rules at specific vending sites. Although the state officially opposes the quiet encroachment of public spaces by street vendors, their practices are largely tolerated as long as the appropriation process is undertaken subtle and is not too visible and offensive, as long as the vendors appear to be poor and limited in their options, and as long as the state agents can also reap some of the benefits from turning a blind eye, for instance by taking small bribes (Bayat 1997: 14). But there are also thresholds to the tolerance of these practices by the state. If, for instance, too many vendors have occupied a street corner, the flow of traffic at this site might be affected negatively, the state agents ‘have to’ act. The street vendors, in turn, might “take advantage of undermined state power at times of crises (following a revolution, war, or economic crisis) to spread further and entrench their position” (ibid). If the state is ‘weak’ in the sense of a little legitimacy (lack of symbolic capital) and reduced law enforcing power during a political crisis, or if the state is ‘not there’ in the sense of the physical absence of state agents such as policemen at particular places, street vendors can easily gain or recover spaces for their vending practices. Both sides constantly test the relative strengths and capacities of the antagonist – and thus the equilibrium of power in the arena – by making symbolic or real advances into the territory of the other: “any weakness in surveillance and enforcement is likely to be quickly exploited; any ground left undefended is likely to be ground lost” (Scott 1990: 195). Following this logic, the state has to make an example, if the symbolic line separating the accepted (legal, formal) from the unaccepted (illegal, informal) practices has been crossed (ibid: 197). In that sense, the disguised resistance of the quiet encroachers is a specific political practice that challenges the hegemonic macro-politics – the more formal modes of governance – and sooner or later always provokes a state reaction. In turn, as will be shown with regard to the police eviction drives against street food vendors at highly valued public sites in Dhaka (see chapter 9), it is not only the mere material order of public space that is contested, but also the symbolic and political order that is at stake. Counterinsurgencies, such as police crackdowns on

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The Politics of Street Food

street vendors and squatters, are thus inevitable symbolic demonstrations of power by states that want to restore their authority and legitimacy, in the sense that they seek recognition of these efforts to re-establish order by their most important clientele. Eviction drives therefore most often occur in times of political insecurity. And yet, “in most cases, crackdowns fail: they are usually launched too late, when the encroachers have already spread, become visible, and achieved a critical mass” (Bayat 1997: 14). This partly explains the persistence of street vending in most cities of the Global South. The reflections from Bayat on contestations to hegemonic modes of governance are based on his studies in Teheran. The empirical research in other South Asian megacities, such as Delhi (te Lintelo 2009; Zimmer 2009), Mumbai (Anjaria 2006, 2010), and Dhaka (cf. Etzold et al. 2009; Hackenbroch 2010; Hossain 2011; Keck 2012), indeed shows that everyday urban governance is not only deeply embedded in the power relations between the subalterns and state agents, but indeed constantly contested. Bayat (2004: 86) might be right, when he notes that “power and counterpower are not in a binary position, but in a decoupled, complex, ambivalent, and perpetual ‘dance of control’.” 3.2.4 Reframing Informality as a Practice of Contested Governance The debate about formality and informality can be seen as one example of how nation states, corporations, international agencies, e.g. the ILO, or the academia formulate classification systems that only partly match the reality of everyday life (cf. Kalpagam 2000; Foucault 2005; Bourdieu 2006). Formulating categories serves as a basis for formulating rules and thereby goes hand in hand with setting operative rules and implementing these. Only agents or groups of agents that have accumulated sufficient symbolic capital are recognised by other players in a field as legitimate category-makers, rule-makers or regulators, and rule-enforcers (Bourdieu 1998: 108f). From the perspective of a western democratic tradition, laws and directives are set by the citizens’ representatives (the parliaments), while they are implemented by the state’s representatives, who expect that the formal rule of law serves as a norm that structures the social practices in a society. Nonetheless, the difference between the theoretical rule of law and the reality of its implementation is quite substantial (Bourdieu 2006: 19). It depends on the function, structure and historic formation of a specific social field, whether the state and its formal rules are present, or whether their influence on the social practices is negligible. The distance of a field to the field of power is thus a defining feature of the field as such. Castells and Portes (1989: 32) noted that the informal economy cannot be adequately described through the specific characteristics of certain activities, but is rather determined by state interventions, social struggles and political contestations, and thus by the social relations of the subalterns vis-à-vis the state. As follows, it makes sense to distinguish between different degrees of (in)formality on the basis of the relative social distance of the respective fields, institutions and

Conceptual Framework: Street Food Governance

51

agents from the field of power. Formality is then a characteristic of products, processes and practices that are in line with, and thus close to, the laws formulated by the nation state and its subordinate agencies. In turn, informality is a characteristic of products, processes and practices that are structured by rules that were formulated outside of, and thus far from, the state. As outlined by North (1992), De Soto (1992) and Etzold et al. (2009) the discussion of informality therefore relates directly to the nature of the institutions in a field.30 (In)Formal Institutions and Modes of Governance in Effect Institutions are the implicit and binding rules that restrain or enable the social practices in a field. In a dialectic sense, institutions are then social constructions that require constant re-cognition, re-affirmation and re-investment by the fields’ agents in order to come into effect and to persist (cf. Etzold et al. 2012; chapters 2.3.5 and 8.1). If we take institutions as a base for conceptualising informality, the relative distance of these institutions to the state provides the key to defining informality. According to North (1992: 55ff), the broad spectrum of regularities ranges from formal to informal institutions. Formal institutions comprise codified, written and legally-binding rules, directives and contracts that are outlined in a nation state’s constitution, in articles of the law, in company directives or in working contracts. Formal institutions are largely exercised through the state and its public bodies, i.e. the legal system, bureaucratic authorities, political parties; its educational agencies, i.e. schools or universities; and economic organisations, i.e. companies or trade unions (ibid: 5, 55ff). The authority of the state and the adherence to law as well as market and competition are aspects of the underlying practical logic of social ties (Li 2007)31, upon which formal institutions rest. In contrast, informal institutions subsume (often unexpressed) cultural norms, values, customs, taboos, and personal agreements that are (re)produced by all members of the society (North 1992: 43ff). Informal institutions are not legallybinding, but socially-codified by the members of a community, peer group or family and based on social control, a common identity, reciprocity and trust. Whereas formal rules can be changed overnight, for instance by passing a law, informal rules have emerged in accordance with routines, customs or traditions over many years manifesting themselves in a related habitus of agents. Informal institutions thus show a remarkable degree of stability (ibid: 99ff). 30 The outlined understanding of informality has benefitted greatly from the discussions within the megacities research programme. In the jointly written article “Informality as Agency” (Etzold, Keck, Bohle and Zingel 2009) most aspects presented here are expressed similarly. 31 According to Li (2007: 29) formality refers to the nature of social ties and events as “explicitly prescribed, exogenously imposed, and rigidly enforced by vertical authority in an universalistic depersonalized process (e.g. objective, cognitive, task-oriented and instrumental)”. In contrast, informality “refers to the nature of social ties and events as implicitly assumed, endogenously embraced, and flexibly enforced by horizontal peer pressures in a particularistic personalized process (e.g., subjective, affective, people-oriented and sentimental)” (ibid).

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The Politics of Street Food

Degree of formality

Institutions

Hegemonic agents

Practical logic

Characteristics of social practices

high: dominantly formal practices

generally applicable and legally-binding laws; constitutions

state (+ supranational agents)

law and authority

written communication, legally-binding norms, rationality, impersonality, rigidity of rules, explicit knowledge necessary, embedded in vertical field relations

mediumhigh: largely formal practices

specific articles in directives and contracts

state and corporate enterprises

market and competition

mainly written communication, refer to codified norms, rationality, impersonality, explicit knowledge necessary, embedded in vertical field relations

mixed: formal and informal practices

modes of governance in effect

local authorities; leaders and middlemen

negotiation and contestation

verbal communication, socially defined codified norms, explicit knowledge and practical sense, embedded in horizontal and vertical field relations

mediumlow: largely informal practices

(unexpressed) social norms, taboos, values, customs

community and peergroups

social control and identity

verbal communication, socially defined norms, practical sense, incorporated in agents habitus, embedded in horizontal field relations

low: dominantly informal practices

personal agreements

family and friends

reciprocity, personal trust

face-to-face communication, socially defined norms, practical sense incorporated in agents habitus, strong social ties, intuition, embedded in horizontal field relations

Tab. 3.1: Continuum of (In)Formality Source: adapted from Etzold et al. 2009 (based on North 1992; Misztal 2000; Li 2007)

Theoretically, the difference between both kinds of institutions can be seen as gradual transition from informal to formal institutions (table 3.1). In reality, however, social practices are not only structured by the regulative power of the state nor only by the social power of peer groups, but by sets of institutions that possess both formal and informal aspects. North (1992: 99) refers to this complex institutional reality as an “institutional matrix” to which social practices are related. In the following the term mode of governance in effect is used to describe the hybrid combination of formal and informal institutions that is brought to life at particular places at particular times for a particular target group of agents. In turn, this set of

Conceptual Framework: Street Food Governance

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operating rules has to be evaluated by the agents in the particular arena as practical, plausible and meaningful before aligning their practices to them, or not.32 The modes of governance in an arena can thus be highly dynamic. Tensions can arise, if formal institutions change, while informal institutions remain the same. In such a constellation of contrarian institutions that are in place simultaneously, agents automatically get into conflict with either the one or the other set of institutions as they cannot align their practices in concordance with both (North 1992: 107f; Etzold et al. 2012). Moreover, the modes of governance can change not only over time, for instance in the course of a day, but also with the presence or nonpresence of powerful agents in the arena, as my own empirical evidence from particularly contested street food vending sites indicates (see chapter 9). Formal and informal institutions and their particular combination in an arena can be subject to negotiation and contestation as agents evaluate them regarding their practicability, legitimacy and assertiveness (Etzold et al. 2012). While more powerful agents can be involved in negotiation processes around decision-taking, rule-making and rule-enforcement, weaker agents contest them through subtle, quiet and often disguised means. Either way, as the constellation of agents, the value of specific capital types or other structural factors might change, the actual set of operating rules is only temporarily accepted in an arena. Following Bourdieu (1998: 93ff) the state and individual agents with statist capital largely determine the “architecture” of governance systems.33 In the following, a governance architecture that is centred on state agents and which largely relies on formal institutions is called a formal mode of governance. In contrast, other governance modes reflect the local power structures, and not necessarily depend on statist capital. Informal modes of governance are characterised by agents, who are endowed with high symbolic capital as they are widely accepted by other agents as a legitimate authority that can set, enforce and protect the operating rules in an arena and who can also sanction disconcordant social practices. This authoritative power can be wielded by individual ‘power brokers’, such as slum lords or musclemen in the case of Dhaka, or by collective agents, the latter include organisations that have institutionalised power such as political parties, business associations, trade unions, social movements, youth gangs, criminal organisations, etc. Nevertheless, both formal and informal institutions go beyond the reach of individuals – they persist even if authoritative agents are replaced. In order to understand governance, it has to be analysed how institutions come into existence, how they are sustained, challenged and altered through social practices.

32 See also Cleaver (2002: 15ff) for the notion of institutional bricolage that refers to “mechanisms for resource management and collective action [that] are borrowed or constructed from existing institutions, styles of thinking and sanctioned social relationships.” Cleaver emphasises the agency of authoritative agents (bricoleurs) who shape institutions, who read them differently, and who possess the ability to play with them. 33 The earth system governance project uses the term “architecture” to describe the emergence, design and structure of governance systems and the interplay between institutions and social practices (Biermann et al. 2008: 31ff).

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Informal Practices of Agents: Strategic Games and Routines in Contested Fields A clear demarcation line between formal and informal practices does not exist. Nonetheless, we can distinguish rather formal practices from informal ones by looking at the ‘degree of informality’ of the institutions that structure the interactions in an arena, and by revealing the way agents recognize them and act accordingly (cf. Etzold et al. 2009). In contrast to Castells and Portes’ (1989: 15) definition of informal activities as “the unregulated production of otherwise licit goods and services”, it is argued here that informal practises are based on reciprocity, trust and strong social ties and that they are indeed highly regulated through informal institutions. But what counts as informal also depends on the respective field of study: while some interactions are regarded as informal and therefore devaluated and unwanted in some arenas, they might be appreciated and advocated in other arenas (Sassen 2007: 287). Either way, we need to understand why people interact informally and others do not; whether this is a rational and free decision in order to achieve specific goals, whether this is a socio-cultural habit, or whether it is an adaptation strategy in the context of certain political-economic structures. As the relative social distance of agents to the field of power crucially matters for understanding their social practices, and as informal practices are by no means only the practices of the poor (cf. De Soto 1992: 44; AlSayyad 2004: 25), there are different ways of acting informally. According to Misztal (2000) social interactions are not merely a function of agents’ individual character and personality, but also reflect “the social roles that they are enacting”. Misztal adopts Goffman’s focus on role distance in order to define informality as “a style of interaction among partners enjoying relative freedom in interpretation of their role’s requirements” (Misztal 2000: 46).34 From this perspective, interacting formally or informally is mainly a result of the relative freedom of an agent to make strategic manoeuvres within the game, and particular depends on the competence in switching between official, public front stage roles and unofficial, private backstage roles. From Bourdieu we have learned that social practices are structured through the relative position within a field and thus by agents endowment with different types of capital, including their economic power, their knowledge and their network relations. Based on their position-specific habitus they evaluate the modi of governance as plausible, practical and meaningful, and thus are more or less inclined to align their practices to them or to contest them. Styles of practices then depend on the positions from which they are enacted and the relative freedom that agents have in their choices of actions. In theory, we can then differentiate four basic styles of social practices, or four specific dispositions to interact formally or informally, which matter for our discussions of informality (see table 3.2). 34 For Misztal (2000: 46) “formality is characterized by the centrality of explicit external constraints, rules, contracts, instrumental calculation and impersonality”, while informality “refers to situations with a wider scope of choices of behaviour where, in order to make the most out of the possibilities in given circumstances, that is, to reach ‘a working understanding´ […], people employ various not premade forms of action” (ibid.: 230).

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Conceptual Framework: Street Food Governance Distance from field of power

Close to power

Far from power

Relative freedom to change roles and to choose practices High

Low

(1) playing with formal rules, setting governance modes in effect – power to set governance modes – achieve symbolic profits with rigid formal practices – informal practices as a strategy using formal rules as ‘weapons’, i.e. by allowing exceptions, in order to accumulate capital on the back stage – who: bricoleurs with statist capital and double power, e.g. local political leaders, bureaucrats and police men

(2) playing by or with formal rules, implementing governance modes – no power to set governance modes – formal practices used to defend position – rigid enforcement of formal rules in order to achieve recognition by superiors – informal practices give small benefits – less rigid enforcement of rules (turning a blind eye) when superiors are not present – who: enforcers with limited statist capital, e.g. low-ranking police officers and bureaucrats, security guards

(3) playing against formal rules, but shaping governance modes in effect – informal practices as strategy of agents with high social and political capital – participation in negotiations on arena’s operating rules – switching between different roles in interaction with powerful agents, i.e. from SF vendor to friend or relative – who: agents with a privileged position compared to others far from power, e.g. more established street vendors

(4) playing against formal rules, no influence on governance modes – informal practices inscribed in habitus of subalterns – rejection of formal rules out of necessity, but subject to informal rules – no direct influence on governance modes, but quiet contestations – least rights and opportunities in the field – who: agents in a marginal position, e.g. poorer (female or mobile) street vendors, newcomers in the arena

Tab. 3.2: Styles of Informal Practices based on Agents’ Positions in Fields Source: own draft (02/2011; see also the three dimensions of informal actions in Etzold et al. 2009

First, agents who are relatively close to the field of power and who possess a greater freedom to change roles might strategically choose to play with the rules and act informally in order to achieve particularistic goals. Based on their relative position in the field these agents possess the double power to use formal regulations as weapons in personal negotiations. These “bricoleurs” (Cleaver 2002: 16) can allow exceptions to the rule and thereby circumvent and undermine formal institutions (Bourdieu 2006; chapter 3.2.2). For instance, a high-ranking bureaucrat or police sergeant might turn a blind eye to specific informal practices that occur in his jurisdiction and benefits personally from looking away through the bribes that he receives. He transforms his statist capital to personal economic capital (e.g. see chapter 8.1.2 on Chanda collections). By the same token, a manager might appeal to friendship and personalised trust in informal meetings with a

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The Politics of Street Food

close client in order to secure a formal business deal; he transfers his personal social capital into economic capital for his company, and eventually for himself. In this sense, informal practices are strategies that are possible, because agents have a relative freedom to shift roles: backstage behaviour is employed to achieve effects on the front stage. Agents who can free themselves from the requirements of their formal roles are more successful and flexible than those who cannot. The second style of practices relates to agents with less authoritative power and freedom in changing their roles, but who nonetheless possess statist capital. Lower-ranking public officials are often more rigid in implementing formal institutions than their superiors. They strictly play by the rule and directives given to them and sanction other agents’ disconcordant behaviour in order to gain recognition by their superiors as accurate and responsible state representatives (Bourdieu 2006: 22). These agents would employ informal practices only on the backstage or when their superiors are not present, but would not dare to play with the rules and use their statist capital for personal benefit out of fear of losing their position in the state apparatus. Such strictly formal practices matter in our discussions of informality, too. Because agents who rely on informal practices for their everyday livelihoods are often confronted with state agents, e.g. street vendors with police men, and have to assess which styles of practices are appropriate in a given situation and whether there is room for informal negotiation processes about the more or less rigid enforcement of formal rules, or not (e.g. note the conduct of the security guards in front of the university hospital; chapter 8..2.2). The third style of practices relates to agents, who are themselves situated far from the field of power, but who might nonetheless have good personal relations to some authoritative agents in the field. They can transform high social or political capital (understood as access to decision-takers and rule-makers) into economic capital. A more permanent vendor, for instance, might switch from his role as a street entrepreneur to his role as a political affiliate of a party politician or as a friend of a local bureaucrat in order to get access to a vending site. If the latter turns a blind eye to the informal vending practices, he can achieve higher sales. Although these agents are playing against formal rules, they can shape the modes of governance in effect. This very ability to influence the modes of governance in an arena and to negotiate directly with state agents opens up more space for the practices of these agents and fundamentally improves their social position (see chapters 8.3.3 and 8.3.4). The fourth style of practices refers to informality not as a strategic game, but as being inscribed in the habitus of those subaltern agents who do not have a wider scope of choices of behaviour, but are very much restricted in their activities by the operating rules that were set by other more powerful players in the arena (Bourdieu 2006: 28). These least powerful agents in the arena are playing against formal rules, but cannot actively shape the modes of governance in effect. Being entrapped by external constraints and the internalised requirements of their respective roles does not seem to offer much space for direct negotiation of the modes of governance, but rather requires more subtle and quiet contestations of the operating rules. These agents reject formal institutions, because they are not

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Conceptual Framework: Street Food Governance

considered as significant, practicable and meaningful in their lifeworld, and thus not accepted as the guiding principles for the practices. Instead, their informal practices are driven by the force of necessity (Bayat 2004). A street vendor, for instance, knows very well that hawking without an official license is illegal. But as he needs to make a living somehow and he cannot get into formal employment and as he is used to the informal politics of the street from his personal life experience, he perceives his way of acting informally as legitimate (see chapters 7 and 8). In this sense, informality is a normal “way of life” (AlSayyad 2004), as studies of urban economies from a livelihood perspective have shown (cf. Meikle 2002; Berner & Knorringa 2007). Informality is thus an inevitable aspect of the habitus of the urban disenfranchised: “In the quest for an informal life, the marginals tend to function as much as possible outside the boundaries of the state and modern bureaucratic institutions, basing their relationships on reciprocity, trust, and negotiation, rather than on the modern notions of individual selfinterest, fixed rules, and contract. Thus, they may opt for jobs in self-employed activities, rather than working within the disciplining structures of a modern workplace; they may resort to informal dispute resolution rather than reporting to police, [...] and they may borrow money from informal credit associations rather than modern banks. This is so not because these people are essentially non- or anti-modern, but because the conditions of their existence [i.e. their position in the field and their habitus of informality] compel them to seek an informal mode of life. Because modernity is a costly existence, [...] the most vulnerable people simply cannot afford it” (Bayat 2004: 93f).

The difference between the informal practices of the powerful and the informality of the subalterns is greater than the difference between formal and informal practices as such. This difference is based on the “uneven geography” between the agents who act informally (AlSayyad & Roy 2004: 5). Moreover, this difference is (re)produced through the law, social norms, own experiences and public discourses on the practices of the poor (table 3.3). institutional pillars informal practices pillar is largely defined by …

regulative pillar

normative pillar

cultural-cognitive pillar

legal

legitimate, licit, appropriate inappropriate, illegitimate, illicit society, organisations, peer groups, religion, family

taken for granted, thinkable extra-ordinary unthinkable

extra-legal illegal the nation state

culture, discourses, personality, habitus

Tab. 3.3: Different Perspectives on Informal Practices Note: Light grey: informal practices of the poor from the perspective of the subalterns themselves. Dark grey: the urban poor’s informal practices from the perspective of the state, elites and the middle-class

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Most definitions of formality and informality are largely built on the regulative pillar of institutions, i.e. informal practices are seen from a legal-illegal dichotomy, while some also address the normative pillar, whether the informal practices are legitimate and appropriate, or not (cf. De Soto 1992: 18, 44; Castells & Portes 1989: 15; Bromley 2004: 273). And yet, the cultural-cognitive pillar of institutions might be even more important for this debate about informality. As the cultural scripts, public discourses and shared understandings are deeply internalised by agents (habitus), they crucially determine whether informal practices are being recognised as legitimate by the state and by society as such, and whether they fall within or outside the possible imaginations of individual and collective habitus, being thinkable or not. A study of street food governance therefore also has to detect and deconstruct the public discourses, which frame street vending as a typical informal practice (see chapter 5.3). Fields of Informality The distance of a specific field and its agents from the field of power structures the social practices of the agents in it. In this regard, informality can be seen as a distinct “organizing logic” (AlSayyad & Roy 2004: 5) or the practical sense (nomos in Bourdieu’s terms) that constitutes the operating rules and the nature of transactions between agents. Even if we address fields or arenas that are characterised by great distance from the field of power, i.e. there is little influence of the state, it should be noted that there is still a relation to the state. Based on the considerations above, the ‘informal sector’ or the ‘informal economy’ are not very useful analytical categories as they do not exist per se. In some cases, however, it might still be appropriate to address distinct fields of informality, which are largely built around informal institutions, which are dominated by the double power of authoritative agents, and in which informal practices are rather the norm than the exception. In these fields of informality, formal regulations might not be absent, but they are rather not implemented as they are perceived as inefficient, not transparent and unpractical: Moreover, informally negotiated modes of governance might have proved to be more effective in reducing the complexity and inherent insecurity of everyday life. As the modes of governance in effect are developed, negotiated and contested by the involved agents in a long historical process, they are being deeply internalised by the agents in the field. They can thus become so powerful that it is nearly impossible to formalise informal practices, as it has often been tried by state authorities, city municipalities or NGOs encouraged by the ILO and international development agencies. The field of street food is one of these fields of informality. Although it seems to be distant from state power and has its own immanent rules, it is largely structured through its relation to the field of power and the erratic enforcement of formal rules.

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3.3 THE APPROPRIATION OF URBAN PUBLIC SPACE So far, the informal practices and the contested modes of governance in fields, such as the specific field of street vending, have been addressed. Street vendors depend on getting access to streets and other public places for their livelihoods and, in turn, directly contest the formal modes of urban governance through their visible encroachment of these physical spaces (cf. Bayat 1997; Brown 2006b). Street vending represents a direct challenge to the hegemony of state and city authorities in governing space. In the following section, 35 the focus shifts from the social structures to the distinct sites of street vending, i.e. from the fields to the arenas of street vending. Common definitions and characteristics of public space are first discussed (chapter 3.3.1). On the basis of the Theory of Practice public space is then conceptualised as appropriated physical space or realised social space. Accordingly, five dimensions to the appropriation of urban public space are outlined (chapter 3.3.2), which relate to the following questions: What constitutes the material basis of a square or a street? Which agents have interests in a public place and how are they positioned in society? How and by whom is the access to and use of public space regulated; and how is this mode of governance legitimated, negotiated and contested? Which spatial practices are actually applied by agents? What is the symbolic value of a distinct public space? 3.3.1 Urban Public Space The Politics of Public Space In any society the specific cultural, economic, political, and social processes produce specific public spaces and, in turn, the social practices therein reflect, reaffirm, and reproduce a society’s constituting relations. It is not surprising then, that the access to, the use and the effective control of public space is contested to different degrees in many cities all over the world (cf. Bauman 2000; Selle 2003; Brown 2006b; Low & Smith 2006; Wiegandt 2006; Cross & Morales 2007b). Although being used ubiquitously, the term public space needs closer attention. Smith and Low (2006: 3) define public space as “the range of social locations offered by the street, the park, the media, the Internet, the shopping mall, the United Nations, national governments, and local neighbourhoods.” In this sense, public space epitomise the tension between distinct places, in which concrete social interactions take place, and the apparently ‘spacelessness’ of popular opinion and public discourse. Public space can be understood as the spatial connotation of

35 The following sections on public space built the basis for a chapter (Etzold 2011a) in a volume on the ‘right to the city´ by Holm and Gebhardt (2011), which was published in German.

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the public sphere (ibid; Smith & Low 2006)36 Urban public space then include all the available physical spaces in a city that are accessible to and usable by all citizens (Brown 2006d; Hackenbroch et al. 2009). This admittedly broad definition requires five additional remarks. First, every public place serves a particular set of functions (cf. Breuer 2003; Frey 2004). A street, for instance, mainly serves traffic purposes. Its function as a meeting point or a vending site for street food is secondary to this major function. But this main purpose and the allowed practices on the street need to be defined by authoritative agents, regulated through specific rules in place, and sanctioned by authoritative agents. Second, the difference between private and public spaces might blur in reality. Belina (2006: 205f), for instance, pointed out that the term public space is not a useful analytical category, but rather a normative ideal of the “free access to public spaces for all”. This goal can never be reached, because the promise of equity only refers to the physical access to public spaces, but not to all possible social practices: while anybody can be on the street, not everybody can do what s/he wants on the street. Third, public spaces are always the product of the historically- and locallyspecific relations between the nation state, civil society, the economy and individuals that are materialised in physical space (Smith & Low 2006: 4). As controlling public space is synonymous with controlling people, the appropriation of public spaces refers directly to the local power structures. It relates to the power of nation states and city municipalities, the police or planning commissions over its citizens. It relates to the power of those private persons or companies who own the space that is accessible to the public. And it relates to the subversive power of subaltern agents who might disregard formal rules that officially govern the use of public spaces through their everyday social and economic practices. Fourth, as these relations are prone to conflict, public spaces are also spaces of representation where negotiations, contestations, political protests and social struggles manifest themselves (Bayat 1997; Mitchell 2003; Wildner 2003; Harvey 2006a; Smith & Low 2006). In this regard, Don Mitchell (2003: 35) notes that public space is “a space in which the cry and demand for the right to the city can be seen and heard”, although it is often not the publicity which defines that space, but the struggle over its appropriation, which is made public. At last, the state of social justice in a city, whether the socio-political system is fragmented, unjust and repressive or whether it bears the potential for social integration, participation and democracy, can be derived from the state of its public spaces (Mitchell 2003; Habermas 2004). And in turn, common styles of appropriating public spaces and its governance modes of access and use are expressions of social differentiation in a city, or viewed even broader, in society (Frey 2004). 36 Referring to Habermas (2002) Smith and Low (2006: 4f) describe the public sphere as a contingent product of the relations “between civil society and the state”, where private people come together as a public in specific places. The existence of public spaces is, in turn, a prerequisite for the emergence of the public sphere.

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Private and Public Spaces – a Typology Public and private spaces can be distinguished from one another on the basis of the different prospects for access and use. The access to private spaces, such as private houses, company buildings or factories, is restricted for specific people according to the interests of the private owner(s). Their use is largely determined by the owners themselves, who nonetheless have to adhere to formal law, e.g. building codes, work regulations, etc. The owners, thus, possess great autonomy from the state, while their property or ownership rights are at the same time protected by and guaranteed through the state. In contrast, the access to public spaces is less restricted, although still regulated, and its use is defined, controlled and sanctioned by its particular producers or managers (Smith & Low 2006: 4). Among the three types of public spaces that are often discerned in the literature (cf. Breuer 2003; Frey 2004) the first are publicly accessible buildings such as shopping malls, restaurants, pubs or cafés, museums, community centres, town halls, train stations, bus terminals or airports. Second, there are institutionalised public spaces such as schools, universities, churches, mosques or temples, club homes or sports grounds. In both of these two cases, the space is administered by the respective managing companies or authoritative bodies, whose power basis and legitimacy is derived from the official ownership or lease of the clearly contained physical space. These owners or managers set the rules of its access (who is allowed to enter under which premises, who is not?) and of its use (what conduct is appropriate in that space?). Moreover, they control compliant behaviour and sanction breaches of the declared rules. While there is, at first sight, open access to the former, access to the latter is often exclusive and based on eligibility or membership. For the third type of public spaces – at which I primarily look in this thesis – the rules of access and use are often not that clearly delineated. Public outdoor spaces such as plazas and squares,37 promenades, streets,38 alleys and roadsides, public parks and green open spaces are regulated through formal and informal institutions that are in place simultaneously, often overlap and sometimes conflict with each other. In the first instance, it does not matter whether the physical space is formally owned by the state or city authorities, by private companies, local communities or individual persons. It is rather important to know who sets the rules of access and use and effectively controls and sanctions these on a day-to-day basis (Brown 2006d; Etzold et al. 2009; Hackenbroch et al. 2009). Instead of merely describing the practices of street vendors in the different types of public spaces in Dhaka, a comprehensive concept is required that em37 Looking at Mexico City’s central square Zócalo, Katrin Wildner (2003: 22) describes plazas as the classical example of public spaces as they are specifically designed places for people to come together: “They are like a room in the open with walls that enclose it, doors to enter and exit it and the sky as the ceiling.” 38 According to Asef Bayat (1997: 15; 2004: 96) streets illustrate the essence of public space as they are “the only locus of collective expression for those who lack institutional settings to express discontent” such as squatters, street vendors, beggars or prostitutes. The streets are therefore a crucial “arena of politics” in cities.

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braces the materiality of distinct public places as well as their ownership structure, the social relations of the agents who frequent these places as well as their spatial practices, and the modi of regulation as well as the discourses over the symbolic meaning of these sites. As shown in the next chapter, Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice offers such an analytical tool. 3.3.2. Appropriating Public Spaces Bourdieu’s Perspective: Urban Public Spaces as Appropriated Physical Spaces From the perspective of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, urban public space is a perfect example of an appropriated physical space, which means that structures of social space are projected onto the level of physical space (see chapter 2.3.2). Public space as “realised social space” (Bourdieu 1991: 29) is produced through the relational order of material objects, subjects and social practices. The fieldspecific rules govern this relational order according to a specific place’s function, logic and value (Frey 2004). Due to different agents’ divergent interests, their endowment with capital and their relational power positions, the access to, use and control of public spaces is often contested. As the “consumption of space” is a typical way to demonstrate power (Bourdieu 2005a: 118), the material space that can be occupied by an agent and his own “sense of one’s place” (Bourdieu 1989: 17) are thus excellent indicators of this agents’ position in social space (Bourdieu 1991; Dörfler et al. 2003; Bourdieu 2005a).39 In turn, specific profits can be derived from appropriating space (Bourdieu 1991; 2005a). Localisational profits refer to the advantages of an agent who is situated close to rare and highly valued goods or services, who for instance lives close to the university or the city centre. Even more so, living in a well-known, but expensive quarter of the city is not only an indicator of one’s own wealth, but might also be beneficial in terms of the social recognition of this ‘good address’ by others. Bourdieu (2005: 122) calls this the “club effect”. In contrast, the “ghetto-effect” indicates that the inhabitants of particular living quarters, such as slums and squatter settlements, are symbolically stigmatized and even actively excluded as they are ‘from the wrong place’ (ibd; Deffner 2007; Sakdapolrak 2010: 151ff). Spatial profits can be achieved directly, if agents can spatialize their social positions by owning, controlling or (temporarily) claiming a certain place for themselves, which enables them to use it according to their own interests. The access then is restricted for other agents or they are charged rents for their use of that space (Bourdieu 2005: 122). As follows, the appropriation of public spaces is a matter of contestations between hegemonic agents, i.e. state and city authorities, political leaders, and subaltern agents, i.e. marginalised citizens, street vendors. Both seek to achieve profits from appropriating public spaces. Questions of con39 Note the comments and critiques to this assumption (Lossau & Lippuner 2004: 206; Schroer 2006; Dörfler 2010; see chapter 2.3.2. and Etzold 2013a).

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trol over space, the execution of power and the accumulation of capital are, thus, defining issues in any arena (cf. Bayat 1997: 145; Bourdieu 2005a: 118; Smith & Low 2006: 4; see chapter 8.1). Five Dimensions of the Appropriation of Public Spaces The appropriation of public spaces relates directly to power relations, as more powerful agents can gain spatial profits over others. However, the term appropriation not only refers to the seizure of physical space, but also to the acquisition of related perceptions, attitudes and practices. The (possibly subversive) appropriation processes of public spaces thus indicate how the prevailing social order and the hegemonic rules of access and use of public spaces are accepted or rejected in a society (Bourdieu 1991: 27). Extending Frey’s (2004: 225f) reading of Bourdieu, one can distinguish five dimensions of the appropriation of public spaces: the appropriation of the physical space itself, the appropriation of a position in social space, the appropriation of institutions that regulate access and use of that space, the appropriation of spatial practices, and the symbolic appropriation of that space’s meaning (see table 3.4). Public Space as an Arena (1) Material appropriation

setting the material arrangement of a public place and occupying sections of physical space with the body

(2) Social appropriation

occupying a social position of power in an arena with respective chances to access and use that public place

(3) Institutional appropriation

learning, adapting and possibly influencing the rules of access and use that are in effect at that public place

(4) Appropriation of spatial practices

learning, adapting and performing the ‘adequate’ spatial practices in place

(5) Symbolic appropriation

recognizing, ascribing a meaning and a symbolic value to that public place

Tab. 3.4: Five Appropriation Processes in an Arena

The first dimension of material appropriation refers to the mere occupation or seizure of the physical space itself, which is a bodily practice. As the material basis of public spaces includes the surrounding buildings, the architecture and basic infrastructure, material appropriation also includes the ability to change the physical structure, for instance by fencing off some sections or (temporarily) erecting structures like a building, a simple food stall or some tables. Selfevidently, material appropriation requires investments such as money to buy land and building material, or to pay rents. The existing material structures of a distinct public place are perceived in a variety of ways by its users on the basis of their

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differential habitus. Research questions addressing this material dimension include: What kinds of buildings frame a public place, how is the quality of their physical structure, and what is their value (land prices, rental fees)? What are the major functions of surrounding buildings? Do they inhabit shops, restaurants or apartments (for which clientele?), offices, other work places, or representative or administrative functions? Where is that public space located within the city? What are the material conditions, such as a place’s design, size, or surface? Are sections clearly delineated or fenced off (by whom, for what purpose)? Does the permanent structure at that place change over the course of years, months, weeks or days? The second dimension addresses the processes of social appropriation. Public space needs to be understood as social space, in which agents take on relational positions of power on the basis of their endowment with capital (chapter 2.3.1). Their position-specific habitus frames their perception of a particular public space, their evaluation of its value and meaning, and thus their own interests, and serves as a disposition to act in a specific way. Generally speaking, agents in positions of power not only have more freedoms in their social interactions than subaltern agents do (chapter 3.2.3). A privileged position in social space also increases the chances to appropriate physical spaces. In turn, the material structures of a specific public place mirror the social relations of the agents, who have an interest and effect in that arena (chapter 2.4). Research questions that address this social dimension of appropriation include: Which agents are visiting, using and having interests in a particular place? Which differences exist between these agents? Which capital matters most in that specific arena and how can the agents obtain it, and thus improve their position? Which exchange relations and network connections exist and how do these shape the physical structure of that place, its rules of access and use, and the agents’ practices? Are there authoritative groups or agents that are particularly influential at a distinct public site? The third dimension refers to the appropriation of institutions. Formal and informal rules govern the legal, appropriate and legitimate patterns of access and use of public spaces. Different operating rules apply to public space, on the basis of their ownership structure, their location and their specific functions.40 For public outdoor space, states and city municipalities legally define who is allowed to frequent these public spaces – in theory everybody – and what practices are allowed under which conditions, and which are not (Belina 2006: 208). In order to appropriate space, agents first have to learn which operating rules – both the formal and informal ones – exist at a specific public place, and then evaluate their plausibility, practicability and meaning. But only the state, owners, and other agents in a superior social position are able to set or influence the prevailing 40 According to the respective function, institutions also regulate the (exchange) value of capital in that space. E.g. a museum is open for everybody, but persons with relatively high cultural capital are more inclined to go there, because they know and appreciate art (Bourdieu 2005: 122). Also, in certain sports clubs, high economic and social capital, are the limiting factors for access and use of that institutionalised public space.

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modes of governance (cf. Frey 2004: 225f). Research questions that address this institutional appropriation include: What is the major function, e.g. traffic, exchange, representation, of a particular public space? Which formal and informal rules of access and use exist, and in which combination are they actually brought into effect? How are breaches with formal and informal rules sanctioned, and by whom? Who produces, negotiates and contests the modes of governance in effect? How and in whose interest are these operating rules set? The fourth dimension of appropriation addresses the spatial practices as such. In their socialisation people acquire knowledge about institutions, about the right order of persons and things in space, and about appropriate spatial practices. They learn to manoeuvre within confined spaces, to accept or trespass spatial boundaries, and to construct new borders and barriers (Frey 2004: 225). A specific spatial perception is therefore part of the agents’ habitus, which in turn is expressed in specific spatial practices, i.e. styles and routines of interaction in space that in sum define the nature of that place. But how agents actually use public spaces depends on their interests and freedoms of action and thus on their present (and also former) social position in the arena. Research questions that address this fourth dimension include: Which spatial practices have emerged at a particular place? At which speed, in which rhythm, and how long are the practices carried out? How spatially extensive are they? What is their purpose? How are they perceived by other agents? How are the specific styles of interaction acquired? How do the observed practices relate to the legal frame set by the state, and to informal institutions? How ‘profitable’ are these practices for those who carry them out? The fifth dimension, symbolic appropriation, refers to the production of meaning of a specific public space and the spatial practices taking place there. Mitchell (2003) showed by looking at the example of the highly contested people’s park in Berkeley that public spaces are the most important “spaces of representation” (cf. Lefebvre 1991; Mitchell 2003) for individuals and groups who turn to the public with their political claims. Moreover, specific places can become iconic symbols of broader political movements: The Pariser Platz with the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin, the Zócalo in Mexico City, the Tahrir square in Kairo, or the Central Shaheed Minar in Dhaka are not only large squares in capital cities, but each of them has a fundamental meaning in the history and for the identity of the respective nation states. They thus have far greater symbolic value than other public places in the same city, which impedes other functions such as commercial or recreational uses. The regulations of the access to and the use of these very visible and highly valued public spaces are often more restrictive, but also more likely to be contested by potential users (cf. Wildner 2003 for the case of Mexico City; Ha 2009 for the case of Berlin). In turn, there are public places, streets and whole city quarters that are less contested, because they are seen – in particular by the elites close to state power – as unimportant and marginal without much economic and symbolic value. Nonetheless, although they might be perceived as worthless by the elites, the public space in squatter settlements is highly valued by the slum dwellers themselves who also invest time in cleaning or improving them (cf. Hackenbroch et al. 2009 & 2010 for the case of Dhaka; Sakdapolrak 2010 for

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Chennai; Zimmer 2012 for Delhi). As the economic and symbolic value of seemingly marginal sites increases, more people might become interested in obtaining spatial profits from these increasingly valued sites, which might foster further conflicts around space. Likewise, different social groups assign an economic and symbolic value to the spatial practices at a place. As indicated, the quiet encroachment of streets by hawkers is seen as economically negligible and illegal and thus as inappropriate by city planners and large sections of urban elites, although they are perceived as necessary, legitimate and appropriate by the subalterns themselves (Bayat 1997; Cross & Karides 2007). Research questions at this discursive dimension of analysis include: How do public discourses frame people’s perception of what is seen as appropriate uses of public space? What is the history and specific symbolic value of a distinct place in relation to other places? Who can influence these public discourses on public space and spatial practices, and in whose interest are they being sustained? To conclude, a distinct public space’s physical design, its function and appropriate utilisation, its prevalent mode of governance as well as its symbolic value are always the historical products of the practices of agents. The “habitus of a place” (Bourdieu 1991; Frey 2004: 220f) not only structures the appropriation processes taking place in the present, but also predefine further possible functions and practices at that place in the future. Assumptions and Key Questions: Appropriating Public Spaces from Below In concordance with the distinction of informal practices of the powerful and of the subalterns (see chapter 3.1.3) it seems to make sense to distinguish between two types of appropriation. Appropriation of public spaces ‘from above’ refers to agents close to the field of power who possess a larger scope of action, and who have the capability to seize public space at a large scale for their private and most often commercial interest. Appropriation of public spaces ‘from below’ – or “the quiet encroachment of the ordinary” (Bayat 1997: 7) – denotes the subtle, slow and often subversive occupation and use of public space by agents with less economic and symbolic capital. Due to a lack of access to formal employment and shelter, subaltern agents have no other option but to seize spatial niches in order to sustain their own livelihoods. The subalterns’ styles of appropriating public spaces, e.g. the mobility patterns of street vendors, and the extent of space that they can effectively use, e.g. the size of street shops, are sound indicators for their social position and therefore also reflect their social vulnerability. As follows, street vendors’ positions in physical space largely reflect their social positions. The particular styles of appropriating public space are structured by the local modes of governance at a site and reflect the vendors’ relative positions of power. Those vendors with more economic and social capital can gain spatial profits by permanently securing their spot in the arena. In turn, spatial capital can be transferred to economic wealth, whilst a limited access to public space is an

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indicator for vulnerability. The following questions are addressed in this study in this regard (see chapters 6.3, 7 and 8.3): – – – – –

Where is street food sold, and which styles of vending exist in the arenas? Which agents have ‘stakes in the game’ in the local arenas? How and by whom is the access to and use of vending sites regulated? Do the vendors’ styles of appropriating space relate to their vulnerability? How do hawkers mitigate, cope with and recover from evictions? 3.4 SOCIAL PRACTICES AND VULNERABILITY

The previous chapters already indicated that the very local political struggles about the access to, the use and the control of urban public space are of enormous significance for the livelihoods of vulnerable people. In the following chapter, the concept of social vulnerability is further elaborated as it helps to dissect the livelihoods of the street food vendors against the background of the structural conditions in the arenas of street food vending. Vulnerability thinking has largely guided the empirical research for this study. 3.4.1 Vulnerability Thinking Vulnerability Research Vulnerability concepts evolved in the social sciences as a response to natural sciences’ focus on social consequences of natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods and droughts and their concentration on technocratic and engineering solutions to mitigate disaster risks. Instead, the economic, social and political causes of human vulnerability, first to hazards, later to other phenomena, were highlighted. Nevertheless, vulnerability has been – and still is – discussed from a broad array of disciplines, research perspectives and intellectual traditions (for overviews see Prowse 2003; Wisner et al. 2003; Bankoff et al. 2004; Adger 2006; Birkmann 2006; Brklacich & Bohle 2006). On a general level of understanding vulnerability can be defined as “the state of susceptibility to harm from exposure to stresses associated with environmental and social change and from the absence of capacity to adapt” (Adger 2006: 268). Such a broad vulnerability definition is useful in research that refers to the fragility or robustness, adaptive capacity and (possible) collapse of social-ecological systems, subsystem or system components (for a definition see Turner et al. 2003: 8074). This line of thought can be considered as a predecessor to resilience research.41 Vulnerability is then the consequence of a not-resilient system: “the less 41 See, for instance, Pelling (2003) on the vulnerability of cities, or Wisner et al. (2003) and Bankoff et al. (2004) on the vulnerability to natural hazards. For an introduction into resili-

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resilient the system, the greater is the vulnerability of institutions and societies to cope and adapt to change” (Berkes et al. 2003: 14). A social vulnerability perspective, in contrast, shifts the research focus to the social practices, interests, capabilities and adaptation strategies – or in short, the agency – of individuals, households, or communities (Bohle 2011: 748ff). This school of thought builds on poverty, livelihoods and human security research and conceives “vulnerability as embedded in social and environmental arenas, where human security, freedoms, and human rights are struggled for, negotiated, lost and won” (Bohle 2007c: 9). Numerous empirical studies have employed such a perspective in different regional context and on different themes, being particularly sensitive to the livelihood security of the most vulnerable people (Köberlein 2003; Pryer 2003; Tröger 2004; Van Dillen 2004; Fünfgeld 2007; Steinbrink 2009; Sakdapolrak 2010). Nevertheless, wide-ranging, interdisciplinary empirical analyses that look at the livelihoods of marginalised agents (not only in the countries of the Global South) certainly have to include both these dimensions – a system- and an agent orientation – in order to identify what makes people vulnerable to what kind of risks and who is particularly affected (cf. Bohle et al. 1993; Watts & Bohle 1993; Wisner et al. 2003; Bankoff et al. 2004; Birkmann 2006; Bohle 2007c). For three major reasons a social vulnerability perspective is taken on in this thesis: First, on the basis of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice we can start from an analysis of vulnerable agents’ positions in social fields and nonetheless look at the structural conditions of the systems – or fields42 – as such. Second, social vulnerability provides a sound conceptual frame to capture challenges to the human security of the urban poor, in this case Dhaka’s street food vendors. Vulnerability is closely connected to poverty, but while those who lack economic capital are often among the most vulnerable to specific risks, “being vulnerable to poverty is not the same thing […] as being poor” (Van Dillen 2004: 10). Social vulnerability is a broader and more dynamic concept that takes note of the multiple ways how people “move in and out of poverty” (Lipton & Maxwell 1992: 10, cited in Moser 1998: 3). Third, social vulnerability relates directly to food insecurity as those urban dwellers for whom food is not available, accessible or affordable in adequate quantity and quality are by definition vulnerable to under-nourishment and hunger (cf. Watts & Bohle 1993; Ericksen et al. 2010).

ence thinking, see Berkes et al. (2003), Bohle et al. (2009a), Obrist et al. (2010) or the Resilience Alliance’s website (http://www.resalliance.org). 42 In vulnerability research these fields have been addressed as social domains, i.e. “areas of social life that are organized by reference to a central cluster of values, which are recognized as a locus of certain rules, norms and values implying a degree of social commitment” (Hilhorst 2004: 57); as social spaces, i.e. relative positions of vulnerable agents within a coordinate-system of power and influence or helplessness and vulnerability (Bohle 2007a; 2007b); or as arenas, i.e. conflict-prone spaces, in which interdependent agents with different interests, differing scopes of action and assertive power meet another (Bohle 2007a).

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Determinants of Social Vulnerability Many academics have contributed to framing social vulnerability as a dynamic, multilayered and multidimensional social condition, which is structured by intersecting social, political, economic and ecological forces, and rooted in agents’ and communities’ attributes, capacities and strategies in specific places at specific times.43 According to Chambers’ (1989: 1) distinction between an external and an internal side of vulnerability, driving forces and exposure are aspects of the structural factors that account for the kind of vulnerability (vulnerability to what?), whereas sensitivity and adaptive capacity are mainly aspects of agents’ habitus and of their social practices that (should) enable them to organise their everyday life and respond to stressors. Together, these four components produce a certain vulnerability outcome that in turn perpetuates the other factors. Driving forces of vulnerability can be slow-onset processes, i.e. major longterm structural trends such as global environmental change, economic globalisation, social change and urbanisation, or sudden disturbances, i.e. shock events such as natural hazards, economic crises, political upheaval or social distress, that pose challenges to an agent’s livelihood. More often than not, various stresses and disturbances occur simultaneously and repeatedly. However, drivers must not always be understood as negative stresses. Sudden transformations might also reveal new opportunities for livelihoods. And change can also be experienced as a normal dynamic in a cyclical sense. Exposure can be defined as the systemic or common risk to encounter above mentioned drivers, whether these are negative stresses, sudden disturbances or positive changes. The degree of exposure depends on the magnitude and scope of that encounter. Exposure is a spatial and socio-economic category that relates to specific geographical locations (exposed places), exposed activities and social groups. But, members of the same social group that is exposed to a specific risk can be differentially sensitive to that risk. Sensitivity refers to the individual risks of being susceptible to these stresses and perturbations, and to the risks of not being able to face these challenges with adequate coping strategies. This also applies to small homogenous groups, who face quite specific risks. Sensitivity is a social category that generally refers to knowledge (cultural capital), social networks (social capital), impoverishment (economic capital), power relations, inequities and interdependencies and thus to the specific socio-economic positions of agents. Adaptive capacity is the collective and/or individual ability to anticipate and adjust to changes, cope with disturbances and mitigate their adverse effects adequately. Generally speaking, adaptive strategies aim at the reduction of losses and risks. In order to sustain a livelihood in the future, agents often try to reduce the 43 The following sections have been in particularly influenced by (cf. Chambers 1989; Watts & Bohle 1993; Bohle et al. 1994; Moser 1998; Turner et al. 2003; Wisner et al. 2003; OliverSmith 2004; Van Dillen 2004; Downing et al. 2005; Luers 2005; Adger 2006; Smit & Wandel 2006; Bohle 2007c, 2009).

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exposure and sensitivity to perturbations before a possible stress event through pro-active actions (mitigation). Re-active strategies, in contrast, are either shortterm responses (coping) or long-term changes in behaviour (adaptation) after a specific impact. Sensitivity and adaptive capacity relate to people’s habitus and therefore to their perception and evaluation of risks, their previous experience and their possible future practices. They both depend on the set of assets (natural, economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital) and entitlements that individuals, households or communities possess and whether they can mobilise them in times of crisis. The position in social networks influences the sensitivities and adaptive capacities significantly as it relates to the scope of available choices of exposed agents (cf. Bohle 2005; Downing et al. 2005; Fünfgeld 2007; Noe 2007; Steinbrink 2009). Despite a common rather ‘pessimistic’ wording of vulnerability approaches, both sensitivity and adaptive capacity depend on agents’ openness towards innovations, their capacity for self-organisation and their own attitude and thus on – in the more ‘optimistic speak’ of resilience thinking – how “learning, recovery and flexibility open eyes to novelty and new worlds of opportunity” (Resilience Alliance 2007). Vulnerability outcomes are the temporal results of the dynamic interplays between the given socio-economic and ecological conditions, the driving forces and the adaptive capacities of exposed and sensitive agents. Food insecurity, for example, as one of the strongest indicators of vulnerability, is caused not only by a deficient physical availability of food (exposure) and insufficient economic and social access to food (sensitivity), but particularly also by inadequate individual and social capacities to compensate for the lack of availability and access (adaptive capacity). Consequently, an individual or household cannot utilise the quantity and quality of food that is required for an active and healthy life (chapter 3.5.2). While these vulnerability components might be discernible in theory, in research practice it is most often not that easy to determine which component actually contributes to vulnerability and to which extent: “vulnerability may result from failure of exchange, access, transfer, endowments or production” (Adger 2006: 275). It is therefore crucial to understand the interplay between the vulnerability components. Looking at institutions and power relations provides one way to discern the nature, causality and dynamics of this interplay (de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 36f). Institutions regulate social relations, in general, and the conditions of vulnerability, in particular. Power relations structure the relation between the driving forces of vulnerability and people’s differential exposure and sensitivity to them. People’s adaptive capacities also largely depend on their social position of power or dependency. As follows, a specific agent or group’s state of social vulnerability or human security is the result of the complex relations between structural process and individual capacities (fig. 3.2).

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Driving Forces

Exposure

Sensitivity

Adaptive Capacity

Vulnerability Outcomes

Fig. 3.2: Components of Social Vulnerability

Social vulnerability is a dynamic concept that shows how vulnerability grows or is reduced as structural processes and trigger events, internal adaptive mechanisms and external interventions combine to produce specific vulnerability outcomes. Nonetheless, the “baseline vulnerability” indicates more or less permanent conditions of poverty and deprivation and sometimes subtle situations of marginalisation and social exclusion (cf. Watts & Bohle 1993: 64). This more chronic vulnerability is closely associated with the degree to which exposed and sensitive people see their own inferior social position and the rules of the game that work against them as natural and inevitable (doxic in the sense of Bourdieu), and to the extent to which they have developed routines of mitigation, coping and adaptation in order to live with their vulnerability (Bohle 2007c). As a result, there is always a certain threshold of external stress up to which agents are still somehow able to cope, adapt and recover and, thus, continue their livelihood and, in turn, up to which stage risks, dangers and harms are ‘acceptable’ – both in objective terms and from the perspective of the vulnerable themselves cf. (cf. Watts & Bohle 1993; Smit & Wandel 2006). The vulnerability threshold to a specific risk is always based on the local cultural and institutional determinants at a specific time. But when and at what stage such a threshold is reached, and what is being done in whose interest in order to adapt to a risk, is open to negotiation and contestation. Consequently, “adaptive actions often reduce the vulnerability of those best placed to take advantage of governance institutions, rather than reducing the vulnerability of the marginalized” (Adger 2006: 277). Vulnerability and adaptation, and thus also resilience, relate directly to fairness, equity, empowerment, political participation and transparency in decision-making, or more generally to the notion of human security (Bohle et al. 2009a).44

44 Human security is “achieved when and where individuals and communities have the options necessary to end, mitigate or adapt to threats to their human, environmental and social rights; have the capacity and freedom to exercise these options; and actively participate in pursuing these options” (Lonergan et al. 1999).

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3.4.2 Incorporating Bourdieu’s Theory into Vulnerability Thinking Towards a Theory of Social Vulnerability According to Watts and Bohle (1993: 44) a theory of vulnerability has to meet specific requirements: It has to account for the historically contingent and socially specific distribution of livelihood resources, capabilities, choices and constraints among agents. It has to address power relations and institutions, whether they are individual rights or broader governance structures that largely define these distributional patterns. And it has to adhere to changes, perpetuations, negotiations and contestations. This list already shows that structural and behavioural paradigms in social theory have both contributed to the vulnerability thinking. The key analytical concepts that have proven to be particularly relevant in vulnerability research were brought together by Bohle (2001) in the “double structure of vulnerability” (see figure 3.3).

Fig. 3.3: The Double Structure of Vulnerability Note: Bohle’s model (2001) on the left is implicitly based on Giddens’ Theory of Structuration. My model (own draft, 2009) on the right is explicitly based on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice

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The top triangle of the “Double Structure of Vulnerabiltiy” lists the more structuralist concepts first identified by Watts and Bohle (1993), i.e. entitlement theory, human ecology and political economy, while the bottom triangle refers to concepts that focus on the internal side of living with vulnerability, namely action theories, models of access to assets as well as conflict and crisis theory. Bohle (2001) referred to Anthony Giddens’ (1984) Theory of Structuration as a constructive approach that can foster the understanding of both the structure- and the agency-sides of vulnerability and how they reinforce one another. Dörfler et al. (2003. 21), de Haan and Zoomers (2005: 41), Sakdapolrak (2007: 56) and Thieme (2007: 52) all suggested that Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice meets the aforementioned requirements for a theory of social vulnerability as it allows for a particularly concise analysis of the relationship between individual actors, households, networks and the broader society through the concepts of field, habitus, capital, institutions that together structure social practices and agents’ vulnerability. In my opinion, Bourdieu’s work provides a particularly advantageous basis for a critical theory of vulnerability and inequality as it is sensitive to the subtle differences between agents and groups and the power relations that make these differences. As a research frame, the double structure of vulnerability has been adapted for this case study of the vulnerability of street food vendors in Dhaka (see figure 3.3). Social Practices, Livelihood Styles and Trajectories On the one hand, the shift in vulnerability research from Giddens to Bourdieu – or in other words ‘the praxeological turn’ – needs to be seen against the background of the broader paradigmatic changes in action-oriented social theories (cf. Reckwitz 2004; Everts et al. 2011; see chapter 2.3.6). On the other hand, more recent approaches still need to take into account one of the most influential analytical tools in vulnerability research and development cooperation in the last two decades, the livelihoods approach (cf. Chambers & Conway 1992; Scoones 1998; Rakodi & Lloyd-Jones 2002; DFID 2003; Brown 2006b; Bohle 2009). Critiques have argued that the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework is too static, that it is not grounded in history and that it, thereby, largely ignores how broader economic conditions and political power relations shape human agency. Furthermore, it has been criticised for putting too much weight on the individual (in)capabilities of coping and adaptation on the basis of assets, while neglecting the role of culture, identity and ideology (cf. Devas 2002: 206; Dörfler et al. 2003: 13f; de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 33ff; Bohle 2009: 527f; van Dijk 2011: 101f). Livelihoods compromise the capabilities, capacities and activities required to sustain one’s living and also incorporate the non-material aspects of well-being, such as a personal sense of security,45 meaning, social status and identity (de Haan 45 Livelihood security “refers to secure ownership of, or access to, resources and incomeearning activities, including reserves and assets to offset risk, ease shocks and meet contingencies” (Bohle 2009: 521).

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& Zoomers 2005: 32; Bohle 2009: 521). Moreover, assets are “the basis of agents power to act and to reproduce, challenge or change the rules that govern the control, use and transformation of resources” (Bebbington 1999: 2022). In this sense, livelihoods are always the space- and time-specific products of social relations insofar as they develop at a specific place under the specific circumstances of a historical period. They are also based on the personal life courses of agents and their specific power position within society (i.e. their endowment with economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital) in the past and at present. Livelihoods can thus be distinguished from one another through differences in the agents’ habitus. Drawing on the work of Nooteboom (2003), de Haan and Zoomers have operationalised Bourdieu’s habitus theorem into the concepts of styles and trajectories (see also van Dijk 2011). Styles are distinguishable patterns of orientation and action of individuals. They consist “of a specific cultural repertoire composed of shared experience, knowledge, insights, interests, prospects and interpretations of the context; an integrated set of practices and artefacts, such as crop varieties, instruments, cattle; a specific ordering of the interrelations with markets, technology and institutions; and responses to policies” (de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 40).

The social, economic and personal characteristics of agents and their particular set of interests bring about specific livelihood styles that follow different internal logics. In this sense, styles reflect long-term established social practices and routines as well as intentional strategic actions of individuals and groups. The practices are, however, always bounded by structural constraints, rooted in a personal historical repertoire and embedded in an institutional frame (de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 41). Livelihood styles or life styles thus reflect the social position of an agent, they are manifestations of an agents’ habitus in everyday social practices, and they are most crucial elements of social identity and a particular view of the world (Bourdieu 1999: 277ff). The livelihood styles that are mainly addressed in this empirical study are the street vendors’ typical practices of appropriating public spaces, the different styles of vending. As the geneaology of styles is important, de Haan and Zoomers propose to discern between the formation of styles of a social group and of individuals. Pathways are a particular social groups’ regular patterns of livelihood activities, which arise in a specific institutional setting from a co-ordination process among agents (de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 43). Trajectories, in turn, reflect individuals’ life histories and include deeply internalised world views, beliefs, needs, aspirations and anxieties, which shape – not determine – the particular ways of gaining more education or entering a certain profession, for instance street food vending, or migrating to another city. Livelihood trajectories are a matter of social mobility – taking into account agents’ former and present social position (Bourdieu 1998: 72) – and raise questions about individuals’ capabilities to see, access and seize opportunities.

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Depicting livelihood trajectories is like “unravelling a historical route through a labyrinth of rooms, with each room having several doors giving access to new livelihood opportunities; but the doors can be opened and the room of opportunities successfully entered only with the right key qualifications” (de Haan & Zoomers 2005: 44).

Incorporating the Theory of Practice into vulnerability research shifts the focus of attention to the relational positions of agents in social fields, to their habitus and practices and to the inherent social conflicts in distinct local arenas – all are fundamental arguments for a relational social geography (chapter 2.2). In a context where all agents are exposed to specific stresses and risks, the agents’ specific position, their capital configuration and their habitus, define the scope of possible social practises, and thereby largely pre-structure their sensitivity and adaptive capacity and thus their overall vulnerability (Sakdapolrak 2007: 56). This most general assumption indicates that Bourdieu’s work can be used constructively for looking at both the external and the internal sides of vulnerability and most crucially for overcoming the structure-agency-divide. 3.4.3 Street Vending as a Livelihood and the Space of Vulnerability Street vending is an essential, and not marginal, self-employment opportunity for the urban poor in cities in the Global South. One of the most crucial livelihood assets for street vendors is their access to public space (cf. Brown 2006). Street vending as a livelihood is both a product and a cause of their vulnerability.46 On the one hand, it is as result of their vulnerability, because street vending is often taken on by those social groups, i.e. the urban poor, youth, migrants and women, who face difficulties getting access to more formal and more secure employment and who thus have distinct personal trajectories.47 On the other hand, vending in public space also constitutes their vulnerability as the hawkers face many specific stresses at their outdoor vending sites, such as unfavourable weather conditions, pollution, insecure tenure, harassments by the police and local power-brokers, as well as eviction drives. The vendors have to mitigate these risks, cope with its effects and recover from its impacts in order to secure their own livelihoods. They do so by employing distinct spatial practices or livelihood styles. The double structure of vulnerability also shows that street vendors’ social space of vulnerability not only depends on their individual trajectories and their present styles of appropriating public spaces, i.e. the internal side of vulnerability, 46 Many authors explicitly refer to the vulnerability/livelihood literature in their case studies on street vending: cf. Gertel & Samir (1995) on Cairo; Tinker (1997); Brown et al. (2006b) on Kathmandu, Dar es Salaam, Kumasi and Maseru; Basinski (2010) on Lagos; Nirathon (2006) on Bangkok; and Dittrich et al. (2007, 2008) on Hyderabad. 47 Turning to street food vending from other profession can also be a coping strategy in times of crisis and reduce vulnerability, as for instance Yasmeen (2001) showed in her analysis of the Asian economic crisis in 1998/99.

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but most crucially on the structural relations between the field of street food and other fields, i.e. the external side of vulnerability,. The street vendors’ position in the city’s economy (i.e. their relation to the field of labour; chapter 6.1), their embeddedness in networks of food distribution (i.e. their relation to the field of urban food distribution; chapter 7.3.2), their contribution to urban food security (i.e. their relation to the field of food consumption; chapter 6.3) matter as much as the social recognition or devaluation of their vending practices by state agents and the state’s efforts to control and curtail them (i.e. their relation to the field of power; chapters 5.3 and 8). Assumptions and Key Questions: Vulnerability of Street Food Vendors The exposure to livelihood stresses largely depends on the vending location, i.e. their position in physical space, while the vendors’ differential sensitivity is mainly defined through their specific capital configuration, i.e. their position in social space. In turn, the hawkers’ styles of appropriating public spaces and their adaptive capacities in times of crises reflect their habitus and define their vulnerability. In order to understand the street food vendors’ differential vulnerability, it is asked in this study (see chapters 7 and 8.3): – – – – – – –

How did the vendors enter Dhaka’s field of street food? How do differently endowed vendors sustain their livelihoods? What are the major stresses that they are exposed to? Who among the street vendors is particularly sensitive to which risks? Which adaptive strategies do vendors use, when facing livelihood risks? How vulnerable or resilient are hawkers compared to other subalterns? How do the street vendors live with state violence? 3.5 STREET FOOD VENDING AND THE URBAN FIELDS OF FOOD “Food is implicated in almost every sort of geography imaginable. It is simultaneously economic, political, cultural, social, and biological. It travels through a host of different spaces in its life from plough to fork. It can only be understood in the context of a range of wider social, political and economic relations” (Crang 2000: 272; emphasis BE).

This section presents some basic ideas on urban food systems, food security and food governance and relates them to the theme of this thesis. In order to understand ‘what makes food systems work’ and ‘whether they work for food security’ it is suggested here that not social, cultural and political factors need to receive at least the same attention as the ecological or economic determinants of the production, distribution and consumption of food traditionally get. Applying Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, food systems can be conceptualised as social fields, in which agents struggle over economic and symbolic profits that can be derived from the flows of food commodities, money and information. Moreover, the agents possess

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unequal capabilities to influence the modes of governance of these flows to their own benefit. In this sense, the megaurban food system of Dhaka is a social field that is subdivided into more specific sub-fields with their particular logics. Street food vendors are embedded in the field of urban food distribution that consists of a broader network of agents who transport, trade and prepare food items and thereby make them available to the urban consumers. The field of street food is thus one of these sub-fields. 3.5.1 The Field of Urban Food Distribution What are Fields of Food? Different approaches towards food-related processes and activities exist (cf. Bohle 1994; Fine 1994; Dixon 1999; Cannon 2002; Ericksen 2006). A systems perspective implies interconnectivity among multiple agents, scales and levels as well as complexity, non-linearity, uncertainty, emergence and self-organisation (Berkes et al. 2003: 5). In this line, the researchers in the programme on Global Environmental Change and Food Systems (GECAFS, cf. Ingram et al. 2010) conceptualise food systems as co-evolved and coupled social-ecological systems that include “interactions between and within biogeophysical and human environments that determine food system activities; the food system activities themselves; the outcomes of the activities, i.e. contributions to food security, environmental security, and other securities; and other determinants of food security, stemming in part from the interactions, rather than food system activities directly“ (Ericksen 2008: 18).

This definition of food systems can be paraphrased with Bourdieu’s terminology: A field of food is a distinct social field that is intrinsically linked with the field of nature. It is produced, and thus also historically emerged, through the directly and indirectly food-related social practices of the agents that were and are involved in it. It is structured through the material relations of physical space and the law of nature, and through the relations of social space and the immanent rules of the game that are defined by the agents in this field. It is the – literally – most basic socio-ecological field upon which the existence of all human beings fundamentally depends. Through the consumption of food, nature is ‘embodied’ in all agents. The amount and quality of food an agent has at his disposal, and thus also whether he is well-fed and healthy or goes hungry, depends on his particular position in the field of food and the structure of the same. Given this importance, the contestations over the predominant logic of food fields – is it food security or profit?48 – are fundamental, too. The field of food and the struggles over its structure are, thus, always subject and product of the prevalent social order in a given society at a specific place at a particular point in time. Not surprisingly the very existence of 48 Contrasting logics, i.e. food provision as a mere ecosystem service, food as an economic commodity, and food security as a human right, can be seen as the drivers of violence in food systems (Eakin et al. 2010: 254).

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nation-states and other territorial formations of power, which can be understood as institutionalised concentrations of (symbolic) capital, depends to a large extent on their respective control of the (sub)fields of food (see table 3.5).

Sub-Fields

Definition

Practices

Major Determinants

Major Agents

Field of

… all practices that revolve around the production of the raw food materials

providing inputs (capital, land, water, fertilizer, labour, etc.), preparing land, breeding animals, planting crops, harvesting , slaughtering

social, economic, physical and biological factors: soil quality, climate conditions, land tenure, input and output prices, agricultural and/or harvest technology, subsidies

farmers, hunters, fishermen; suppliers of production inputs; agricultural labourers; land owners; state agents and supra-state agents (i.e. FAO, WFP, World Bank)

Field of Processing and Packaging

… all practices that revolve around the transformations of raw food material into ‘marketable’ and digestible food

“value adding” to the raw material, alteration of appearance, storage life, nutritional value and content of the raw materials

structure of the commercial food sector, regulatory bodies established to control quality and safety

middlemen; owners and managers of food processing and packaging industry; trade organizations; food factory workers; state (and supra-state) agents

Field of Exchange, Distribution and Retail

… all practices that revolve around the transport, exchange and marketing of food

distribution, transport, intermediate storage, retailing / trade, advertising

infrastructure, trade regulations, storage requirements, transfers or redistribution (food aid), market organization, market location and economic niche

middlemen; market traders; supermarkets; transport sector; state, city and supra-state agents (i.e. WTO); advertising and marketing companies

… all practices selection, prepaField of Consumption that relate to the ration, delivery, everyday deci- eating, digestion sions on what, when and how to select, prepare and eat food and its digestion

prices, income levels, cultural traditions, preferences, social values, education, health status, globalization of diets, structure of food supply chain, advertising

consumers; primarily households, but also restaurants, food stalls, canteens, street food vendors; advertising and marketing companies; state and supra-state agents (i.e. WHO)

Production

Tab. 3.5: The Sub-Fields of Food Source: own draft (12/2010) based on Ericksen (2006: 25ff)

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Theoretically, the field of food can be subdivided into a multitude of sub-fields (see table 3.5).49 Each of these sub-fields, as the understanding of the food subsystems by the GECAFS programme implies, revolves around a specific logic and a different set of key activities, has particular major determinants or drivers, and is defined by a distinct group of relationally positioned agents. Each has its particular social, economic, political, cultural and ecological dimensions and connects different spatial levels.50 As food travels from plough to fork, i.e. from the field of food production to the field of processing and packaging to the field of exchange, distribution and retail to the field of consumption, the different sub-fields are dynamically linked, mutually dependent, and thus heteronymous. The Field of Urban Food Distribution Food supply services and urban food markets need to grow – in quantity, quality and diversity – in growing cities. While political economy approaches (cf. Friedmann 1982: 251) noted the overall effects of cheap food policies of governments in many developing countries on urbanisation, the actual functioning of urban food exchange systems was, at first, not specifically addressed. However, in the wake of the hunger crisis in the African Sahel region in the early 1980s, Guyer (1987) and colleagues comprehensively addressed the issue of ‘Feeding African Cities’ from a political economy perspective that emphasised the embeddedness of food distribution systems in the local, regional, national and indeed international social and economic structure, which was restructured significantly through several historic political transformations, i.e. colonialism, national independence, or the oil boom. Case studies, for instance on Kano/Nigeria, Yaoundé/Cameroon and Dar-es-Salaam/Tanzania demonstrated that a steady supply and distribution of food, while taken for granted normally, can become an explosive public issue of utmost importance in times of economic, political or ecological crises (Guyer 1987). Thereafter, academic interest in geography dealt with food supply and distribution to and within cities as the most fundamental material basis of social life (cf. Bohle 1994 for an overview). Several authors discussed the everyday social practices, interests, capabilities and coping strategies of a diverse range of actors, in particular the more vulnerable ones, in urban food systems, for instance in Cairo/Egypt (Gertel 1995, 2010) or Kathmandu/Nepal (Bohle & Adhikari 2002). One of the most comprehensive efforts to put the flows of food in and within cities on a broader research and policy agenda was brought forward in the late 1990s by the FAO in its ‘Food into Cities’ collection (cf. FAO 1998; Aragrande & 49 In his definition of food systems, Cannon (2002: 354) relates the food sub-systems – production, exchange, distribution, consumption – to the assets that are available to a household. 50 For a summary of the geographies of food systems see for instance Cook (2006), Bohle (2002), in particular with regard to vulnerable food systems, Winter (2003, 2004, 2005) with regard to agricultural geography, and Ingram et al. (2010) with regard to food security and global environmental change.

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Argenti 2001). Two layers were distinguished in food supply and distribution systems: The food supply to cities includes production activities (including urban food production), food imports into the city and other food-related periurbanurban linkages. Intra-urban food distribution refers to all activities that are required to distribute food within the urban area, among which are wholesale and retail markets as the sites of food exchange, intra-urban transport, restaurants and street food shops (Aragrande & Argenti 2001). Both of these subsystems are subject to external and internal factors that counteract or contribute to the efficiency and thus to the resilience of urban food systems (Bohle et al. 2009a). The field of inner-urban food distribution, which is at the core of the research project on the megaurban food system of Dhaka, can be subdivided into four empirical levels or sub-fields: First, in the field of food wholesale markets (mostly raw or little processed) food is exchanged in great quantities. Retail market traders, shop owners, fresh-food hawkers, restaurant owners or street vendors, and to some extent also private customers, shop for food there. The traders are well organised and integrated into a (most often) reliable and stable network of suppliers and customers (cf. FAO 1998: 5ff; Aragrande & Argenti 2001; Keck 2012; Keck et al. 2012). Second, the field of food retail includes fully capitalised or modern supermarkets that sell mostly processed and refrigerated food to the urban elites and the (higher) middle class, so called kitchen markets where mainly raw food is exchanged, small retail shops that provide processed and some raw food to customers in the close neighbourhood, and mobile hawkers who sell fruit, vegetables, dairy products, eggs, fresh fish or meat by going door-to-door in residential neighbourhoods (cf. McGee 1973; Lam 1982: 54ff; Drakakis-Smith 1991: 55ff; FAO 1998: 9ff; Smith 1998: 212ff; Aragrande & Argenti 2001). Third, the field of prepared food has gained significance in cities worldwide as more women are involved in the urban labour markets and as the workers increasingly lack time (and also often other assets such as cooking skills or facilities, etc.) to prepare food themselves. In every large city of the Global South, a great diversity of restaurants, food stalls, fast food outlets, street food shops and food delivery services caters for the needs of the urban population according to their respective financial means, personal requirements and tastes or dietary preferences (cf. McGee 1973; Lam 1982: 54ff; Tinker 1997; Smith 1998: 212ff; Aragrande & Argenti 2001). Street food vending is, thus, a part of this field. Fourth, the field of food transport is characterized in many cities in the Global South by the absence of large refrigerated trucks. Instead vehicles without cooling such as small trucks, pickups, transport-rickshaws or push-carts are used for the distribution of fresh food. In turn, food shoppers largely use public transport, mini-busses, taxis, rickshaws or walk themselves carrying their goods as it is often difficult to get transport for food shopping trips (cf. Leybourne & Grant 1999; Aragrande & Argenti 2001). Making enough food available for the urban consumers is, thus, a serious logistical challenge that evokes questions about the organisation, the speed, the efficiency and the flexibility of these processes (World Bank 2003: 118-137). In a megacity like Dhaka the functionality and resilience of the fields of food distribution is not only crucial for the allocation of food in adequate quantity and quality,

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but also for the food security of the whole urban population (Bohle et al. 2009a). This field also serves as the backbone of the urban economy – in many cities of the Global South it is the single most important one (Lam 1982). As Smith (1998: 212) rightly notes, “it is not widely appreciated that in the great majority of Third World cities employment is dominated by the processing, distribution and retailing of cooked and uncooked food, both in the formal and informal sectors, with the latter offering particularly important sources of work and income for women.” Informality and Fields of Food In particular in the (mega) cities of the Global South, the informal interactions among agents and the specific relations of agents to formal food economies and to formal regulatory institutions are crucial for comprehending the functionality of the field of food as such. It is, therefore, necessary to debate the informality inherent in the field in order to evaluate challenges to its resilience and to food security (cf. Keck et al. 2008; Etzold et al. 2009). Drakakis-Smith (1991) and Smith (1998) outlined urban food supply systems as complex networks of production, distribution and consumption and showed that the urban poor rely on their own subsistence production, the modern retail sector, and particularly on the informal commercial supply system consisting of street traders and small shops. According to Lam (1982) these informal food-related activities cannot be sufficiently described as unregistered or even illegal. They are rather a specific form of social and economic organization that largely relies on personal networks. Moreover, as different types of food (mainly local and regional products) are exchanged in these networks, they also address a different clientele in terms of origin and purchasing power, and thereby, fill different niches in the field of food distribution than the formally organised modern food sector. Research showed that informal food-related practices, although being dismissed from a modernist view, contribute significantly to urban food security, not only in times of crisis: “Parallel markets, unauthorised sales across international borders, small-scale production and experimentation, self-provisioning in the urban and peri-urban areas, legal and illegal entrepreneurship [...] are the local processes which support the food market and at the same time undermine any possibility of complete control over it” (Guyer 1987: 45). Moreover, looking at the complex social reality of the metropolitan food system of Cairo (Egypt), Gertel (1995; 2010) pointed to the fact that informal traders and street food vendors are always deeply embedded in local power relations, and thus also ‘have stakes’ in the contestations with the nation state that manifest themselves at distinct places in the urban fabric.

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3.5.2 The Social Field of Street Food The social field of street food is not merely a business sector, but a distinct subfield of the society, in which agents take on and compete over positions, have interests and particular agendas, and act according to explicit and immanent rules as well as structural principles of vision and division. It emerged historically under specific social, economic, cultural and fundamentally political conditions, and thus has its own practical logic. Street food vendors face similar problems like other hawkers, but there are also more food-specific issues at stake: The position of the vendors in inner-urban food distribution networks plays an important role. Importantly, street food vending directly touches issues of urban food security, and in many countries a distinct street food culture enriches urban life. Generally speaking, street food vending refers to all the natural, economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions of food. What is Street Food? Street food includes “any food that can be eaten without further processing and is sold on the street, from pushcarts or baskets or balance poles, or from stalls or shops having fewer than four permanent walls” (Tinker 1987: 52). The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation speaks of street foods as “ready-toeat foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by vendors and hawkers, especially in streets and other similar public places” (FAO 1997: 4). There are basically two dimensions to both of these definitions. The first relates to types of food that are for sale, and the second to the styles and sites of vending. Worldwide, there is a great variety of street food items for sale depending on the food preferences and purchasing power of consumers, prevailing religious practices, socio-economic situations of vendors as well as on governmental regulations regarding the use of public space and food safety. A study in the rural town of Manikganj in Bangladesh, for instance, identified 128 different street food items within a year (Tinker 1997: 84). To grasp this diversity, it is necessary to distinguish types of street foods according to their specific characteristics, cooking methods, the state of preparedness or religious and cultural factors (table 3.6). For this study, the categories built by Tinker (1997: 84) and Nirathron (2006: 26) were adapted after an initial assessment at the beginning of the field research (see table 6.12 in the annex for a glossary of street food items found in Dhaka).

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Classification category

Types of Street Food

Site of Preparation

ready-to-eat-food sold in the street but prepared elsewhere (i.e. at vendor’s home) – ready-to-eat-food prepared and sold in the street

Cooking method

Grilled – roasted – deep fried – steamed – boiled – cooked

Dishes

Main dishes – light meals – snacks – desserts & sweets – beverages

Meal in which taken

Breakfast – lunch – supper – snacks in between – night food

Cultural & religious aspects Vegetarian vs. non-vegetarian food; kosher vs. non-kosher food;etc Cultural perspective

‘Traditional’ indigenous food vs. ‘modern’/western fast food

Type of food (study in Thailand; Nirathron 2006)

Fresh food – cooked food – food prepared on the street – packaged food – fruits – others

Type of food (study in Bangladesh; Tinker 1997)

‘wet meals’ like rice meals, some sweets & meal substitutes – dry snacks – ice cream and other dairy products – drinks like tea & juices

Type of food (this study, see table 6.12)

Dishes – snacks – bakery products – sweets and ice cream – milk products – fruits and vegetables – beverages – others

Tab. 3.6: Typologies of Street Food

Public Spaces: the Arenas of Street Food Vending The sites where hawkers sell food can be considered as arenas, because there it shows how social structures are inscribed in physical space. Like all goods and services, street food shops are unevenly, but not randomly, distributed in space (Bourdieu 2005a: 118). Looking at public space and street vending implies that respective place’s position within the urban fabric, its function and economic and symbolic value is looked at (chapter 3.3.3). Accordingly street vending competes more or less with other functions. The most important locations for street food vending are those public places, where people assemble in great numbers and there is thus a high demand for prepared food, and where more formal food provision services cannot meet the food demand. Street food is sold in publicly accessible buildings such as bus and train stations, harbour terminals and other hubs of public transport, in institutionalised public spaces such as university grounds or large market places, and in public outdoor spaces, particularly highly frequented streets, and public squares and parks in a city centre. Street food can also play an important role in densely populated living quarters, and is sold in private spaces, too (cf. Brown 2006: 24f; Nirathron 2006: 27; chapter 3.3.1 and 6.4). Street food vendors rely on the access to public space for their livelihood. How they obtain access depends on the very local modes of governance and their own endowment with different types of capital. Reflecting the distinctions in the field, the vendors employ distinct spatial practices or styles of vending as they appropriate public space. In South Asia, prepared food is sold in restaurants, canteens and food stalls, and thus located in consolidated buildings, and from unconsolidated sheds or tents, which have been built with cheap material and which have less than four permanent walls (Tinker 1987: 52). These fixed or permanent

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street food shops can be set up on private property, but most often they are situated in public space, either being tolerated or filling not-regarded ‘edge spaces’. Semi-permanent vending units are carts with a stationary place or tables that are set up for the day. Semi-mobile street traders push their carts or carry their goods to the same locations every day and shift their positions a few times during the day for various reasons. In contrast, mobile street vendors do not have fixed premises, but move from one location to another, some on a regular route, selling snacks, drinks or fruits from push-carts, boxes, baskets or just from a mat on the ground. While permanent spots are more profitable, flexibility can be an advantage, too, as the more mobile vendors can access customers at various places and can often circumvent problems with authorities (cf. Tinker 1987: 55, Nirathron 2006: 27; chapter 7.1 for the styles of vending in Dhaka). There are also rickshaw-drivers, balance-pole carriers and children who deliver food that was prepared at home to the work-sites of their customers (cf. Keck et al. 2008).51 In sum, all of these vending styles make prepared food available and accessible for different groups of customers all over the city. 3.5.3 Food Security and the Field of Urban Food Consumption What does Food Security mean? The global field of food provides direct employment for one third of the world’s population and for almost half of the population in South Asia (ILO 2009: 31). It also generates profit, although only three percent of the world gross domestic product stems from agricultural production (World Bank 2008: 341). But the most important outcome, overarching objective and normative principle – and thus the practical logic – of fields of food is food security (Ericksen 2008: 3). Food security has been defined by the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organisation as the condition when “all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (FAO 1996). Food security is not only a condition, but also a process that relates directly to the elements of food systems (Ingram et al. 2005: 9). Food security encompasses food availability, food accessibility and food utilization (Ericksen 2006: 27): Food availability refers to the amount, type and quality of food a given population has at its disposal to consume. Availability is directly linked to production, exchange and distribution, i.e. agricultural productivity, efficiency of markets and food policies. Food accessibility refers to the ability to access the type, quality and quantity of food a household requires. Affordability (purchasing power), allocation (food 51 In Asia, this “ready-to-eat food that was carried through the streets by the preparer rather than the purchaser, for eating at home or office” (Tinker 1997: 15) is an important aspect of urban food distribution. But the tiffin-carriers are not considered as street vendors as the food is neither prepared, sold, nor consumed in public space.

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governance through policies, institutions, social capital, etc.) and preference (social and cultural norms) are elements of what Amartya Sen (1981: 1ff) calls “food entitlements”. Utilization refers to individual or household capacity to consume and benefit from food. This component includes food’s nutritional value, implications for consumer’s health (food safety) and the social and cultural meanings attached to it. Street food is, for instance, less appreciated than home-made. Food Consumption: Growing Demand, Changing Tastes and Food Security As the population of cities grows due to migration and natural population increase, also the demand for food increases, which self-evidently requires increases in production (not only in the vicinity of the city, but also nationally) and/or raised imports of food.52 But the growing demand for food also goes along with changing patterns of consumption as well as the commodification and globalisation of food systems. In cities of the Global South ‘new’ increasingly wealthy classes are allured to westernised lifestyles and change their food habits: they eat more in terms of quantity and in terms of caloric content, in particular more meat and dairy products; they change their retail behaviour and shop in supermarkets; and they ‘eat out’ more often, as for instance the increase of fast foods shops all over the world shows (Smith 1998; Koc et al. 1999; Delgado 2003; World Bank 2003: 124f; Lohr & Dittrich 2007). The close interrelation of poverty, hunger and famine in rural areas all over the world has been addressed in the past by innumerable researchers. At first, food insecurity was mainly understood in terms of insufficient availability of food. Since the 1980s, however, research has effectively demonstrated that it is not only the rural populations (and not only those involved in agriculture) that are vulnerable to food insecurity (cf. Sen 1981; Pryer & Crook 1988; Watts & Bohle 1993). While poverty is a fact for some segments of the urban population in most cities of the world, it is related to chronic food insecurity mainly in the Global South.53 In particular in times of greater economic, political or ecological crises, poor urban households suffer from decreasing purchasing power as prices of food commodities increase whereas their income does not (cf. Bohle & Adhikari 2002 for the case Kathmandu, Nepal). Food security in cities is then a question of an household’s adequate access to food, which in turn is a matter of the urban labour market, of access to basic services, of ill-health and living conditions, of social relations, and – this seems to be often overlooked – of functioning (efficient and transparent) food markets and supply systems. Urban vulnerability to food insecu52 Rapid urbanisation relates not only to the pull-factors of industrialisation, but also to pushfactors such as a the “urban bias” of the political economy (Pugh 1996) and failures of agricultural and rural development policies, and thus to food insecurity in rural areas (cf. Friedmann 1982: 251; Davis 2007: 11ff, 50ff; Ahmed et al. 2012). 53 As a negation of the FAO’s definition of food security “food insecurity exists when people do not have adequate physical, social or economic access to food” (FAO 2009: 8).

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rity has been examined in detailed studies (Maxwell 1999; cf. Ruel & Garrett 1999; Pryer 2003; Community-Studies-Team 2007) and in the flagship reports of International Organisations (cf. (FAO 2004: 18f); UN-HABITAT (2006b: 104ff). One result is that the members of female-headed households and the women and children in poor families are particularly vulnerable to under-nourishment as a result of disadvantaged access to the urban labour market and inequitable distribution of food within families (Pryer 2003: 41, 148ff). With on-going urbanisation and a continued global integration of food markets, concerns grow that poverty and hunger might indeed shift from rural to urban areas (Ruel & Garrett 1999) as evidence of the on-going food price crisis suggests (Cohen & Garrett 2009). Food insecurity of the urban poor is then “not only the consequence of increasing urban poverty and loss of entitlements (important as they are), [but] also the result of changes in global/national food production and supply systems“ (Smith 1998: 212). In the megacities of Chennai and Dhaka, the global food crisis in 2008/09 had severe impacts on the food security and health of poor slum dwellers. But these agents were not mere victims, but actively manouvered through these critical times by employing a broad range of food security strategies. But their success or failure also dependend on their relative social position (Bohle & Sakdapolrak 2009; Zingel et al. 2011). This indicates that “urban hunger is both a natural condition created through complex biochemical processes, as well as a social process produced through power relations dictating who eats what and how much, and who goes hungry” (Heynen 2006: 129). 3.5.4 Street Food Vending and the Field of Food Consumption Street Food Vending and Food Security Street food is not only readily available in the cities of the Global South, but also comparatively cheap, tasty and nutritious, which makes it an important aspect of urban food security. The street vendors secure their own families’ food security through the income generated from this informal self-employment. Different consumer groups depend on street food to different degrees and can be distinguished from one another on the basis of the crucial distinction between needs and desires (Bourdieu 1999; Heynen 2006). On the one hand, the consumption of street food can serve as a supplement to people’s daily diet. In Calcutta, for instance, students, school children, and middle-class families who spend an afternoon in the park, enjoy tasty sweets, soft drinks, but also some more expensive street food snacks in their leisure time, because they want to (Mukhopadhyay 2004). Pleasure street food is largely driven by the ‘taste of luxury’ and characterized by relative distance to necessity (Bourdieu 1999: 289f; see chapter 3.6.1). On the other hand, street food can serve as a substitution for home-prepared food. Factory workers, day labourers and rickshaw pullers urgently need energyrich, but cheap snacks and sweat tea in between the main meals in order to keep up their strength throughout a long working day (cf. Sujatha et al. 1997; Tinker

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1997; Blair 1999). According to the authors of a study in Indonesia, street foods are an “unsung bargain that the urban poor must make use of” as two well-chosen street meals “can supply virtually all the nutrients needed for a day” (Chapman 1984, cited in Tinker 1997: 187). Other agents, e.g. day labourers, can neither go home for lunch, nor can they afford the food delivery services (tiffins) or the more expensive permanent restaurants or canteens as they have a smaller food budget. Moreover, many people in cities in the Global South do not have access to adequate food on a daily basis. Street dwellers, for instance, often do not even have the assets to prepare their own meals. For some of them, street foods largely substitute self-prepared meals and thus become the only backbone of their food security. If the consumption of street food is driven by the “taste of necessity” (Bourdieu 1999: 285) it can be called required street food. Street Food Vending, Food Safety and Public Health Nonetheless, due to the often unhygienic conditions of the street food trade, health risks can arise for its customers. Food safety is one important facet of food security, i.e. food utilisation. The World Health Organisation (WHO) asserts that “foodborne illness is a major international health problem and an important cause of reduced economic growth” (Mensah et al. 2002: 546). It is not surprising then that the hygienic handling of food, food-borne diseases and illness, and thus public health issues, are often discussed in the literature on street food vending (cf. Chakravarty & Canet 1996; Dawson et al. 1996; FAO 1997; Sujatha et al. 1997; Tinker 1997; Bhat & Waghray 2000; Mensah et al. 2002; Nicolas et al. 2007; te Lintelo 2009). A study in Bloemfontein in South Africa (Lues et al. 2006) acknowledges the significance of street food vending for urban livelihoods and thus for poverty alleviation. It also highlights the nutritional and cultural value of street foods as local products are used, traditional dishes are served, while at the same time the dietary needs of poor urban consumers are conveniently catered for. However, food samples that were taken from vending sites, at which not hygienic food handling practices were witnessed, revealed different types of microbiological contaminations of food, e.g. coliform bacteria, which point to the potential risk of contracting food-borne diseases. But as the microbiological quality of the examined street food samples was “within acceptable safety and legislative limits” the authors conclude that “for the most part, food served in informal vending operations is relatively safe for consumption” (Lues et al. 2006: 327). Similarly, a study in Accra (Ghana) found that “despite poor environmental hygiene, the street foods were, in general, microbiologically safe” (Mensah et al. 2002: 549). For Tinker (1997: 189) this was no great surprise, she noted that the “food handling practices of vendors generally reflect prevailing local standards and food sold on the street is not significantly more contaminated than that sold in restaurants.” On the basis of empirical data, these studies, thereby, reject a common misconception of street foods being unhygienic and unsafe. It shows that in many countries the public discourses on street food, which centre on issues of illegality,

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orderliness, cleanliness, hygiene, food safety and public health, are based on the middle-class perceptions of ‘good food’. By criminalising street food vending, the municipal authorities seek to protect the interests of these most vocal groups (cf. Kuppinger 1995; Mukhopadhyay 2004; te Lintelo 2009; Arabindoo 2010). On the other hand, not only the easy access, practical use and nutritional value of street food often goes unacknowledged in these dominant discourses, but also the resilience of the urban poor, who live in a different ‘micro-biological environment’ – as unclean drinking water and a lack of adequate sanitation facilities are normal conditions in most slum settlements in the South (cf. UN-Habitat 2006b; Davis 2007; Sakdapolrak 2010). Most of the urban poor can thus cope relatively easily with minor micro-biological contaminations in street food items. It is nonetheless necessary to improve street food safety (Tinker 1997; CAB 2010). Street Food Culture Besides its value for the livelihood and food security of the urban poor and despite food safety concerns, the sale and consumption of prepared food in public spaces is also an expression of vivid culture and attractive street life. Street food vending can thus contribute to making a city liveable and exciting. In Bangkok, for instance, street foods are increasingly celebrated as cultural feature that enrich the attractiveness of this megacity, last but not least for tourism (Nirathron 2006). In a study on street food in Calcutta, Mukhopadhyay (2004) raised the point that the consumption of street food can be seen as a subaltern pleasure-oriented ‘counterculture’ of the youth that breaks the code of ‘appropriate diets’ and the ritual of the normal family meal, which is taken at home. And in Dhaka, every year during the holy month of Ramadan the daily newspapers are full of reports and pictures that praise Dhaka’s rich culture of Iftari items, which are eaten to break the fastening in the evening. These snacks are mostly sold on the streets, and in particular on the famous Chawk Bazar in Old Dhaka (chapter 5.3). Assumptions and Key Questions: Street Food in the Megaurban Field of Food With a great range of products available all over the city at a cheap price, street food fills a crucial niche in Dhaka’s field of food. Through their services, street vendors contribute significantly to a functioning and resilient food system in the growing megacity. Moreover, street food is an inevitable part of urban life in Dhaka and plays an important role for urban food security. Street food is thus needed. However, labelling street food as unsafe and unhygienic is a practice of the urban elites who seek to delegitimise the unwanted informal practices of the poor. The following questions are addressed in this regard (chapters 5 and 6):

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– – – – –

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Under which social, economic and political conditions did Dhaka’s field of street food emerge historically? What role did megaurbanisation play in this process? What type of products became available when and where? Who eats what street food items and how do different consumer groups evaluate its value for daily consumption? How do public discourses on food safety and hygiene frame the field of street food? 3.6 CONCEPTUAL SYNTHESIS: CONTESTED STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE 3.6.1 Governance of Fields of Food Food Governance

The food question is always linked to the exertion of power, influence and control by different agents within food systems (Tansey & Worsley 1995: 1). Only looking at the ecological determinants of the field of food production and at the economic value chain of food marketing is insufficient, if one seeks to understand the political logic of fields of food. A comprehensive analysis also needs to address how a field of food is organised, in whose interests it operates, and how (both external and internal) driving processes lead to different outcomes for different actors, i.e. how food (in)security is produced in social reality. As the politics inherent in fields of food are least well defined and understood (Cannon 2002: 354), it is necessary to analyse the multiple (material, economic, social, symbolic) meanings of food, the social relations that structure fields of food, the positions of agents in these fields and the regulative principles of food-related practices. Food systems and food security, both need to be seen in the light of the governance debate (Bohle et al. 2009b; Schilpzand et al. 2010). Extending the arguments on governance presented above, two approaches to food governance are addressed here: a political economy and a cultural economy concept. Food governance relates directly to all spheres of food security. This is most obvious with regard to the production, access and allocation of food. From the perspective of political economy (cf. Friedmann 1982; Watts 1987; McMichael 1992; Watts & Bohle 1993; Fine 1994) food systems are regulated by supranational organisations and institutions, the nation states and the local governmental bodies, as well as by macro-economic price mechanisms, the local and global modes of production (capital accumulation), the international division of labour and social class relations. The degree of interconnectedness between different food systems as well as the specific configuration of a particular food system at a place in the world, including its vulnerability, are expressions of distinct historic phases in the global economic order – so called “food regimes” (McMichael 1992:

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344).54 The governance of food systems is therefore largely shaped by (global) structural relations between politics, the economy and social class. However, intangible governance issues that are often implicit in ideologies, norms, values and discourses, must be highlighted also for the spheres of availability, i.e. the symbolic meaning of producing and exchanging food, and utilisation, i.e. the social construction of needs and desires (Bourdieu 1999; Heynen 2006). In this regard, the political economy approach to food systems has been criticised for not being able to capture these questions around social organisation and social identity. Following Watts’ (1994: 568) plea to “identify the distinctive spatial, natural, personal and social production conditions which help shape the matrix of accumulation within the food system”, Dixon (1999) proposes a cultural economy perspective to food that encompasses the interrelationship between politics, the economy and social identity. This approach looks at the embeddedness of agents and their social practices in their specific social reality; it emphasises the cultural and social value of food; it acknowledges the fundamental role of social reproduction units like the household or local communities; it considers the social ‘manufacturing’ of food preferences, diets and symbolic representations; it seeks to examine reciprocal exchanges beyond the transfer of money, labour and goods, that is trade of information, time, power and social recognition; and it particularly looks at the role of women in the food system (Dixon 1999). The approach highlights the agency of the agents who construct the food system and includes social constructivist and historically rooted explanations of food system relations (cf. Guyer 1987; Watts & Bohle 1993; Gertel 1995, 2010). The cultural economy approach, being partly influenced by Bourdieu’s work, explains the self-governance of food consumption through “psycho-social practices, such as desire, status and distinction, acquisition of cultural capital, or identity values” (Dixon 1999: 156). Contribution of Bourdieu’s Theory to Understanding Food Governance Seen in the light of these two debates on food governance, Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice enhances the understanding of agents social positions, the role of the state, the practical logic of fields of food, and the relation of sub-fields of food to other glocal fields, for instance the field of energy, the field of labour, or the field of power (chapter 3.2.2). Moreover, food is seen as a particular symbolic marker that gives meaning and ‘makes the difference’ between different social groups, which have particular tastes and lifestyles. In his book “distinction” Bourdieu (1999) looked at tastes and lifestyles, which are based on agents’ different positions in fields and thus their different habitus, and which make the difference between groups with a similar stock of economic capital. According to Bourdieu, 54 The food regime literature focuses on the structural characteristics of large-scale food production, exchange and consumption. “A food regime includes the norms or rules governing international agro-food transactions” (McMichael 1992: 344), and thus reflects the politicaleconomic order of food systems on the international level (cf. Schilpzand et al. 2010).

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self-governance of tastes is as important as agents’ expenditures for food. Consumer groups of food can be distinguished on this basis: how much they spend on food and whether they want or need particular food items: “luxury taste” stands against the “taste of necessity” (Bourdieu 1999: 285; Blasius & Friedrichs 2008: 26ff; see chapter 3.5.4). In this sense, the structure of fields of food is objectified in tastes and styles of consumption, in the social distribution of food-related characteristics, such as the body-mass-index or health-status, and in the spatial distribution of specific food services, such as supermarkets, air-conditioned restaurants, fast-food shops, or street food vending sites. Food governance then works through a combination of food-related regulative rules, social norms and public discourses. All of which are highly specific in the respective local contexts. Urban Food Governance The explicit study of the connection between urban governance and fields of food, on the one hand, and the governance of the fields of food themselves, on the other hand, is an important emerging research field.55 The urban level is usually not considered to be the central research domain on food systems. Nonetheless, important questions arise, if we look at the governance of the fields of food in cities: How are the formal and informal institutional frameworks of urban fields of food constructed? Which agents are involved in (or excluded from) the urban food supply and distribution networks and what influence do they have on the modes of governance of the respective field of food? Can agents react flexibly to food supply shortages or other economic, political or social disturbances inside our outside the field of food? Who decides, how, and on what basis, how much, and in which ways food is supplied to and distributed within cities? And maybe most importantly for food security: Who gets what food, how much, when, and where?56 As already shown, formal and informal modes of governance need to be distinguished from another (chapter 3.2.4). Formal food governance in cities then includes state interventions in food production, supply, distribution and consumption such as (dis)encouragement of urban agriculture, set up and organisation of markets, tolerance or eviction of unauthorised markets and hawkers, food subsidies, public food distribution systems and food aid such as ‘food for work’ and other vulnerable group feeding programmes. In contrast, informal food govern55 While this research field might be new under the governance label, the political-economic approach taken by Guyer (1987b), Bryceson (1987) and Watts (1987) already demonstrated the intrinsic linkages between food production, distribution and politics. Indeed, the governance of urban food supply has always been contested between regulation efforts by (post)colonial nation states and international agencies and indigenous or informal marketing networks. But politics not only altered the food system structures, but also transformed the food needs and preferences in the cities (cf. Guyer 1987a: 240ff). 56 These questions refer to the five core analytical problems of governance, i.e. architecture, agency, adaptiveness, accountability, and access and allocation (Biermann et al. 2008: 96ff; Liverman et al. 2009; Schilpzand et al. 2010: 272).

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ance mainly revolves around reciprocal social relations (based on social capital) and is, often, grounded in “flexible, community-based systems of food management that are tailored to specific contexts and challenges” (Bohle et al. 2009b: 56). Informal food governance includes the redundant and flexible business ties among suppliers and wholesale traders (Keck et al. 2008; Etzold et al. 2009; Keck 2012), the informal arrangements between state-actors and street food vendors that determine the access to, use of and appropriation of public space (Etzold et al. 2009; Etzold 2011a), and personal networks among relatives, friends and neighbours that ensure the provision of most basic food needs, in particular in times of ill-health or other social crises (Bohle & Sakdapolrak 2009; Zingel et al. 2011). As seen in the on-going food crises, the consumer prices of the major staples rice, wheat, etc. as well as cooking oil are skyrocketing all over the world. Agricultural commodity markets are global, but there are always scale-effects that operate both ways: from the local to the global, and from the global to the local. For example, the rapid urbanisation and changing consumer demands in India and China have had an impact on the price formation on the global food market, and so did the production shortfalls in Australia or Thailand as well as the changing subsidies for food producers in the USA (Cohen & Garrett 2009). The local consequences of global dynamics, such as the price hikes of food in 2007/08, ranged from collective protests and food riots to individual coping strategies, i.e. selfgovernance. Governments all over the world tried to face these globalised challenges with export restrictions, the (re)introduction of public food distribution systems and other formal food governance instruments (Bohle et al. 2009b). While urban food research clearly focuses at the urban level, analysing urban food governance also needs to encompass other analytical levels: the urban and local fields of food distribution and of food consumption are tied to the global food regime and the national food regimes as well as to the translocal networks of agents and their own bodies (see figure 3.5). In cities of the Global South, street food governance needs to be seen as an integrative part of urban food governance. 3.6.2 Contested Street Food Governance Street food governance refers to all of the aforementioned aspects, but centres around the ‘rules of the game’ and the practical logic that govern the social field of street food. It is thus necessary to look at the context-specific establishment, operation and negotiation of formal and informal institutions and how they are brought to life at the vending sites through the practices of street food vendors, their customers and the regulators of public space. When analysing street food governance it is particularly important to uncover the power relations between the vendors and the state, the conflicts and contestations taking place in the local arenas, and how street food vending is framed in public discourses.57 57 For an overview on the debate of street vending and state regulation see Cross & Karides (2007) and Bhowmik (2010b). For case studies on local governance regimes and the political

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Street Food Vending as an Urban Governance Problem Megaurbanisation brings about – as what are said to be – unprecedented challenges of urban governance that include housing and infrastructure; employment opportunities; basic economic, social and health services, such as water, electricity, transport, access to health care and education; environmental pollution, natural hazards and climate change; political violence, social unrest and crime; and also justice, equity, and human security (see Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004 for Dhaka; Satterthwaite 2005; UN-Habitat 2006b; Kraas & Mertins 2008; Birkmann et al. 2010 for overviews). One could argue that street food vending is one of these urban governance problems. Many observers and agents involved say that street vendors would block footpaths and thus disturb traffic flows, street food would be unhygienic and thus pose a public health problem, and they would pursue their business illegally and thus constitute a threat to the public order (cf. Cross & Karides 2007). Street food vending and the other aforementioned urban governance aspects are, however, not mere ‘problems’ that can be assigned to the sheer number of people living in a megacity and to a lack of available funds for planning, for the provision of services and the implementation of the law. Instead, framing of the above sketched phenomena as problems is part of the dominant governance logic with the aim to delegitimize the everyday practices of the urban poor. Analytical Dimensions of Street Food Governance An analysis of street food governance should not be limited to the formal rules that ought to regulate the trade and the (in)capacities of state agents to put them into effect in reality, as the undesired consequences of street vending are not the result of mere governance problems. Instead, street food governance, as a broader concept, should embrace five dimensions, and importantly their dynamic changes (figure 3.4). First, the needs and desires of different consumer groups regulate the field of street food as there is a high or low demand for specific products at distinct places and at particular times (chapter 6.3). Second, the personal relations of the vendors have a strong regulatory function. The vendors, for instance, can only get access to their vending site through good contacts to local power brokers (chapters 7.2 and 8.1). Third, social norms and informal institutions are an inherent part of “street politics” (chapter 3.2.3) and structure the relations and interactions in the local arenas (chapter 8.1). Fourth, formal institutions on street food vending do exist (chapter 5.3.2). It is, however, not necessarily the applied laws struggles of street vendors see: Brown et al. (2006) on Dar es Salaam, Kumasi, Maseru/Lesotho and Kathmandu; Donovan (2008) on Bogota; Garcia-Rincon (2007, 2010) on Caracas; Hawkins (2011) on Medellín; Kuppinger (1995) and Gertel (1995) on Cairo; Basinski (2009) on Lagos; Illy (1986) on Manila; Bayat (1997, 2004) on Teheran; Wipper and Dittrich (2007; 2008) on Hyderabad; Anjaria (2006, 2010) on Mumbai; te Lintelo (2009) on Delhi; Roy (2004) and Bandyopadhyay (2009, 2009b) on Calcutta.

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that regulate the vendors’ practices, but their personal relations to state agents who use the rule of law as ‘weapons’ to obtain profits from the street trade (chapter 8). Fifth, the public discourses on street food vending that are (re)produced by state agents, experts and the media, underpin the formal regulation from a normative perspective. Framing street food vending as a problem delegitimises the trade and marginalises the hawkers and thus contributes crucially to the governance of the social field of street food (chapters 5.3.3, 8.2 and 8.3).

Social Norms and Informal Institutions

micropolitical dynamics

macropolitical changes

Legal System (Formal Institutions)

institutional changes

Street Food Governance

Personal Relations and Negotiations

Public Discourse (Story Lines)

Consumers' Demand (Needs & Desires)

social transformations

Fig. 3.4: Crucial Dimensions of Street Food Governance Source: own draft (03/2012)

Scales of Research on Street Food Governance A practice-oriented approach to the governance of fields of food looks at the positions of agents in their respective local arenas, and their practises and networks at and across different levels or fields (see figures 2.1 and 3.5). Fields of food are heteronymous, they are closely intertwined and interdependent. For the purpose of this study, the global and the national food regimes are only slightly touched. I rather focus on the flows of goods and money, the interactions and networks in the megacity of Dhaka.

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Fig. 3.5: Nested Scales of Street Food Governance Source: own draft (03/2012) Note: While all agents are in a relation to each other, the grey lines indicate direct network relations between the agents, i.e. actual interactions and exchanges (see also the schematic sketch of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice in figure 2.1 and street vendors’ Venn diagrams in chapter 7).

Street food governance is addressed at the macro-political level, when I look at the relations of the field of street food to other fields, such as the fields of urban food distribution and consumption and, most importantly, the field of power. Macro-politics include the formal modes of governing street vending in Dhaka, public discourses on street food and people’s self- governance of needs and desires (chapters 5 and 6). A micro-political perspective to street food governance is taken on in a second step, when I focus on the power relations, negotiations and contestations within the field and the arenas of street food vending. Micro-politics

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include personal networks between differently powerful agents, i.e. state agents, local power brokers and the vendors, and the struggles about the access to, use and control of public space (chapters 7 and 8). Assumptions and Key Questions: Street Food Governance Labelling street food vending as unhygienic, unmodern and ‘in the way’ is a powerful discursive practice of the elite that delegitimises unwanted informal practices of the poor. Illegalising and evicting hawkers is not solely about maintaining order and clearing public space, but mainly about demonstrating state power in times of political insecurity. The vendors, in turn, encroach on the street, because they are driven by the force of necessity and because they reject the state and its institutions. Vendors’ appropriations of public space are games of power, too: Those with most capital secure the best vending spots. In turn, those who are socially marginalised are marginalised in physical space, too. In order to analyse street food governance in Dhaka, I address the following questions in this study (see chapters 5.3 and 8): – – – – – –

What is the relation of the field of street food vis-à-vis the field of power? Which formal and informal institutions regulate the street food trade? How is the relation between state agents and street vendors in the arenas? Which modes of governance are brought into effect in the arenas, by whom? What are the consequences of existing governance modes for the hawkers? What is the logic behind the eviction drives of street vendors?

4 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY “Though fieldwork is often portrayed as a classical colonial encounter in which the fieldworker lords it over her/his respondents, the fact of the matter is that it doesn't usually feel much like that at all. More often it is a curious mixture of humiliations and intimidations mixed with moments of insight and even enjoyment as you begin to imagine the world you have chosen to try to inhabit. […] Fieldwork knowledge [is] co-produced from a process of interaction in which both the fieldworker and the informant participated, a process of interaction which might well change both participants' thinking by building fragile and temporary commonplaces” (Thrift 2003: 106, 108; emphasis added).

The work of imagining the social field of street food vending in Dhaka required an inductive research approach that was, nonetheless, theory-oriented, and therefore place-based, agent-oriented, reflexive, critical as well as open for multiple perspectives. In the following, I will first explain my approach to the research process, including my own shortcomings and how I conducted empirical research in Dhaka (chapter 4.1). Second, I briefly introduce the study sites where I investigated the arenas of street food vending (chapter 4.2). In a third step, I lay out which research methods were actually used for the collection of data (chapter 4.3). Chapter four concludes by re-embedding the research process and the applied methods in Bourdieu’s methodology (chapter 4.4). 4.1 RESEARCH APPROACH: IMAGINING THE FIELD OF STREET FOOD 4.1.1 Inductive, yet Theory-informed Research I conducted empirical research on street food vendors in Dhaka over the course of three years (February 2007 to March 2010). When I first came to Bangladesh I admittedly did not know much about the country, its history, economy and culture, or about street (food) vending. Moreover, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size, density and intensity of the megacity, making the beginning of my actual research activities quite challenging. Nonetheless, my initial hesitations and feelings of personal discomfort as well as my academic socialisation in vulnerability studies and critical social geography proofed to be a good starting point to sharpen my senses for what I saw, heard and felt during the numerous orientation trips to different parts of the city. During the first longer research period, me and my fellow PhD colleagues from the SPP research programme ‘Megacities-Megachallenges’ lived in the Guesthouse of Dhaka University on the comparatively calm university campus in the heart of the city. From there, I ventured out to explore Dhaka’s public spaces. The first, most immediate and most intense encounters with street food vendors took place right on the university campus on the street in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital. There up to 100 street ven-

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dors sell their products to customers from all social strata. I became friends with some vendors, had hundreds of cups of tea and chatted with them dozens of times. Initially, the aim of the project was to explore the position of the street food vendors in the networks of the inner-urban food distribution system (chapter 6.2), their role for the food security of the urban poor (chapter 6.3), and their own livelihoods (chapter 7). As I walked along that street several times a day and observed the vendors’ spatial practices, I realised that the spatial distribution of vendors and the rhythm of its changes was not arbitrary, but had a distinct logic that I also wanted to understand. Even more so, it seemed like the spatial pattern of the street trade relates directly to the vendors’ social vulnerability (chapter 8). By coincidence, the beginning of this research project (Feb. 2007) fell in a time of great political insecurity in Bangladesh – the rule of the so called Caretaker Government (Jan. 2007 to Dec. 2008). As I witnessed police controls, violent eviction drives, destructions of vending units, but also the hawkers’ highly creative ways of coping with these severe disturbances, I decided to extend my previous research concept that centred on vulnerability and food systems. My interest in the contested governance of public spaces and the relation between the state agents and the vendors themselves (chapter 8) was therefore not merely driven by a fascination of social theories, but rather by the empirical facts that I came across in my first in-depth studies of the local arenas of street food vending. Openness in the research process is one of the fundamental principles of interpretative social research (cf. Mayring 2002: 27f; Bourdieu 2005b: 400; Lamnek 2005: 21; Flick 2007: 69). An open and inductive research approach thus stands against a linear approach to social research with clearly delineated steps of empirical research: on the basis of theoretical reflections hypotheses are formulated, these are operationalised in a set of questions, data is then collected, and in the last step the data is analysed and interpreted (cf. Flick 2007: 73). Instead of formulating clear hypotheses and designing surveys before going into the field, I developed, re-examined, laid aside or verified my research questions and assumptions as well as the research categories, e.g. the types of street food and the styles of vending, in a cyclical process58 throughout the five years of research and writing: a period with review of literature on food systems, vulnerability, informality and social theories was followed by empirical field work and (partial) data analysis, which in turn inspired conceptual reflections, for instance on the social relations between street vendors and state agents (table 4.1). In between (preliminary) results of conceptual work and empirical findings were presented at conferences and published. With each research stay in Dhaka the understanding of the vendors’ situation became more dense, which called upon extended or re-focussed concepts. In turn, the theoretical knowledge that was developed in continuous rounds of literature review led to new questions that were addressed in the different phases of empirical study. Conceptual work and empirical findings became inseparably entangled in one another, which is one of the fundamental pleas of Bourdieu for social research (see chapter 2.2). 58 See Mayring (2002: 30); Flick (2006: 73) or Lamnek (2005: 63) for the hermeneutical circle.

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4.1.2 Positionality in the Field of Research Doing empirical social research implies a social relation between agents, who are positioned in different social fields. If a white male academic enters an ‘alien’ field in a country of the Global South, the asymmetry of the relation between researcher and ‘research subject’ is particularly evident. As a social practice, research always reflects power constellations and shows that “social science cannot be neutral, detached or apolitical” (Wacquant 1992: 51). Reflexive research thus requires an active and critical examination of this fact (cf. Bourdieu 1992b: 253; 2005b: 398; Lippuner 2005b: 143; Flick 2007: 29; Rothfuß 2009: 178). During my research in Dhaka, I was very aware that it was neither possible to overcome my personal and cultural imprints that come with the position as a foreign researcher, nor was it desirable to leave aside the theoretical preconceptions acquired during my academic socialisation. It also became clear to me that as a researcher I am simultaneously positioned in two different social fields, which implied quite oppositional expectations of my role. The academic field requires specific skills such as knowledge of theory and methods, efficiency, academic accuracy, objectivity and endurance in difficult research contexts. I entered the field of street food through observations and the interactions, for instance in faceto-face interviews with street vendors. Finding and establishing my position in that ‘alien’ field required caution, respect, the ability to listen attentively and empathy in the sense that I had to put myself into the position of the interviewed street vendors. Having stakes in both fields led to my personal discomfort as I took the vendors’ valuable time, their trust and many free cups of tea. Often I was unsure what my respondents expect from me in return and at times I even felt like pursuing an academic title ‘at the expense’ of the poor. Nonetheless, I always tried to engage with the streets vendors in a very friendly and respectful manner. Overall, I had the impression that most of my research counterparts felt quite comfortable during interviews. If this seemed not to be the case, I stopped the conversation, as I did not want to impose my curiosity on them too openly. Overall, I tried to “recognise the other” (Rothfuß 2009: 177) and be aware of my “otherness” while employing the conceptual and methodological knowledge in a context alien to me. This required sensibility and openness not only to unforeseen encounters. Although I followed an inductive approach, which was based on hundreds of friendly and respectful conversations, interviews and discussions with (mainly male) street food vendors and which aimed at understanding the interests and practices of the vendors from their perspectives, it was not possible to take on an emic perspective as a researcher.

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Getting involved: A street food vendor invited me to his one-room home in slum in Old Dhaka and I had the chance to meet his family. Obviously, the kids in the neighbourhood became curious and ‘observed the observer’.

Mapping: In Islambagh, Sania Rahman and Afsal Hossain, research assistants in our project for a longer period of time, were counting and mapping street food vending units.

Venn Diagramm: A street food vendor was interviewed sitting in one of the parks of Dhaka University campus. Afsal Hossain and Sania Rahman translated and facilitated the Venn diagram that was combined with the interview. Pictures 4.1: Impressions from Doing Social Research in Dhaka Source: T. Hassan, November 2007; B. Etzold, August 2008 and February 2009

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The greatest hindrance to a more dense understanding of the field of street food was my insufficient language skills. Although I started to learn Bangla during my first longer stay in Dhaka, I was not able to acquire a sufficient knowledge base that would enable free conversations in Bangla and only managed to learn basic vocabulary and the common colloquial formulations. Therefore my research heavily relied on local research assistants, who introduced me to the respondents and translated my questions and the answers of the street food vendors, consumers and key informants in the qualitative interviews. Students from the Geography Department of Dhaka University and from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) took on the important role of “cultural mediators” (Rothfuß 2009: 178), translators and facilitators of research. It was therefore crucial that the students I worked with had adequate methodological skills and met the interviewees with the respect and sensibility that field work both on the street and in slums requires. In short, not only my positioning vis-à-vis the street food vendors and slum dwellers, but also the translators engagement with them needed careful (self-) observation.59 Moreover, many details of lengthy conversations, particular meanings of words, more personal opinions and minor expressions of (dis)comfort in the interview situation tend to get lost through the filter of translations. This study cannot overcome these research related ambiguities. 4.1.3 Research Design: Reflexivity through Triangulation Reflecting upon the practicability, the sequencing and the value of different research methods – and one’s own abilities in applying them – is a constant companion of a PhD-Thesis. Throughout the research process, I realised that the application of different methods in a previously unfamiliar context is inevitably a trial-and-error-game, but also that I do not need to rely on one particular method only in order to obtain valid research results. Triangulation thus proved to be the key for a critical, reflexive and relational research. Triangulation not only refers to the use of different research methods, but more precisely to the combination of complementary means of information collection and theory building in order to enhance the quality, and indeed the validity, of empirical research. Four styles of triangulation are often distinguished in the literature (Hoggardt et al. 2002: 67ff; Lamnek 2005:158ff, 274ff; Flick 2007: 519f): Data-triangulation refers to the use of complementary data sources, such as secondary data, i.e. academic literature, media reports, official statistics, and different types of primary data. It includes the collection of data at different scales of analysis, i.e. at the national, the municipal or the local level, at multiple localities, e.g. different street food vending sites, and at multiple points in time, e.g. during and 59 In very few cases I had to stop interviews or even end the working contract with students, when I had the impression that they – being students of renowned universities and thus part of Bangladesh’s (future) elite – were not able or willing to meet the street vendors with respect and looked down on them.

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after the reign of the Caretaker Government, in order to capture processes or trends. It also implies assessing multiple perspectives, for instance the opinions of different agents such as the vendors, the consumers and the ‘regulators’, who have different ‘stakes’ in the field of street food vending. Methods-triangulation refers to the use of different methods of information collection, for instance the combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods. In this research project semi-structured and in-depth interviews with street food vendors were combined with participatory research tools, while complementary information was gathered through a structured survey. Methods-triangulation also refers to multiple methods of data analysis, for instances if the same variables of a data set are presented with simple descriptive statistics and a more complex regression analysis. Theorytriangulation refers to multiple theoretical perspectives on the same phenomenon, which helps to identify different research dimensions on the basis of the same data set, as I try to do with grasping the complexity of the field of street food vending (see table 4.1).60 Researcher-triangulation, in turn, depicts the involvement of different researchers in data collection and interpretation in order to reduce the effects that might stem from a subjective view of only one key investigator. While the observations and interviews that I personally conducted in Dhaka were most crucial for my anlysis, some semi-structured interviews with street vendors and consumers that were done by research assistants and of course the results of the structured surveys, for which assistants did all the interviews, fed into my research findings. Researcher-triangulation also refers to a situation, in which different scholars work on different issues in a similar context and come to similar conclusions, which was often the case in the SPP research projects in Dhaka.61 What is then the advantage of triangulation – or the use of multi-dimensional data sets, combined methods, complimentary theories, and interdisciplinary research programmes – in the research process? First, triangulation enables a more holistic perspective on one study field as it is explored from different perspectives using multiple data sources that are collected in dissimilar ways. Second, one can compensate for the methodological weaknesses or the errors in the application of a particular method. Third, inconsistencies in research results can be uncovered and findings, which have been acquired through another method, can be validated. Last, and maybe most importantly, the knowledge on a particular phenomenon is broadened and deepened (Hoggardt et al. 2002: 71ff; Lamnek 2005: 279f; Mayoux 2006: 123; Flick 2007: 520). Triangulation thus enhances the “prospects 60 I looked at street food vending of Dhaka from a food systems or food security-perspective (Etzold 2008; Keck et al. 2008; Bohle et al. 2009b; Etzold 2011b), from a vulnerability or livelihoods-perspective (Etzold 2008, 2011a, 2013b), from a violence and vulnerabilityperspective (Etzold 2013b), from an informality, institutional or governance-perspective (Bohle et al. 2009b; Etzold et al. 2009; Etzold et al. 2012), and from a public spaceperspective (Etzold 2011a) – and all on the broader basis of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. 61 For instance when one considers the importance of power relations and personal networks (social capital) for the livelihoods, the vulnerability or well-being of, or service provision for Dhaka’s urban poor (Hackenbroch et al. 2009; Hackenbroch 2010, 2013; Braun & Aßheuer 2011; Etzold 2011a; Hossain 2011; Keck 2011).

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of developing arguments with supporting evidence that convince others” and should lead to “deeper questioning, of method, of results and of theoretization” (Hoggardt et al. 2002: 73). In a nutshell, triangulation is one of the most fundamental principles of reflexive empirical research. 4.2 STUDY SITES: INVESTIGATING ARENAS OF STREET VENDING The research process was not only inductive, but also place-based and agentoriented – all of these criteria are basic principles of the vulnerability approach (cf. Bohle 2007c, 2011). As described above, since my first encounters with the research theme I relied to a great degree on the insights of the street vendors themselves and listened to their accounts of the challenges they are facing at the respective study sites. The nine study sites were public spaces within the area of Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and street food vending ‘hot spots’ near important public facilities, such as bus, ferry and train terminals, a hospital or a university, or more decentralised food vending arrangements in residential or commercial areas (map 4.1). I started my research near the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), which is one of the largest public hospitals in Bangladesh. The street in front of it is a public outdoor space under the formal control of DCC, where many vendors sell prepared food items (maps 4.1 and 8.1). DMCH is situated very close to the Central Shaheed Minar – an important national monument – and the TSC square, which are both highly valued places on the Dhaka University Campus. As the campus is under formal control of the university authorities the streets, squares and gardens there can be regarded as institutionalised public space. What I saw and heard in front of the DMCH and on the university campus framed my initial understanding of street food vending to a great extent. Venturing out from there, I explored the broad variety of vending situations in Dhaka. The other investigated sites were systematically chosen on the basis of the following criteria: – – – – –

they should be within the area of Dhaka City Corporation; they should be local ‘hot spots’ of street food vending; they should be publicly accessible spaces, each with their specific symbolic value; they should represent different consumer groups; and they should represent different modes of governing public space.

Chawk Bazaar is a traditional market place in Old Dhaka where a great number of street vendors sell traditional food items during the holy month of Ramadan. Interviews were also conducted at three important transport hubs in the city (which are a mixture between public accessible buildings and public outdoor spaces), a ferry terminal (BIWTA at Sadar Ghat), a bus terminal (Saidabad Bus Station) and the central railway station (Kamalapur Train Station), and at one traffic square in

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the city’s elite quarter (Gulshan 1). The streets and passages within two slum areas were also taken into consideration: one illegally-built settlement in Dhaka’s North with poor-housing conditions where roughly 10,000 people live (Bishil Barang Bari Bustee), and one more consolidated, but run down settlement near the centre of Dhaka with a mix of residential use (approx. 90,000 inhabitants) and a dynamic plastic recycling and processing industry (Islambagh) (see map 4.1). Among these sites, I spent most of my time and spoke with most vendors, consumers and ‘regulators’ at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, followed by Islambagh and Sadar Ghat (see table 4.2). Although my study does not claim to be representative for all street food vendors at all vending sites in Dhaka, I chose typical study sites and spoke with so many vendors that I can claim to have a largely ‘saturated’ understanding of the quiet encroachments of public spaces in Dhaka in general, and of the logic of the field of street food in particular. 4.3 APPLIED METHODS: ANALYSING THE FIELD OF STREET FOOD Following the above sketched research approach, multiple sources of data were used and complimentary research methods were applied (figure 4.1). My interpretation and implementation of instruments of data collection and analysis is described in the following.

Fig. 4.1: Triangulation of Data Sources and Research Methods

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4.3.1 Primary Data – Qualitative Research Methods The goal of qualitative research methods is to understand social reality in its complexity and dynamics or, in other words, to comprehend the fundamental logic in social fields (cf. Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 98; Lamnek 2005: 30). Qualitative research is an epistemological position with particular characteristics and principles and includes the notions of positionality and reflexivity, for instance. Ontologically, it assumes a social construction of the reality. In contrast to quantitative research, qualitative research is rather flexible and open, subjective, and process-oriented. It is appropriate to address social relations, it focuses on communication and is thus text-based, and it looks for idiographic cases instead of statistically analysing a ‘representative sample’ (cf. Lamnek 2005: 20ff; Flick 2007: 81ff; Reuber & Gebhardt 2011: 96ff). I purposely triangulated quantitative and qualitative tools, but my qualitative research was more comprehensive – in terms of time spent and in terms of depth of analysis – and largely took place prior to the surveys. Qualitative research thereby provides the basis for my understanding of the social field of street food. Observations, Photography and Documentation The particular conditions of street food vending and consumption have been observed and photographed at numerous places all around Dhaka in all stages of the research process. At the locations of more in-depth study, I made more structured and detailed field notes of my observations. It is the goal of observations to assess recognisable structural conditions and apparent patterns of individual behaviour (Pfaffenbach 2011: 157). I, for instance, both observed the weather and environmental conditions, traffic and crowdedness and the behaviour of street vendors, consumers, security guards or policemen. The same vending sites were visited at different times of the day and times of the year, under varying weather conditions, as well as (if possible) before, during and after police raids in order to document and understand dynamics at the vending sites and adaptive behaviour of vendors and consumers. I did not try to ‘take part’ in the actual everyday life of street vendors, for instance by living, preparing and selling food with them, which would be a “complete participation”, a common method in ethnography. My roles in participatory observation rather changed from “complete observer” in the sense that I looked at the scene from ‘outside’, for instance by looking on a street from an elevated yet somewhat hidden point (e.g. a first-floor balcony), to the role of “observer as participant”, when I stood at the side of the street and thereby (might have) influenced the scene through my presence. But often I bought snacks and tea from vendors, sat and spoke with the vendors during the interviews, which sometimes caused quite a big curious crowd, which was ‘observing the observer’. But I was also an anonymous street food consumer or a “participant as observer” (cf. Hoggardt et al. 2002: 251ff; Flick 2007: 281ff; Pfaffenbach 2011: 157ff on the four types of participatory observation).

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I made extensive use of a digital camera during my research in Dhaka. Photography and little hand-made sketches were used to document typical scenes of street food vending and consumption – and also their changes throughout the day. The enormous variety of street food items was also documented with pictures (annex 5). With consent, I took pictures of many street food vendors and wrote down their names (and sometimes also their mobile number), which made it easier to identify those with whom interviews were done repeatedly. Semi-structured Interviews with Vendors, Consumers, Regulators and Experts Social research involves acts of communication and interaction (Lamnek 2005: 22). In a personal interview a researcher enters into a social relation with her/his research subjects and thereby also penetrates their respective social fields (Bourdieu 2005b: 394; Gertel 2005: 9). Interviews are conducted with agents, who either have a particular position inside the field that the researcher is interested in, or have a privileged access to information about the respective field – or both. Interviews can thus be conceived as “windows on the world” or “filtering mechanisms” of the reality (Hoggardt et al. 2002: 204f). In semi-structured interviews, information around key themes, is exchanged in a more or less open conversation between researcher and respondent. Although the interview situation is often asymmetric (as the researcher opens ‘the game’ and largely sets the rules of the game; Bourdieu 2005: 395), both have the opportunity to structure the nature of the interaction and the course of the interview: the interviewer through his guiding questions and ad-hoc questions as well as through gestures of (dis)approval; and the interviewee through gestures and the kind, amount and detail of information she/he wants to share. A specific set of guiding questions, which build on the researcher’s previous knowledge and conceptual perspective, are posed to different respondents in a similar situation; semi-structured interviews are thus easier to analyse and compare than narrative interviews, for instance (cf. Flick 2007: 210ff; Pfaffenbach 2011: 159ff). Compared to fully structured questionnaires, flexibility and openness are advantages of semi-structured interviews. These interviews are also reflexive in the sense that they allow room for statements and opinions, which are embedded in a broader context of arguments and which are new to the interviewer – the responses are thus registered as contextual information and not only as information in preconceived categories A, B or C. Moreover, in personal interviews a relationship between interviewee and interviewer (and in my case often also the translator) develops during the interviews and even before, when the interview is prepared and the interviewee gives her/his consent to be interviewed. The social positions of researcher and respondent and the nature of their relation need to be reflected self-critically, in particular during research activities carried out in the Global South, which requires a lot of intuition and discretion (cf. Bourdieu 2005b: 398; Mayoux 2006: 126).

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With the aim to analyse Dhaka’s field of street food vending from multiple perspectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted with different agents: street food vendors, street food consumers, regulators of the street trade, key informants and experts. The respondents were systematically – and not randomly – chosen on the basis of the following criteria: – – – – – –

willingness to share their insights and time; availability at requested time of the interview; gender, age, different mobility types and street food items (street vendors); gender, age, different socio-economic groups (food consumers); position of power within the field or local arenas (street food regulators); knowledge about Dhaka’s urbanisation, social conditions and/or the field of street food (key informants and experts).

Explorative interviews were first done with street food vendors in the initial stage of the empirical research in order to see and assess the prices of different street foods, to grasp the different styles of street food vending and the structure of the vendor’s livelihoods. These initial interviews led to the design of an assessment page of the street vendor’s ‘Livelihood Profile’, which includes a specific set of key questions on their products, their business, their vending strategies as well as their day-to-day problems. Open questions and specific issues of concern at the respective vending sites could be addressed, too. With the help of this tool, 73 semi-structured interviews were conducted with street food vendors at nine different vending sites all over Dhaka (see table 4.2 in the annex). For practical reasons, these interviews were not recorded. The respondents’ answers were rather directly translated by student assistants and the livelihood profile was filled in by me. Additional information and some remarks on the vending context were noted on the back of the profile sheet (often after the interview was finished). All relevant information to one vendor – rather my own subjective interpretation of a vendor’s livelihood then the vendor’s own stories – was entered in a Word-document, complemented by a picture and printed out. In case of successive visits, the respective vendor’s profile was at hand and further information was added. The livelihood profiles were analysed later using the software Atlas.ti. The results of these semi-structured interviews range from very brief livelihood information (then interviews only took 10 to 20 minutes) to detailed explanations of specific problems, strategies and living conditions (then single interviews lasted up to 45 minutes). On this basis, further research assumptions and questions were formulated and adequate categories for a structured Street Food Vendors’ Survey, which was implemented in the final stage of empirical research, were developed. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted with street food consumers in order to get an initial insight into typical (street) food consumption patterns, perceptions of street food and the associated health risks. In contrast to the vendors’ profiles, the questions to the consumers were more standardized (yet still open) and the interviews were mostly conducted by research assistants without my personal presence. The interview notes were entered and analysed in Excel. Results

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from this test survey helped to formulate further research questions and to design the questionnaire for the Food Consumers’ Survey that was implemented in 2009. Fifteen so called regulators were asked about the people, organisations and institutions that govern the field of street food vending in Dhaka, and how this actually affects the vendors and their customers in the particular local arenas. Among them were eleven state agents and thus people working in formal positions of power, for instance for the Dhaka City Corporation or the Police, which enables them to set or implement regulations on street food vending. It was also possible to interview one informal street food regulator, i.e. a person who can regulate the street trade through his informal power, in this case a local political leader.62 Moreover, information was collected from key informants, i.e. people who know the local situation very well, but do not have the power to regulate public space or the street food trade (see table 4.3 in the annex). In particular in the early and the final stages of my own empirical research, nine academics, NGO representatives or journalists from Bangladesh who work on urban poverty, food security or street vending, were interviewed in expert interviews. As experts possess a profound and yearlong knowledge on a particular theme, the semi-structured interviews meant to reveal second-order-information on the relevant topics for this thesis from another – possibly more objective and certainly more culturally-embedded – angle (cf. Meuser & Nagel 1991; Flick 2007: 214ff). Furthermore meetings with these experts were helpful to establish good network connections to researchers and development practitioners, to find previous studies on street food vending in Dhaka, and to gather secondary data (grey literature). These interviews largely centred around trends in street food vending and consumption, present policies, modes of governance and the eviction of street food vendors as well as popular discourses on street food (annex 1). An exception was the interview with Prof. Nazrul Islam from the Centre of Urban Studies, which served the purpose of reconstructing the field of street food vending in the course of Dhaka’s history (see table 4.3 in the annex). For the conducted semi-structured interviews with experts, state agents and regulators, a set of prepared questions on street vending, policies, modes of control and regulation was used (see annex), which were complemented by ad-hoc questions. Most of these interviews were conducted in English and not recorded – due to the sometimes highly political topic of the regulation of public spaces, criminal gangs, corruption, etc., this seemed more appropriate. Extensive notes were taken throughout and after the interviews, entered in Word-documents and later analysed with Atlas.ti.

62 Due to the highly political nature of the ‘informal regulation´ of Dhaka’s public space, which normally includes the extortion of ‘security money´, bribes and corruption and close ties of political leaders with criminal gangs, it was not possible to conduct more interviews. As I was often observed talking with vendors at their respective sites, I also did not want to cause further trouble by asking to get introduced to local leaders or mastaans.

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In-depth interviews and Venn Diagrammes with Street Food Vendors After their livelihood profile was assessed in semi-structured interviews, around 22 street food vendors were visited repeatedly in order to build trust, get more information and develop a deeper understanding of their lives and livelihood challenges. The interviews were either completely open or I noted specific questions that I wanted to pose prior to the meeting. If the vendors were visited again after some time, i.e. during my next research visit, I posed similar questions to all of them that revolved around recent trends at the vending sites and changes in their personal situation. With few vendors, in particular at the DMCH, very personal contacts were established. I visited them dozens of times, we sometimes spoke about their work, and sometimes we were just chatting. Seven vendors even invited me to their homes to meet their family, and with some I shared snacks, dinner or Iftar. Thereby I got to know their living situation and could conduct in-depth interviews, which are characterised by a conversational style of question and response (Lamnek 2005: 372), through which I could better understand their social position, their perceptions and opinions. Two methods from the ‘tool box’ of participatory action research63 proved to be particularly productive as facilitation instruments of in-depth interviews. Network and Venn diagrammes can be used to explore institutional relationships, actors’ social networks as well as the frequency and quality of exchanges and interactions within networks (Kumar 2002: 211ff, 234ff; Tröger 2004: 105). “The focus in a Venn diagram is more on the relative importance of and perceived closeness of institutions with the people. The network diagram, however, has more to do with the depiction and analysis of the nature, quality, diversity and reasons for and frequency of contact of the participants with outsiders” (Kumar 202: 211). In action research, they are normally used to facilitate focus group discussions. Similarly to tools in qualitative (ego-centred) network-analysis (Hollstein & Straus 2006), I used a mixed version of Venn and network diagrams to detect the network relations of single street food vendors, their power position in the arena, their understanding of the specific informal rules in the arena, etc. I conducted seven Venn diagrammes with street vendors at three study sites (five at DMCH, two in Islambagh, and one at Sadar Ghat). Two of these were implemented sitting on the lawn in a public park, while five of them were conducted at the vendors’ respective homes, where one could speak undisturbed and quite openly about controversial issues such as the informal governance of the vending sites through personal relations (see chapter 8.1.2). The timeline method, in turn, “captures the chronology of events as recalled by the local people. […] The important point to note here is that it is not history as 63 Since the mid-1990s participatory research methods have become more accept. Today they are broadly applied in social research, in particular in social geography, development studies and action research (Johnson & Mayoux 1998; Pain 2004; Mayoux 2006; Silver 2008). Particularly helpful is Kumar’s (2002) overview and detailed explanation of specific PRA tools and how they can be implemented and combined in different contexts.

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such but events of the past as perceived and recalled by the people themselves” (Kumar 2002: 118ff). Like Venn diagrammes, timelines are usually conducted in group discussions. Personal interviews showed to be easier to conduct and more productive than group discussions. I thus used this method in interviews with individual vendors in order to capture important events of their life, their migration history and their professional trajectory. I requested the vendors to look back on their past and explain when and how they moved to Dhaka; as well as when and how they became street vendors. My implementation of timelines thus resembled an episodic interview (Lamnek 2005: 362ff; Flick 2007: 238ff). During these indepth interviews an assistant translated directly: The interviews were recorded. Analysis of Qualitative Data with Atlas.ti Analysing qualitative data requires a lot of time and ‘nitty-gritty’ work. If the interview was recorded, the original interview material needed to be transcripted (still in Bangla), then it was directly translated in English and entered in Worddocuments. This procedure was followed with the material from the in-depth interviews. If the interview was not recorded I turned the notes I took throughout the interview into a more extensive interview protocol, in which I included additional and contextual information that I remembered. These interview protocols – typed in Word-documents by myself – thus contain my own interpretation of the assessed information, rather then ‘original’ data. Most often I added relevant pictures and own interpretations to these interview protocols. All of these documents were later analysed with the help of the software Atlas.ti, which is a tool for the qualitative analysis of large bodies of textual, graphical, audio and video data. In Atlas.ti I structured data in three so called hermeneutic units (HU), which always include a set of documents such as the original interview transcripts, interview notes and notes from observations or field protocols. The HU “MediaAnalysis” included one primary document family with 51 documents with media articles from „The Daily Star”, and another HU “Legal Documents” contained 8 documents with law texts. The most important HU “Street Food Governance” included the following primary document families: – – – – –

14 documents with protocols from interviews with street food regulators; 6 documents with protocols from expert interviews; 8 documents with transcripts of in-depth interviews with street food vendors; 17 documents with vendors’ livelihood profiles (protocols from interviews); 1 document with results from semi-structured interviews with consumers.

With the help of Atlas.ti, I pursued a double strategy of coding my interviews, which aimed at a theory-led, yet open analysis: Theoretical coding allows for an analysis of the interview material through a specific conceptual lens. In a deductive way, the codes are derived from specific theoretical reflections and then as-

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signed to specific text passages, phrases or even pictures. Theoretical coding already contains an interpretation of the coded texts. It is therefore a mode of applying theory in one’s own qualitative work. But additionally, I also used more inductive open coding of my interviews, in order to highlight particularly relevant aspects that came out in the interviews, but which I could not assign to specific theoretical codes (Lamnek 2005: 514; Flick 2007: 387f). The codes I used are listed in table 4.4 (in the annex). After all documents are coded, one can extract coded passages, compare information, opinions and statements from different documents, derive the most interesting quotes from interviews, and order them for a first draft of an own text. Overall, I focussed on analysing the contents of the interviews, rather than the actual wording of the responses, because I often did not have the original interview transcripts, but my notes, and because I believe that more subtle meanings of words get ‘lost in translation’. 4.3.2 Primary Data – Quantitative Research Methods Quantitative research methods alone are not suitable to develop a deeper understanding of a research field. They are not “close” but rather “superficial” encounters with the social reality (Hoggardt et al. 2002: 169, 201). However, they are very useful for explorative purposes, for a description of distinct patterns and trends, for systematic comparisons, for analysing causal relations, and for testing hypotheses (cf. Diekmann 1998: 30; Lewin 2005: 215; Reuber & Gebhardt 2011: 97f). Moreover, through statistical analysis of quantitative data sets one can recognise the structural ‘principles of vision and division’ in a field, for instance by applying correspondence analysis, (Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 96; Bourdieu 1999: 533; Blasius 2001; Blasius & Friedrichs 2008: 33ff). In this project, quantitative research methods were applied in order to complement the findings from qualitative research. Street food vending units at particular vending sites were counted and mapped at particular times to explore spatial-temporal patterns and trends of street food vending. Hypotheses generated on the basis of the findings from semi-structured and in-depth interviews were tested with the help of fully structured surveys. This allows a better, or maybe an easier, description of the livelihoods of street vendors at the investigated study sites and thereby an approximation to the livelihoods of the majority of the street vendors in Dhaka. An advantage of standardised forms of information gathering was that in contrast to intense qualitative work, which solely took place during my presence in Dhaka, it was also possible to collect data without my personal involvement. For instance, after initial pre-tests, training and start, both fully structured questionnaire surveys were completed and the data was entered while I was back in Germany.

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Counting Street Food Vendors and Mapping of Vending Sites At an initial stage of the research process street food vending units at particular vending sites were simple counted at particular times of day. This exploration led to the assessment of their overall number, but also allowed for an overview of the different mobility types of street vending and street vending ‘hot spots’ – the locally most important street vending sites. In a second step, at five selected study sites the material dimension of public spaces was mapped, i.e. the visible structure of roads, buildings and vegetation, etc. On this base map, the exact position of different street food vending units was mapped (also with the help of GPSdevices) and their vending style or mobility type, i.e. permanent-consolidated, permanent-unconsolidated, semi-permanent, semi-mobile and truly mobile, and their respective street food product, i.e. full meals, snacks, bakery products, sweets, milk products, fruits, drinks and other, was noted. Like a snapshot these counts and in particular the local street food maps document the number and distribution of street vendors at a point in time. A comparison of the snapshots across time, i.e. throughout the day, the week and the year, allows for an analysis of the spatial-temporal dynamics in the local arenas of street food vending. On 17 days the street food vending patterns were mapped at five study sites: in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital, at the TSC-square on Dhaka University Campus, at Chawk Bazar in Old Dhaka, at the Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal, and in Islambagh (see table 4.2 in the annex; for results see maps 6.1 and 8.1). On the basis of the field maps and the GPS-readings, it was possible to generate standardised maps of each street vending site using Arc.GIS. This enabled a descriptive statistical analysis of the spatial-temporal dynamics of street vending. GIS was also used for city maps, in which the distribution of the studied vending sites and the vendors’ market connections could be visualised (see map 6.1).64 On this basis, maps were prepared for publications and presentations that depict the nexus between migration and street vending (see map 7.1) or the dynamics of street vending in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (see map 8.1).65 Food Consumers Survey in Dhaka’s Slums In co-operation with the SPP megacity programme’s INNOVATE research consortium, who conducted large Public Health Surveys (for parts of their results see Khan et al. 2009; Grübner et al. 2011a; Grübner et al. 2011b; Khan & Zanuzdana

64 Thanks to Sonja Raupp, who did most of this GIS-work and created many great maps. Thanks also to Oliver Gruebner from the HU Berlin and Kirsten Hackenbroch from TU Dortmund as well as to the Centre for Urban Studies and Khandakir Hussain (Tanvir) from Dhaka University for the provision of GIS-background shapefiles. 65 Thanks to the cartography section of the University of Bonn’s Geography Department, i.e. Gabriele Bräuer-Jux, Martin Gref, Gerd Storbeck, and Stefan Zöldi, for their great maps.

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2011),66 a fully standardized questionnaire survey on the food security of slum dwellers was realised from April to June 2009. The questions in the Food Consumers Survey ranged from the household’s income, its food consumption, food expenditure and retailing behaviour, food-related health problems and its street food consumption (see Annex 8 for the questionnaire). In order to assess the effects of the price hike of food in 2008 on the food security of the slum dwellers, the Coping Strategies Index (CSI) which is a tool to measure food insecurity on the household level (Maxwell 1995) was also included in the questionnaire. Nine slum settlements located in different parts of Dhaka Metropolitan Area were randomly selected for the survey – the criteria for selecting the slums were general accessibility for the interview teams and a minimum size in terms of land (>6 acres) and population (>500 HHs) (see table 4.5 in the annex, map 4.1). Every tenth household of the INNOVATE-team’s systematically selected sample was in turn selected for our Food Consumers’ Survey (cf. Diekmann 1998: 330ff; Lewin 2005: 217; on the sampling strategy of the Health Survey see Grübner et al. 2011b). After training of interviewers and pre-tests, 18 to 31 household interviews were carried out by student research assistants in each of the slums. The total number of successfully finalised interviews was 207. Due to errors in two cases, the analysis was undertaken with the data from 205 households. The generated data from the Food Consumers’ Survey is neither representative for Dhaka’s population, nor for all of its slum dwellers. Nonetheless, the findings seem to be representative for the typical slum where the data was collected, and thereby show clear trends and provide a good overview on (street) food consumption patterns and urban food security. Street Food Vendors Survey in Dhaka’s Public Spaces A standardized survey has been completed at six different study sites in Dhaka City in October and November 2009, i.e. after qualitative research on street food vending had been conducted for two years. The questions in the Street Food Vendors’ Survey ranged from the individual business structure and success, the vendors’ social networks and relative positions at their vending site, their livelihood problems, including their sensitivity to eviction drives by the police, to their own living conditions, and their private (food) expenditure patterns. The overall aim was to relate the vending status (from permanent to mobile) to the vendors’ business success, their appropriation of space and their vulnerability. The survey questionnaire was purposely designed in order to test assumptions from qualitative research findings. Solid knowledge of the vendors’ livelihoods enabled asking the ‘right’ questions and using appropriate categories. For this survey, a stratified 66 I hereby would like to thank Prof. Dr. A. Krämer and Dr. MMH Khan from the University of Bielefeld and Prof. Dr. P. Hostert and Dipl.-Geogr. O. Grübner from the Humboldt University of Berlin for the co-operation in realising the survey in the same slums, for help in terms of sampling and for sharing parts of their results that were necessary for own analysis.

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sampling strategy was followed (cf. Diekmann 1998: 337f; Lewin 2005: 217): At prior visits of the selected study sites, the total number of vending units and their respective mobility type and food products were assessed. On that basis, the designated number of interviews from each mobility and food group was set as a target for the interviewers, who had to interview 20 vendors at each site.67 After pretesting and training, three interviewers carried out the survey (see table 4.6 in the annex, map 4.1). Overall, 120 street food vendors were interviewed at six sites with a total number of around 390 street food vendors. The data from the survey is neither representative for all street vendors in Dhaka, nor for all 95,000 street food vendors. Nonetheless, it is largely representative for typical study sites and thereby provides an appropriate overview on street food vendor’s lives, their businesses and their everyday practices. Analysis of Quantitative Data Working with quantitative data seems to be easier and more straight-forward than the analysis of qualitative data. The two surveys –the Food Consumers Survey and the Street Food Vendor’s Survey – are independent from another and thus separate data sets. Of each survey, the responses were directly entered into the statistical software SPSS, for which a data entry mask was designed according to the respective types of questions in the surveys (numerical, ordinal or nominal data), the necessary answer categories, etc. After mistakes in the data were systematically searched for and randomly checked, some variables needed to be calculated, e.g. share of food expenditure of total expenditure, or recoded, i.e. the results from open questions were categorised. I also constructed indices on the basis of several variables, e.g. the Coping Strategies Index, an economic capital index or a food insecurity index.68 I mainly used simple techniques of descriptive statistics (uni- or bivariate statistics; cf. Diekmann 1998: 555ff; Lewin 2005: 222f), such as frequency distributions that show the variation and distribution of variables. Mean values of household income or food expenditure, for instance, depict the average of all the assessed values. Often, I built subgroups of all the respondents, i.e. income/poverty quintiles or vending styles/mobility types. By using cross tabulations, comparisons of mean values, linear correlation and scatter plots (cf. Diekmann 1998: 577ff; Barnes & Lewin 2005: 228ff), I searched for differences and relationships in the variables across the different subgroups. Following the central theorems of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, the overarching goal in my analysis was to map the relative socio-economic positions of single respondents or groups vis-à-vis 67 At Saidabad Bus Terminal, for instance, a count of vending units on 15th Oct. 2009 revealed that out of 128 vendors 69 sell fruits (54%) and 84 (66%) are semi-mobile vendors. Given a target of 20 interviews, the interviewers then had to conduct 10 interviews at that site with fruit vendors and 11 with semi-mobile vendors. 68 The construction of the used indices is explained in the section where they are used.

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others, which mainly depend on their volume and structure of capital(s), and to see whether groups of agents have similar dispositions and interests and thus pursue distinct social practices (cf. Bourdieu 1985: 725; Fuchs-Heinritz & König 2005: 177). By assessing “what makes the difference” in the social field of street food vending, a relational analysis of the quantitative data was realised. 4.3.3 Secondary Data Analysis of Media Articles, Academic and ‘Grey Literature’ A media analysis of the local daily newspaper in English, “The Daily Star”, was done for the years 2003 to 2009 to be informed about state activities, important events, and public debates on issues relevant for the research, in particular those prior to own field research. 210 relevant articles on street (food) vending, evictions of slums and vending sites, local politics, corruption and governance were copied from the newspapers internet archive69 into Word.rtf-documents and integrated into the data analysis with the software Atlas.ti. The same codes that were used for the own interviews were used to code the media articles. The newspaper articles gave an overview on the discourses on street food vending (chapter 5.3) and to contributed to the (re)construction of the history of field of street food (chapter 5.2). However, not that many articles are referred to in detail as the emphasis in analysis and writing was on using own primary sources of information. The academic literature on Dhaka is growing. Although street vending is hardly addressed, I read a number of interesting books on Dhaka’s urbanisation and poverty (Siddiqui et al. 1990; Islam 1996; Kumar Das 2003; Pryer 2003; Islam 2005; Siddiqui et al. 2010) and on urban governance (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004). In early stages of my research, local institute, university libraries and NonGovernmental Organisations were visited to gather available grey literature, i.e. project reports or unpublished thesis, on my topic (cf. reports by the Centre for Urban Studies (CUS 2006), the Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP 2006), the Institute of Governance Studies (IGS 2008, 2009, 2010b) and the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB 2004, 2010)). Legal Documents and Official Statistics In interviews experts referred to passages in the constitution of Bangladesh, in laws and ordinances, which were most relevant for my research themes. These legal documents were searched for, found and accessed on the Bangladeshi Gov-

69 All articles can be accessed in the news’ archive: www.thedailystar.net . I am particularly thankful to Kristina Schlake for the support in the Media Analysis.

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ernment’s website “Laws of Bangladesh”70, then copied in Word documents and analysed using Atlas.ti. Statistical data, such as the Report on the Labour Force Survey (BBS 2004), the Report on the Household Income and Expenditure Survey (BBS 2007c) or the Population Census 2001 for Dhaka (BBS 2007a), was collected from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The official statistics give interesting insights into the structures of the field of urbanisation (chapter 5.1), the field of poverty (chapter 5.2.4), the field of labour (chapter 6.1.1), the urban fields of food (chapter 6.1.2), and the field of street food (chapter 6.1.3). 4.4 INTERIM CONCLUSION: RELATIONAL, CRITICAL, AND REFLEXIVE RESEARCH IN SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice provides a sound concept and an appropriate terminology to depict the social reality. It can also be read as a distinct research programme ‘in search of meaning’, and thus in the epistemological tradition of the hermeneutic paradigm (cf. Hoggardt et al. 2002: 22ff; Lamnek 2005: 59ff; Rothfuß 2009: 181ff; Reuber & Gebhardt 2011: 96ff). As of now, few scholars in German-speaking geography have made use of a distinct Bourdieuan research programme in their respective PhD- or habilitation projects (cf. Rothfuß 2004; Lippuner 2005a; Dirksmeier 2009; Deffner 2010; Sakdapolrak 2010). Following such a research programme, an empirical analysis of social fields and its agents should contain at least six analytical steps (extended from Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 104f): First, one has to define the field as such, uncover its history, delineate its boundaries and detect its immanent rules and logic. In my own research on the field of street food, this was attempted methodologically through semi-structured and open interviews with different agents inside, e.g. street food vendors, consumers and regulators, and outside the field, e.g. expert interviews (chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8). Second, the relation of the specific field under scrutiny to other fields needs to be explored, in particular “the position of the field vis-à-vis the field of power” (ebd: 104). Personal interviews with experts, vendors, consumers and regulators, in particular state agents, as well as media analysis proved to be useful in this regard (chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8). Third, one has to “map out the objective structure of the relations between the positions occupied by the agents” (ebd.: 105). The relative positions of vendors in the field of street food, and in effect their differential position of power or vulnerability, was explored through in-depth and semi-structured interviews and a standardized survey (chapter 7). Moreover, the vendors’ actual physical and social position in the local arenas of street food vending was mapped with field maps of vending sites and venn diagrammes of the relevant agents (chapter 7 and 8). Fourth, one needs to “analyse the habitus of agents, the different systems of dispositions they have ac70 The website contains all laws that ever existed (since 1836) in Bangladesh and those to which I refer: http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/ (last access, 17.07.2011)

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quired by internalizing a determinate type of social and economic condition” (ebd.: 105). I tried to assess how street food vendors acquired their dispositions to act in a particular way through in-depth interviews and the collection of their life histories or trajectories (chapter 7.2). Fifth, the logic of the field and its immanent rules and principles need to be scrutinised carefully. Expert interviews, in-depth interviews and Venn diagrammes with vendor’s helped me to understand how the formal and informal modes of governing the fields and arenas of street food vending are crafted, implemented and challenged, and the role different agents play in these institutional settings (chapters 7 and 8). Sixth, on this basis one can analyse agent’s actual social practices. Observations, maps, personal interviews and the Street Food Vendors Survey helped to understand street vendors’ spatial practices, their encroachment of public space and their coping strategies in times of crises (chapters 7 and 8). Throughout the research process it became clear that the collection of empirical data and theoretical reflection are inadvertently entangled. First encounters in Dhaka pointed to the contested nature of street food vending, which framed my choice of Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as the fundamental concept for this study of the social fields of street food. In turn, theoretical reflections structured my central research questions, my choice of methods, and the analysis of my qualitative and quantitative data. Overall, the specific combination of qualitative and quantitative research tools (methods-triangulation), the additional use of secondary data (data-triangulation) and the use of complementary theories (theorytriangulation) enabled a solid and valid analysis. However, shortcomings remain, such as my insufficient language skills, a fairly small number of fully-recorded and transcripted in-depth interviews or the inability to overcome asymmetric power relations in an interview situation. Being aware of one’s own position in the field of research and one’s own limitations is the first step to achieving the aims of a critical, reflexive and relational social geography.

5 THE SOCIAL FIELD OF STREET FOOD IN DHAKA Street vending in public space has become a broadly discussed topic (cf. Bayat 1997; Tinker 1997; Brown 2006b; Cross & Morales 2007b; Bhowmik 2010b; Ha & Graaf 2013). Recent publications have addressed the livelihood struggles of street vendors, their encroachment on public space, and the governance regimes of street vending in many metropolises of the Global South, for instance in the megacities of Delhi (te Lintelo 2009; Kumar & Bhowmik 2010), Mumbai (Anjaria 2006, 2010), Hyderabad (Wipper & Dittrich 2007; Dittrich 2008), Bangkok (Nirathron 2006, 2010), Bogota (Donovan 2002, 2008), or Caracas (GarciaRincon 2007, 2010). In all these publications a fundamental, yet unsolved, contradiction is addressed: Street vending is needed, but not wanted. On the one hand, street vending is an important livelihood opportunity for the poor and a crucial element in urban economies and local food systems, in particular in the Urban South (Tinker 1997; Brown 2006b; Bhowmik 2010b). On the other hand, street vending is depicted as not modern, obsolete, disorderly, and ‘in the way’ by city authorities, urban planners, and local elites alike. Street food vending is also seen as unhygienic. Instead of providing adequate legal frameworks, most nation states in the South do not recognise street vending. They rather fight, criminalise and “informalise” the street trade (Cross & Karides 2007; Bhowmik 2010b). In order to sustain their livelihoods and to serve the food needs of urban consumers, street vendors thus appropriate public space illegally. In chapter five, I introduce Dhaka’s social field of street food as a distinct business sector, as a sub-field of the society and as a historical configuration. In order to understand why street food vending is contested, it is necessary to explain under which conditions this field emerged historically. Hence, I outline Dhaka’s history of urbanisation, which can be seen as a process of concentrating capitals (chapter 5.1). On this basis, I sketch the emergence of the field of street food, which is inextricably tied to the growth of the urban population, and which reflects broader economic, cultural and political trends and transformations in Bangladesh (chapter 5.2). The state, or rather the field of power, structures the urban political economy, and thus also shapes the field of street food. In chapter 5.3, the relations between these two fields are outlined. I employ a holistic understanding of street food governance to address Dhaka’s personalised governance architecture (chapter 5.3.1), the formal modes of governing street food and public space (chapter 5.3.2), and the public discourses that underpin them (chapter 5.3.3). Key Question: What is the position of the field of street food in Dhaka? 1.

How did the field of street food evolve historically in the context of megaurbanisation?

2.

Which demographic, economic and political trends drive its growth and transformations?

3.

Through which institutions and discourses is the field governed by the field of power?

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5.1 THE MEGACITY OF DHAKA Street food vending is not merely a livelihood opportunity or a service for the urban poor, but rather a broad socio-economic phenomenon that is deeply embedded in urban life. The emergence of the field of street food should therefore be addressed in the context of wider structural changes – in demographic, social, economic and political terms – taking place in Bangladesh, and in particular in Dhaka. As one of those broad trends, megaurbanisation is outlined first. It is shown that the growth and the present primacy of Dhaka in the nation of Bangladesh is a history of the concentration of capital.

Pict. 5.1: The Megacity of Dhaka Source: B. Etzold, February 2007

5.1.1 Global Megaurbanisation According to UN estimates, about 6.9 billion people lived on earth in the year 2010 and the world’s population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050. It is important to note that most of this population increase is expected to take place in urban areas, and in particular in the cities of the Global South. Since 2009, the year of ‘the urban turn’, the number of people living in cities exceeds the number of rural residents. At present, these are 3.5 billion people. Due to natural population growth and rural-urban migration the global share of the urban population grew from 29 percent in 1950, and 37 percent in 1975, to 50 percent in 2010. It is expected to reach 69 percent by 2050. While urban growth slowed down considerably in the North since the late 1960s, cities grew faster in the South since the 1950s. Urban population growth has been particularly high in Asia in the past 35 years.

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Map 5.1: Megacities of the World in the Year 2015 Source: Butsch, Etzold & Sakdapolrak (2009: 3) based on Kraas (2003)

24.000

Population (in Thousand)

22.000

Dhaka

Lagos

20.000

Kinshasa

Istanbul

18.000

Guangzhou

Shenzhen

16.000

Bogotá

14.000

201

12.000 10.000 8.000 6.000 4.000 2.000 —

Fig. 5.1: Population Growth of present-day Megacities Data source: UN 2012: File 12: Population of urban agglomerations with 750,000 inhabitants or more in 2009; projections from 2015 onwards

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In 2010, 1.8 billion people lived in cities in Asia. Yet, 58 percent of the Asian people – and 72 percent of Bangladeshis – still live in rural areas (UN 2010). Population growth, rapid urbanisation and global economic integration led to the emergence of megacities, which are large urban agglomerations with more than ten million inhabitants (cf. UN-Habitat 2006b: 6). In the year 2010, there were 24 megacities worldwide (see Map 5.1). Together, they host almost five percent of the global population.71 In the worlds’ megacities rankings, Dhaka climbed up the ladder steadily. While it was not among the biggest 30 cities until the early 1980s (as it started off at a lower level), it was on rank 20 in 1990, and on rank 9 in 2010 (see figure 5.2). Dhaka grew more rapidly than most other present-day megacities that had less than one million inhabitants in 1950. Only Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the biggest cities in the Chinese Pearl River Delta, grew faster between 1990 and 2005 (see figure 5.1). In 1950, Dhaka had about 336,000 inhabitants. Over the next sixty years, the population increased by 6.3 percent per year (on average). In 2010, around 14.93 million people crowded the city. At present, its population grows by around three percent per year. The growth of Dhaka is projected to continue, however, at a lower rate than before. Nonetheless, by the year 2025 around 23 million people are expected to live in Dhaka (UN 2012). Castells (2000: 434) stated that size alone cannot define a city’s quality: Megacities are “nodes of the global economy, concentrating the directional, productive, and managerial upper functions all over the planet; the control of the media; the real politics of power; and the symbolic capacity to create and diffuse messages”. Dhaka is the only megacity that shows no evidence of becoming a world city. An assessment of the connectivity of 315 cities in the global network of advanced services firms lists Dhaka on rank 166 only.72 Although Dhaka is not closely integrated in the upper circuits of the global economy, it is clearly incorporated in global commodity chains of consumer goods, in particular through its garments industry, in which 1.6 million people work. Dhaka connects millions of people to the global economic system, which is a defining feature of megacities (ibid.). 5.1.2 Extraordinary Primacy: Concentration of Capitals in Dhaka Dhaka is the capital city of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, but its extraordinary primacy is not only based on its size and its function as administrative centre. It concentrates other types of capital, too. According to Bourdieu (2005a: 117), capital is not distributed randomly in space. Its spatial diffusion is rather an 71 The literature on the ‘megatheme´ of megacities is booming (cf. Kraas 2003; Bronger 2004; Burdett & Sudjic 2007; Davis 2007; Kraas & Mertins 2008; Butsch et al. 2009). See Parnreiter (2009) for a useful critique of the term megacity in current (geographical) research. 72 The World City Inventory measures city’s connectivity by counting the headquarters, regional and national offices of 100 firms in finance, consulting, etc.in these global cities (Taylor 2004; Taylor & Catalano o.J.).

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indicator of the nature of the relations between people, social groups, cities, regions, and between countries on a global scale. In 2010, Bangladesh had an estimated population of about 149 million people.73 28 percent of them lived in urban areas. The role of Dhaka as the nation’s population centre increased since gaining independence from British colonial rule (1947). In 1950, Dhaka was home to not even one percent of the nation’s population, while it was ten percent in 2010. The share of all urban residents living in Dhaka increased too, from 21 percent in 1950 to more than one third in 2010. Table 5.1 shows that other major cities could not compete with Dhaka’s more expansive population growth. Chittagong, for instance, once the major harbour city of Bangladesh not only lost economic weight, its share of the total urban population also decreased significantly. Bangladesh (total pop.) Urban pop.

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

37,895

50,102

66,881

80,624

105,256 129,592 148,692 167,256

1,623

2,573 5% 508 1% 20% 360 14% 120 5% 56 2%

5,078 8% 1,374 2% 27% 723 14% 310 6% 105 2%

11,973 15% 3,266 4% 27% 1,340 11% 627 5% 238 2%

20,853 20% 6,621 6% 32% 2,023 9% 985 5% 521 3%

% of total pop. 4%

Dhaka

336

% of total pop. 1% % of urban pop 21%

Chittagong

289

% of urban pop 18%

Khulna

41

% of urban pop 3%

Rajshahi

39

% of urban pop 2%

2000

2010

2020

30,571 41,476 55,336 24% 28% 33% 10,285 14,930 20,064 8% 10% 12 % 34% 36% 36% 3,308 5,069 6,963 10% 12% 13% 1,285 1,723 2,406 4% 4% 4% 678 900 1,273 2% 2% 2% (in thousands of people)

Tab. 5.1: Total Population of selected Cities in Bangladesh Data source: UN 2012: online

One can observe and indeed feel the extreme concentration of people in Dhaka when walking through its streets and crowded markets. This impression is being confirmed, looking at the available statistics: in 2005, 9.14 million people were estimated to live in the Dhaka Metropolitan Area (306 square km), which resem-

73 In Bangladesh, a national census takes place every ten years, i.e. 1951, 1961, etc. For sake of consistency, I refer to the data from the United Nations, who use data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The most recent census was conducted in March 2011. Surprisingly, it seems like less people live there as expected. According to this, the national population of Bangladesh was 140,437,000 in 2010, and thus 8.3 million less than estimated by the UN (BBS 2011b). This mismatch in crucial demographic data has evoked a lively debate in Bangladesh. Some analysts argue that the officially published figure has been skewed in order to have better ‘per capita´-statistics in terms of economic growth, poverty reduction, etc.

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bles a population density of 30,000 people per square km (CUS 2006: 20).74 The people in Dhaka live there for a good reason. The capital city outstrips all other cities in Bangladesh in economic, cultural, social, political and symbolic primacy (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990: 27ff; Islam 2005: 15ff). Dhaka is the economic engine and the brain of the nation, but also its political heart and its cultural soul. Concentration of Economic Capital Dhaka has a long tradition of trade, commerce, crafts, and manufacturing. In the 17th century during the Mughal Empire (1610 to 1765) it might have been one of the biggest cities in the world (Siddiqui et al. 2010: 3). Its golden era75 ended at the beginning of the 18th century when the Nawabs of Bengals shifted the capital from Dhaka to Murshidabad. In 1765 the British established the control over Bengal province; their capital was Calcutta. Regional relevance thus substantially declined during British colonial rule (1765-1947). During the so called Pakistani period (1947-1971), after independence from colonial rule, Dhaka – as the capital of East Pakistan – grew rapidly in terms of size and population and gained in economic weight on a national and regional scale (Siddiqui et al. 1990: 6f; 27ff; Islam 2005: 6ff; Siddiqui et al. 2010ff). After a brutal civil war against (West-) Pakistan the People’s Republic of Bangladesh was founded in 1971. As the independent country’s capital, Dhaka not only developed more rapidly than Bangladesh’s other cities, but also achieved an exceptional primacy status. Today, Dhaka is the centre of gravity of the national economy. It is the trade hub and major market for all kinds of consumer goods (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990: 31; 2010: 10f), in particular for food items. Within the area of Dhaka City Corporation alone there are more than 85 large wholesale markets from where food is distributed all over the city (see map 5.2 and 7.2)(cf. Keck et al. 2008). Most capital investment flows into Dhaka where basic urban services, such as water, power, etc., are fairly reliable, where business and industrial support services exist, and where the skilled and experienced workers and managers reside (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990: 27). About 80 percent of Bangladesh’s private enterprises and most of its industrial activities, such as processing of jute, textile, leather or rubber products, are concentrated in the megaurban region. Over 75 percent of the nation’s 4000 export-oriented garment factories are located in and around Dhaka, in the megacity alone around 1.6 million people work in this sector (Islam 2005: 21, 26; Siddiqui et al. 2010: 211). 74 The population is, of course, less dense in the broader megacity, where 9,300 people per sq.km lived in 2005. Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area (DSMA), which is the area under consideration in the UN statistics, has 1350 sq.km (Islam 2005: 8f) and had 12.6 million inhabitants in 2005 (UN 2012). As a comparison, in Cologne, the fourth largest German city, 1.02 million people live in an area of 405 sq.km. The average population density is then 2,524 people per sq.km (data for the year 2006; source: www.koeln.de/ (12.02.2011)). 75 In the national anthem of Bangladesh, the country is still referred to as “Sonar Bangla”, which means “Bengal of Gold”: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Sonar_Bangla (last accessed 12.02.2012).

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Dhaka’s international airport is the gateway for development experts, Bangladeshi labourers going abroad and the nation’s elite that can afford to travel globally, and a hub for the global exchange of goods. Dhaka can be regarded as the nation’s most crucial gate to the global economy. Moreover, Dhaka is the centre of a growing media- and communication sector, of commerce, financial and banking services and the home to Bangladesh’s stock exchange. It is therefore the most important hub for information and financial flows, too. The concentration of economic capital in Dhaka is remarkable. Dhaka’s economy probably accounts for 17 percent of the national GDP, i.e. 10 billion US$.76 Concentration of Informational and Cultural Capital Dhaka has always been the cultural heart of Bengal. Today, the economic primacy status of Dhaka is closely connected to the concentration of informational or cultural capital in the megacity. Dhaka hosts most and some of the best higher educational institutions and universities. Seven out of the nation’s 30 public universities are located in Dhaka city – a bachelor or master degree from the University of Dhaka (founded in 1921) is highly recognised. Moreover, the private education economy is booming in Dhaka with an increasing number of private colleges, technical schools, research facilities and training centres for skilled professionals.77 The media, with its publishing houses, newspaper and the film industry, is mainly located in Dhaka. The presence of these educational and informational institutions is amplified through a vivid cultural scene of intellectuals and a growing upper middle class that is interested in art, music, literature, theatre and cinema. Concentration of Symbolic Capital There is also a high concentration of the nation’s symbolic capital in Dhaka. Here, one finds the architectural representations of different eras, such as the Mughal Empire, British colonial rule, Pakistani rule, and the independent Bengali nation (e.g. the famous parliament building by Louis Khan). Many monuments and stat76 Bangladesh’s Bureau of Statistics does not provide economic data at the city level. Islam (2005: 16) estimated that the share of Dhaka’s economy is 17% of the GDP, i.e. 10 billion US$ (~637,900 million BDT) for 2005. A study by Pricewaterhouse Coopers estimated that Dhaka’s “Gross City Product” was around 78 billion US$ (~5,444,320 Mio. BDT) in 2008, and would then even account for 88% of the national GDP for the fiscal year 2008-09). (Pricewaterhouse Coopers UK Economic Outlook, Nov. 2009, p. 24, www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/(accessed 1.7.2011)). These economic assessments need to be treated with caution. As most sectors are organized informally, most transactions are neither registered nor taxed. It is thus not clear, which are included in the national accounts, and which are not. 77 45 out of 54 private universities are located in Dhaka according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Bangladesh (accessed 1.7.2011)

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ues remember the Language Movement in 1952 and the nation’s independence from Pakistan in 1971 after a nine month-long Liberation War. These iconic symbols are particular important for the identity of Bangladesh. Socio-political events such as the Nation’s Victory Day (December 16) or the Mother Language Day Ekushey (February 21) are celebrated on the central square in front of the Shaheed Minar (Monument of Martyrs) right on the campus of the University of Dhaka. Almost all of the important political movements that led to the present independent nation state started from Dhaka – and more explicitly from the Dhaka University campus that is located right in the city. Concentration of Statist Capital As Dhaka is the nation’s capital city, the power of the state, or statist capital, is concentrated there with the most important executive, legislative and juridical functions: The residence of the President and the Prime Ministers’ Office, the National Assembly, i.e. seat of the parliament, all of the government’s ministries and the major bodies of the civic administration, the National High Court taking legal decision of national importance (i.e. it concentrates juridical capital), or the University Grants Commission, which decides upon budgeting, curricula of and admission to public universities (i.e. it concentrates cultural capital). Most politicians live in Dhaka and the major political parties are based in Dhaka, too. Moreover, the headquarters of Bangladesh’s Army, Navy and Air Force are concentrated in the military Cantonment, which takes up a large section of the northern part of the city. The headquarters of the paramilitary border control forces, the Bangladesh Rifles, is located right in the heart of the city. Of course, the municipal government, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), and other service providing agencies, e.g. Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA), are located in Dhaka. Most of the foreign embassies are in the diplomatic quarter Gulshan in Dhaka’s northwest. Here, one also finds the offices of international donor agencies such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the Asian Development Bank, the country offices of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) or the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), as well as offices of development organisations such as the German Gesellschaft für internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). This extensive list shows where all political decisions that govern the presence and future of the nation are taken. Siddiqui and Ahmed (2004: 354) therefore conclude their description of Dhaka’s primacy by noting that “the political fate of Bangladesh is largely decided by what happens in Dhaka city”. Concentration of Social Capital The spatial concentration of all these crucial bodies of Bangladesh’s governance architecture matters, since it enables close personal contact between their representatives, the agents who fill formal positions of power, and who are recruited

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from a comparatively small highly-educated and power-driven elite. The density of people and the concentration of economic, cultural and statist capital in Dhaka goes hand in hand with the concentration of social capital in the city. One could argue that the megacity functions – despite all odds – only because people know each other, and because being embedded in networks enables economic transactions. In turn, nothing can be achieved in Bangladesh, if one does not maintain contacts and knocks at the doors of ‘the right people’ in politics, the bureaucracy and the economy, who are living and working in the capital city and who have close relations among one another (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990: 173ff; 2010: 196). The spatial density and personal thickness of social networks in Dhaka might thereby help to explain the prominence and acceptance of informal modes of governance, which govern not only the field of street food and everyday life in the megacity, but also the field of power as such (chapter 5.3.1). 5.2 THE EMERGENCE OF THE PRESENT FIELD OF STREET FOOD The emergence of the field of street food is closely tied to Dhaka’s more recent history of urbanisation, economic restructuring, political turmoil and social transformation. I base this assumption on my own empirical findings as the sale, consumption and governance of street food in Dhaka have never been analysed in a comprehensive academic study. While an extensive study about street food vendors (n=159) and consumers (n=435) was conducted in the rural town Manikganj in Bangladesh in the mid-1980s (Tinker 1987, 1997), only little secondary data exist on the topic in Dhaka megacity. One project addressed basic socio-economic aspects of street food vending, and street vendors’ (n=60) fuel sources for cooking (Tedd et al. 2003). Two pilot studies on street food looked at street food vending in the context of growing public health concerns; the focus was on the vendors’ socio-economic conditions, their food handling practices and the micro-biological contamination of street food (Naheed et al. 2002 (25 in-depth interviews with vendors, 25 food samples); CAB 2004 (200 interviews with street food vendors, 118 with consumers, 54 food samples)). In this line, another study was conducted by a local NGO, the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), in the context of a broader national food security programme supported by the United Nation’s Food and Agricultural Association (FAO). The CAB Study (CAB 2010; FPMU 2011) aimed at the “Institutionalization of a Healthy Street Food System in Bangladesh” and provides information on the socio-economic situation of 300 street food vendors in Dhaka, on their food handling practices and personal hygiene, and on the formal regulation of the street food trade. Moreover, 400 food and drinking water samples were collected from street food shops for micro-biological analysis. On this basis, the study formulates policy guidelines for ‘Healthy Street Food Vending in Bangladesh’ (see chapter 9). However, no study describes the history of street food vending in Dhaka and systematically analyses the role of street food in the food system. The significance of street food for urban food security and the (in)formal governance of urban public spaces have never been studied.

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This chapter describes the emergence of the present field of street food. As no relevant literature on the historic formation of Dhaka’s food system, and nothing in particular on street food vending, could be found by the author,78 this chapter largely relies on narratives on the growth and character of the field of street food collected in interviews with various experts. The information provided by Professor Nazrul Islam, a geographer from the University of Dhaka who came to Dhaka in 1950 and by Ahmede Hussain, a journalist who is frequently writing on poverty, street vending and evictions, proved to be most helpful. Some accounts of local key informants and the street vendors themselves also feed into this reconstruction of how Dhaka’s field of street food emerged historically. The eras that are addressed in the following are the legal formation of the field during British colonial rule (1765-1947), the rapidly increasing demand of street food through urbanisation during the Pakistan Period (1947-1971), and in particular after the independence of Bangladesh (since 1971). Continued urbanisation, pervasive poverty, globalisation and a changing local food culture set the scene for more recent changes in the field of street food (1990-2010). 5.2.1 The Illegalisation of the Street Trade during Colonial Rule During colonial rule street food vending, in particular the sale of light snacks and fruits, must have been already an everyday practice all over India. For the case of Calcutta, Mukhopadhay (2004: 39) noted that “the culture of street-food is not very old in Bengal” as there was “no mention of street-food anywhere in old Bengali literature” until the mid-19th century.79 Around that time, formal legislation regarding the quality of food for sale and encroachments on public space was established. The Penal Code of 1860 first defines what the term ‘illegal’ means: “The word ‘illegal’ is applicable to everything which is an offence or which is prohibited by law, or which furnishes ground for a civil action” (Chapter II, §43). One of the offences addressed under the section on ‘Public Health, Safety, Convenience, Decency and Morals’ was the sale of adulterated or poisoned food: “Whoever sells, or offers or exposes for sale, as food or drink, any article which has been rendered or has become noxious, or is in a state unfit for food or drink, […] shall be punished with imprisonment […] or with fine which may extend to one thousand taka, or with both.” (Penal Code from 1860, Chapter XIV, §273)80

78 A search of academic literature yielded no results in the libraries at the University of Bonn, at the South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, and at Dhaka University. 79 According to Mukhopadhay (2004: 39), one of the first references to street food, e.g. pakoras and chutneys, appeared in a novel from 1871. Since then, accounts of different fried snacks became more common. 80 All laws that existed since 1836 in Bangladesh can be accessed online on the website “Laws of Bangladesh”: http://bdlaws.minlaw.gov.bd/ (last access, 17.07.2013)

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The Police Act from 1861 addressed the duties of police officers and thereby granted them the power to fine or arrest persons, who behave inappropriately in public space, for instance by annoying other people, by exposing goods for sale, or by throwing dirt on the street: “Any person who, on any road or in any open place or street or thoroughfare […] commits any of the following offences, to the obstruction, inconvenience, annoyance, risk, danger or damage of the residents or passengers shall, on conviction before a Magistrate, be liable to a fine not exceeding fifty taka, or to imprisonment with or without hard labor not exceeding eight days; and it shall be lawful for any police-officer to take into custody, without a warrant, any person who within his view commits any of such offences […]. Any person […] who leaves any conveyance in such a manner as to cause inconvenience or danger to the public. Any person who exposes any goods for sale. Any person who throws or lays down any dirt, filth, rubbish or any stones or building materials, or who constructs any cowshed, stable or the like.” (Police Act from 1861, §34, emphasis added)

Of course there are always two sides to formal institutions: the one is the legal document, the other is its interpretation and more or less rigorous enforcement in everyday life. Without having exact information on the latter during that time, one can easily see that the sale of food on the streets is directly addressed through these laws. There must have been occasions, when street food vendors sold food that had become stale or foul. Back then street vendors must have been seen as a nuisance for some people and ‘in the way’, for instance if they sold in narrow streets. One cannot imagine the street trade without the display of the goods for sale to the public. Of course, street vendors encroached on streets, for instance as they set up permanent food stalls, and also left their rubbish behind. The implications of the laws under colonial rule on the street food trade were twofold. First, the previously legally undefined field of street food became illegal and was thus illegalised.81 Second, through the explicit definition of their official duties, law enforcing state agents, for instance food inspectors or policemen, gained the power to fine or arrest persons who disregarded the law, or – what became to be even more important in the case of Dhaka – to allow ‘exceptions to the rule’ and to benefit personally from turning a blind eye. Lower-ranking state agents thereby became “bricoleurs” (Cleaver 2002), who can play with formal institutions, and street vendors and other actors, whose livelihood depends directly on circumventing state law, became their antagonists (see chapter 3.2.3). In this sense, particular positions and practices of agents in the field of street food that are still prevalent today were already assigned during colonial rule.

81 Later, once the UN’s International Labour Organisation had popularised the term ‘informal sector´ in the early 1970s that is based on the formality of state law (see chapter 3.2.1) – the street trade became informalised.

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5.2.2 Street Food Vending in Dhaka during the Pakistan Period Street Food Consumption in the 1950s and 1960s In the traditional food culture of Bangladesh a good ‘full meal’ consists of rice, fish or meat, vegetables and dhal, and is prepared by the women in the house and eaten at home. Dominant social values structure the city dwellers’ attitude towards eating outside, whether it is a traditional small restaurant (bather hotel), a western-style fast-food restaurant or a street food stall, and thereby also shape the demand for street food. In an interview Nazrul Islam recollected some of the memories of his youth in Dhaka in the 1950s, during Pakistan rule: “There was you know street food at that time, but not so many people eating their main meals on the street, but snacks. […] there were lots of small street food places or street food vendors selling snack items and I remember in the early morning there would be shops selling small pieces of home- made Chana, made from the cream, and then the Matha, made from curd. […] Of course fruits were sold on the street […]. In front of the schools there would be all kind of small snacks. Ice-cream had already been well introduced and other kind of sweets and chocolates. […] And people at that time also ate Jhal muri, the popped rice with chilies and mustard oil, and Chanachur [spicy mix of nuts and crisps], and badam [peanuts]. These were the most popular snacks, very ancient, very old to be mobile. […] And there were no mobile tea vendors at that time, but now we have them. If you wanted to have Cha [tea] then you had to go to a small hotel. […] Only some fried items like Luchi or Puri [wheat pastries] were sold in front of hotels. [...] Prepared food was not sold in plenty. Near railway stations there would be some open air shops. I don’t remember seeing rice being sold, but maybe Ruti. Pati ruti [pancake-like bread] and also boiled egg are still popular today, you know it was popular fifty years ago also. Those [small unconsolidated food shops] were close to a market, close to a school or college or an office.” --- Interview with Professor Nazrul Islam, Centre for Urban Studies, 26.02.2010 ---

These quotes indicate that street food vending was a normal part of city life in the 1950s, and there is no reason to believe that it was different in the decades before. Full rice meals and tea were not available on the street during that time. However, at the important traffic hubs of the expanding city (see map 5.2), such as the bus stations, the harbour or the central railway station, near the large markets, near schools, offices and at other public places where many people assembled frequently, there were some permanent shops, from which passengers, commuters, and school children purchased small meals, but mainly little nutritious and tasty snacks. More mobile street vendors sold snacks and nuts, sweets and ice cream, open and cut fruits, and some drinks. Like today, particular products were offered at particular times, for instance, the popular snacks Chanachur and Jhal Muri were sold in the afternoon and evening when people enjoyed some leisure time (see annex 5 for a glossary of street food items). Back then, the conditions of street food vending must have been not very clean and “not very hygienic, but people did not mind” (ibid).

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Unlike today, the consumption of street food seemed to be rather a (lower) middle class phenomenon, a group that became increasingly mobile. It was probably below the dignity of the rich to eat in the public, and the poor could not afford the snacks, fruits and drinks. One might associate street food consumption, i.e. eating snacks from mobile vendors or small street restaurants in public outdoor spaces, with urbanity and the lifestyle of a city. According to Nazrul Islam, however, consuming food in the public was rather an aspect of Bangladesh’s rural food culture, which then successively shaped urban food habits. “Ordinary people” brought a normal part of village life, to which they were used to, to the rapidly expanding city. In doing so, they inadvertently challenged the rule of law. Legal Frameworks during the Pakistani Period In between 1947 and 1971 Dhaka was the capital of Pakistan’s Eastern province. Despite independence from the British, colonial rule left its marks in the legal system of Pakistan. The illegalisation of the street trade thus prevailed. The East Pakistan Pure Food Ordinance was established in 1959. It is still legally binding today. It states the following: “(1)After the commencement of this Ordinance, no premises shall be used for (a) the wholesale manufacture or wholesale sale of any article of food […], (b) the manufacture or sale of ice-cream or any pickled, potted, pressed or preserved food, or (c) hotel, inn, restaurant or sweetmeat shop, unless such premises have been registered by the occupier thereof. […] (2) Every registration under this section shall be renewed annually by the occupier of the premises […] on payment of such fee as may be prescribed. (3) An application for registration or renewal thereof shall […] be made to the local authority, which shall […] maintain a record of every such registration and renewal thereof. ” (Pure Food Ordinance from 1959, Chapter II, § 21, emphasis added)82

While the formal registration, licensing and record-keeping systems were even very patchy for the permanent bather hotels, it did not extent to the unconsolidated shacks from which many snacks, but also tea and sometimes whole dishes were sold during that time. Prepared food could be sold legally only from registered food shops or restaurants, which required a permanent building, formal documents of owning or renting these premises, etc. It was therefore de facto impossible to obtain a license for street food vending. As neither the unconsolidated permanent shops nor the mobile vendors who served customers at important public places all over the city could become registered, since 1959 all street food vendors pursued their livelihoods and encroached on public space illegally. Of course their number was not recorded and they were not checked by municipal sanitary inspectors. 82 The Pure Food Ordinance also states that food shop owners have to keep records on the quantity of food they are processing and selling (§ 22.4). They have to maintain food safety and hygienic standards, for instance by covering food that is intended “for human consumption without further preparation by cooking” so that it is “protected from dust, dirt and flies“ (§ 23), and by keeping the shop clean and the employees keep themselves clean, too (§ 24).

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5.3 3 Urbanisation and Growing Food Demand after Independence Dhaka’s Growth and Differentiation of the Field of Street Food in the 1970s Dhaka grew from a small, economically relatively unimportant provincial city of approximately 336,000 people in 1950 to the economically and politically important capital of Pakistan’s Eastern province (1947-1971) with almost 1.4 million people in 1970. The population increased by more than one million people in these 20 years, with a particularly high growth rate of ten percent in the 1960s (see figure 5.2). After a nine month long civil war, during which up to three million people lost their lives and ten millions fled to India, Bangladesh gained its independence on 16th December 1971. Dhaka the capital of Pakistan’s Eastern province became the capital of the new state, the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, and expanded rapidly thereafter. Although the population growth rate was higher for Dhaka in the five years before independence than thereafter,83 the absolute growth after 1971 was extraordinary high. Between 1975 and 1980 more than 21,000 people came to the new capital city every year. Moreover, the nature of rural to urban migration changed, too. While rural poor from some areas of Bangladesh were inclined to migrate to a major city before independence, the civil war not only destroyed lives, but also livelihoods. On top of that, in 1974 severe floods led to the destruction of the harvests and grain stocks, then to a rapid increase of the price of rice, and in the end to a famine all over the country: In between 30,000 and 100,000 people died of hunger and malnutrition in 1974/75 (Sen 1981: 134). One can only guess the number of people that were driven to Dhaka by poverty and acute food insecurity. The influx of poor migrants, however, had a massive impact on Dhaka: It led to the spread and growth of urban slum settlements, it added a large, but impoverished labour force to the informal urban labour market, and it propelled the demand for food in the city (as indicated by the increase in food markets; see map 5.2), and in particular the demand for readily available, cheap street food: “After 1971 or 72 lots of people came, huge number of migrants, lots of slums and squatters moved and by 1974 there were 200 thousand people living in slums. That means a lot more poor people […]. And that saw the growth of low quality restaurants and with increasing population in the city centre in Gulistan and in Motijheel, and also in the Old town. And near any big shopping place market or office there would be meeting places. […] And so still I think there were mostly snacks for sale. But full meals like lunch rice or Ruti and vegetables started coming up. Then you had restaurants and extension and small eating places in Motijheel area in other employment centers.

83 The high population growth in the late 1960s can be partially explained by the territorial reconfiguration of the census area between 1961 and 1973 (Islam 2005: 12). Moreover, due to the political turmoil of 1971, the validity of the data needs to be questioned. According to Siddiqui et al. (2010: 5) Dhaka grew most rapidly in between 1981 and 1991: its population doubled from 3.44 to 6.88 million, while its area expanded from 510 to 1,353 km².

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The Politics of Street Food Then, in 1975, there were slum clearance drives. So the number of these small street food shops was possibly reduced, because poor people were gone. But they came back again after 1976. Lots of new people started coming in and by 1980 there are many of those [street food shops and vendors]. So, among the incoming population were lots of low income people, poor people. The street food system grew very fast.” --- Nazrul Islam, CUS, 26.02.2010 ---

Successively, the size and the significance of the field of street food increased during the 1970s. The formal food sector, i.e. the established bather hotels, the permanent food stalls and the canteens of offices, could not satisfy the demand of the rapidly growing population. More importantly even is the fact that the particular food needs of the hard-working urban poor, who require nutritious, but cheap food, were not met. This led to a divide of the field of street food into two segments: the first was the segment that one might call pleasure street food, which consists of light and tasty snacks that were taken by – almost exclusively at that time male – city dwellers in their leisure time, or sweets or ice creams consumed by children. The emergence of the second segment is described in the quote above. In Dhaka’s then new commercial centre, Motijheel, for instance, thousands of people worked in offices and required lunch and snacks in between. The innumerous rickshaw pullers that drove these office workers to and from work also needed food. The required street food included full meals of rice or ruti served with vegetable, dhal, and curries with meat or fish. The Garments-Boom in the 1980s and its Implications on Street Food Vending In the 1980s, the export-oriented textile industry was the major trigger for Dhaka’s economic growth and its intensified megaurbanisation. In between 1980 and 1990 Bangladesh’s population grew by almost 20 million people and Dhaka’s population doubled, from 3.3 to 6.6 million. The population growth rate stood at seven percent (figures 5.4 and 5.5). Dhaka’s total labor force grew from 2.5 to 3.7 million people between 1980 and 1989, while the number of people employed in manufacturing industries increased from 160,000 to 520,000 in the same time period (Islam 2005: 20). People came to Dhaka to work in the metal manufactures in Postogola and Tejgaon, in the leather and tanning industry of Hazaribagh, or in Islambagh’s rubber and plastic product factories (Siddiqui et al. 1990: 27f). The most important employment opportunity for migrants has been the export-oriented garments industry, which saw an unprecedented rise in the 1980s and 1990s in terms of the number of factories and employees, and in terms of its significance for the national economy (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990; Mainuddin 2000; Islam 2005).84 This industrial boom was particularly important for poor migrant 84 The number of garment factories, which were registered with the Bangladesh Garments Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA), increased from 4 in 1976, 587 in 1985, 2313 in 1997, to 4107 in 2005. In 1985 roughly 15,000 people were employed in garments, while it was near 1 million in 1997, around 1.6 million in 2005 and probably near 2 million today

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22.906

women, who constitute the majority of the workforce in the garment factories.85 The garments factories were mainly located in Dhaka’s North, in particular in Mirpur, Gulshan and Banani.86

24.000 20.064

22.000

17.382

20.000

14.930

18.000

12.615 10.285

14.000

8.332

12.000

6.621

10.000

1.374

821

508

409

336

296

196

169

62

2.000

154

3.266

4.000

2.221

6.000

4.660

8.000

104

Total Population (in Thousand)

16.000

0

Fig. 5.3: Population Growth of the Megacity of Dhaka Datasources: Islam 2005 (until 1950 for DCC); UN 2010 (File 12, 1950-75 for DMA, 1980-2000 for DSMA area); UN 2012 (2005-2025 for DSMA; projections from 2010 onwards. Note: The historic episodes mentioned in the text are indicated through different shades of grey.

(Siddiqui et al. 1990: 29, 2010: 211; Mainuddin 2000: 3, 27; Islam 2005: 20f; interview with N. Islam 2009). The share of the textile economy in Bangladesh’s total export earnings grew from 0.5 percent in 1980, 41 percent in 1990, to 68 percent in 1997 (Mainuddin 2000: 4). 85 According to Dannecker (2002: 14) the share of women among garments laborers was 84% in 1995, while Siddiqui et al. (2010: 211) refer to a ministry officials’ estimate of 90% for 2005. A World Bank study (2007: 19) found that 32% of the poor working women in Dhaka were employed in garments, and 16% in domestic services. 86 However, garment factories and innumerous small textile workshops are spread all over the city. Export-processing zones with dense clusters of garments factories, i.e. in the megaurban fringe of Savar or Tongi, were only planned and implemented since the mid-2000s.

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Self-evidently, rapid growth of the urban population and the economy led to spatial growth of the city, too. As the river Buriganga confines Dhaka’s growth in the South and West, and because Dhaka Metropolitan area, an important territorial unit for the urban administration, does not stretch beyond the Buriganga, the expansion of settlements and industrial areas was mainly directed towards the Northern and the Eastern fringes of the city until the end of the 1990s (Islam 2005: 8ff; see map 5.2). The implications of the booming garments sector for the field of street food are described by Nazrul Islam as follows: “After about 1976 or 78 and from the early 1980s onwards garments factories started coming up in Dhaka. So again we witnessed a huge population increase and the settlements and the economy grew […]. So you had many new employment centers, offices, industrial work-shops and factories, and the workers were getting food either in a snack bar or on the way from/to home, by walking by, as they are still doing now. So near every shopping centre, […] near every big employment centre, like in Motijheel which is the biggest, there are lots of those open air shops. Street rice selling shops and Ruti selling shops. Then you could have almost full meal in the open shops or in sheds, which are a little bit covered [by bamboo mats, by plastic or tin] sheets.” --- Nazrul Islam, CUS, 26.02.2010 ---

Garment factory workers, in particular the women, usually do not take their lunch from bather hotels or street food vendors, but rather bring the leftovers from the previous day or the morning with them in their tiffin (little metal containers). The quote above, however, indicates that there are still hundred thousands of workers, who buy some snacks on the way to or from work, whether these are light snacks, fruits such as banana, or – increasingly important since the 1980s – white bread rolls (pauruti), which is a very cheap and almost unperishable food item that is available from small tea shacks at almost every street corner. There were also secondary effects of the garments-based population growth. As more people came to Dhaka, the demand also increased for rickshaw pullers on the congested streets, for more good carriers on the growing markets, and for more day laborers in the housing construction sector. Moreover, as the Bangladeshi government’s rural employment, poverty and food security policies clearly failed in the 1980s (cf. Begum 1999; Dorosh et al. 2004; Zingel 2010), the number of poor people that came to Dhaka increased radically. The ‘hardcore poor’, such as the floating population and street children, do not have access to housing and thus to cooking facilities. Snacks, but also full rice meals from the street, are thus of vital importance for the food security of vulnerable groups. Serving the different food needs of different consumer groups, ranging from office employees, factory workers, rickshaw pullers, day laborers to street dwellers, proved to be a growing market. Since independence, street food vending thereby became a crucial niche of employment in Dhaka.

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5.3.1 Street Food Vending, Globalisation and Pervasive Poverty Social Change and Globalisation in the Megacity of Dhaka About 55 percent of the population living in Dhaka in 2010 did not live there in 1990 (and two third of the street food vendors interviewed for this study came to Dhaka after 1990). Although population growth slowed down in the 1990s and thereafter (see figure 5.2), the influx of migrants to Dhaka rather increased in absolute terms. In 1990 around 6.6 million people lived in Dhaka Metropolitan Area. At the millennium there were 10.3 million inhabitants – Dhaka had become a megacity according to the UN definition. In 2010, approximately 14.6 million people lived in Bangladesh’s capital city (see figure 5.3). The boom of the exportoriented garments industry was not only a crucial factor for Dhaka’s megaurbanisation, but also for its integration into the global economy. In turn, the megacity of Dhaka, in general, and the urban fields of food, in particular, became subject to the broad economic, cultural and social-behavioural changes associated with globalisation. Since 1990, the field of street food underwent significant transformations. Poverty in Dhaka prevailed, but at the same time urban lifestyles changed under the impact of globalisation, which eventually led to new glocal street food products. Moreover, the public perception of street food changed and the way the state dealt with ‘the hawker problem’ (chapter 5.3.3). Accordingly, the most important recent trends in the field of street food are pervasive poverty in the megacity, an increasingly global food culture, changing social norms and gender roles, but also an increased criminalisation of the street food trade. As the latter issues are addressed in detail in chapters 6.3 and 9, in the following I focus on the implications of impoverishment for both street food consumers and suppliers alike. Pervasive Poverty in the Megacity Due to the influx of predominantly poor migrants from rural areas on top of natural growth, not only Dhaka’s population grew, but the absolute number of poor people increased, too (see table 5.3 and figure 5.4). Just after independence, in 1974, over one million people in Dhaka were below the upper poverty line. As a consequence of rural food insecurity and the hope of better livelihood opportunities in the city, more and more poor people came. In 1989 more than three million poor people lived in slums or squatter settlements. 41 percent of the 5,000 slums that exist in Dhaka today were built in the time between 1971 till 1990 (CUS 2006: 35).87 In 1995, the absolute number of poor city dwellers peaked at 4.1 million. After 1995, Bangladesh’s economy grew 87 The CUS (2006: 14f) defines a slum as a settlement with bad housing conditions, high population density, room crowding, poor environmental services, low socio-economic-status, and no tenure security.

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quite fast and (inter)national efforts to reduce poverty proved to be more successful. At the national level, the incidence of poverty decreased from 50 percent in 1995 to 31 percent in 2010. Rural poverty dropped from 47 to 35 percent, while the urban poverty rates even fell from 50 to 21 percent. The reduction of the poverty seems to be quite a remarkable success story, but one needs to bear in mind that in Bangladesh almost 47 million people still live in poverty, and about 26 million people (18 %) live under extremely vulnerable conditions as they are below the lower poverty line (BBS 2011b). In Dhaka, economic growth, both in the formal and in the informal economy, led to a reduction of both the absolute number and the share of people in poverty since 1995. About 20 percent of the people in Dhaka City lived below the upper poverty line in 2005, whereas it was 32 percent in Dhaka Division that also includes peri-urban and rural areas. In the same year, roughly 2.5 million people lived in the city’s slums or on the street.88 It is likely that the share of urban poor is further decreasing in the megacity, but in absolute terms, poverty is still prevailing. In 2010, more than three million people live under highly precarious conditions (see figure 5.4). 16.000

Dhaka’s poor Dhaka’s population Urban Poverty Rate

14.000 12.000 10.000 8.000 6.000 4.000 2.000 0

1974

1984

1989

1991

1995

2000

2005

2010

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Fig. 5.4: Poverty in Dhaka Data source: see tables 5.1 and 5.2 (annex) Note: The urban poverty rate reflects the share of the urban population that is living below the upper poverty line.

88 In contrast to national statistics, Islam (2006:30) estimated the share of the poor in Dhaka on the basis of income data. 35% or almost 4.4 million of the city dwellers in Dhaka are then poor. 27% of the population in DMSA is living in one of 4,966 slum clusters (CUS 2006).

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Pict. 5.2: Inequality in Dhaka: The slum Karail opposite the elite quarter Gulshan Source: B. Etzold, February 2007

Pict. 5.3: Globalisation and Poverty in Dhaka: Street dwellers sleep on the roof of the Kamalapur Railway Station. In the background containers, representing Dhaka’s integration in global value chains, are stored Source: B. Etzold, October 2007

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The high poverty rates show that inequality prevails in Bangladesh: In 2010, the income-based Gini-coefficient was 0.47 at the national level. In urban areas the richest five percent earn 30 percent of the total urban income, while the poorest five percent earn only 0.7 percent (BBS 2011c).89 As the richest and the poorest are concentrated in the capital, inequality is greater in Dhaka with a Ginicoefficient of 0.37. The households in the richest expenditure quintile spend more than five times the amount on food, housing, health, education, leisure, etc. than households in the poorest quintile (World Bank 2007: 3f). It needs to be kept in mind that although Dhaka is normally portrayed as one of the poorest cities of the world, there is also a distinct socio-economic, and indeed political, elite in Dhaka, which accumulated substantial wealth, land and enterprises and enjoys the luxuries and privileges of the global ‘jet set’ (Siddiqui et al. 1990; 2010; Islam 2005). Implications of Poverty and Inequality for the Field of Street Food Vending What are the implications of pervasive poverty and inequality for the street food trade? It is self-evident that urban population growth implies a growing demand for food in the city. Different socio-economic groups have not only a different purchasing power, but also different food preferences. This opens up a niche for street food vending as a market for the urban poor: “The pushcart is the poor man’s market”.90 The sheer number of poor urbanites implicates that the demand for required street food, i.e. the cheap and nutritious snacks and dishes that help urban poor labourers to get through the day, is steady or even growing in absolute terms. Cautious observers of Dhaka’s recent developments noted an increasing importance of street food for the poor and new street food products that target poor megacity dwellers. Wheat-based products, for instance, have become more popular over the years among the rice-eating Bangladeshis. Many poor labourers such as rickshaw pullers or factory workers substitute rice meals with cheap and non-perishable bread rolls. Pavement dwellers, in turn, have no access to cooking facilities, so they rely on street food: “The poor are increasingly dependent on street food. Street food vending is therefore a growing field of employment, too.” --- Mustafa Q. Khan, CUP, 02.01.2008 ---

89 The Gini coefficient (0 to 1) measures the distribution of expenditure or income in a population. The smaller the coefficient, the more equal is the distribution. A high score indicates high inequality. The income-based Gini score of Bangladesh shows even greater inequality than the expenditure-based one. Data from (HIES 2005, http://www.bbs.gov.bd/ Reports/PDFFiles/RptHIES_4_2.pdf, accessed 12.06.2011) and BBS (2011b). 90 Already in 1928 in New York, a report on street markets in the city centre, where mainly immigrants sold food and other daily use products to poor people, was issued. In the report, it was noted: “the fact that these markets are located on crowded streets in poorer sections of the city is because they are where the need for them is greatest. The pushcart is the poor man’s market” (cited in Bluestone 1991: 73).

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“Wheat consumption has increased steadily. This is a remnant of colonialisation. But wheat has been re-introduced to Bangladesh through food aid in the famine of 74. Since then bread consumption has increased. Now, the urban poor regularly eat white bread rolls (pauruti). The perishability of food products is important for its use. An increasing number of garments workers, for instance, eat bread rolls and biscuits during the day instead of taking a rice meal in tiffins to work. […] There is a growing floating population and a growing number of urban poor in Dhaka. Many pavement dwellers, but also others, do not have the assets, the time and/or the facilities to prepare their own meal.” --- Ahmede Hussain, journalist, 30.12.2007 --“In the 90s, the large scale selling of simple rice [dishes] from benches [started]. And these poor people, they cook their meals, like Khichuri rice and just one item curry, in the slums and they would bring it in big cans and sell it along the roads. […] They also bring the food out on rickshaw cycle vans. On a van they will keep all three or four cans, and they have their own small plates, and provide water in glasses. The rickshaw pullers are the big consumers.” --- Nazrul Islam, CUS, 26.02.2010 ---

The latter quote shows that the urban poor cannot afford to pay attention to some of the traditional taboos like not eating full-rice meals in the public. Prior to 1990, people took their full rice meals at home or in the rather permanent bather hotels. But the high demand of an increasing number of impoverished, yet highly mobile workers led to the emergence of new street food vending types. If one goes to a side-street in the busy city centre around lunchtime, one can observe that dozens of rickshaw pullers have parked their rickshaws and eat some rice dishes. These dishes consist of rice, oil and some spices, but often no dhal, meat or fish is included. They are prepared by women at home and then sold by men from a rickshaw van. Or some women themselves squat on the street (see pictures 7.2). These dishes are very cheap (5 to 15 BDT per plate) and most vendors only make little money with it. While an increased demand for required street food can be largely assigned to pervasive poverty in the megacity, the advance of pleasure street food, i.e. snacks and drinks, consumed in leisure time but not out of sheer necessity, is largely a consequence of socio-cultural changes. In 2010, Dhaka’s street food economy consists of roughly 95,000 vendors. The street food trade thus provides a living for at least 417 thousand people (see chapter 6.1.3). There are substantial differences between the vendors in terms of poverty or livelihood security. About two third of the street food vendors live below the upper poverty line for Dhaka (see chapter 7.4.1). Whether they can effectively secure their livelihoods or not, depends to a great degree on their access to public spaces, and on their social and economic capital. Last but not least, it relates directly to the laxness or rigour with which the existing laws are implemented, and thus on the relation of the field of street food vis-à-vis the field of power.

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5.4 THE STATE AND THE FIELD OF STREET FOOD The genealogy of the emerging field of street food already indicated the ambivalent relation between the state and street vendors. On the one hand, laws were introduced that ought to regulate the sale of prepared food and the appropriate use of public space, but on the other hand these laws became largely ineffective in the rapidly growing megacity, in which the informal economy not only to persisted, but also expanded and gained in importance over the course of the last 30 years (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990, 2010; Islam 1996, 2005; Amin 2002). The growth of the informal economy, in general, and the field of street food, in particular, was tolerated by Bangladesh’s national governments, because loosing formal control over informal economic activities was compensated by short-term economic gains:91 Street vendors provided necessary services for a growing number of food consumers that could not be adequately provided through the formal food system. Moreover, given the absence of social security schemes, not enough wage labour in the city’s industries and high barriers to formal employment, jobs for thousands of newly arriving migrants were created in the street trade, which thus contributes significantly to the urban economy. The relations and interactions between the state and the street vendors as well as the modes of governing the street trade through enforceable legal rules and irregular interventions like eviction drives shape the field of street food fundamentally. In the following chapter I focus on these crucial relations between the field of street food and the segmented field of power (figure 5.5). Two perspectives on street food governance are complimentary in my approach: From a macropolitical perspective I look at the laws and policies on street food vending (chapter 5.3.2) and at the public discourses and political logics underpinning them powerfully (chapter 5.3.3). From a micro-political perspective, I analyse the relevance and effectiveness of formal institutions in the everyday life of a megacity. As background information chapter 5.3.1 describes Dhaka’s highly personalised governance architecture. The information presented in the following provides the basis for the discussion of encounters, dependencies and negotiations between street food vendors and state agents (chapter 8). 5.4.1 The Structure of the Field of Power Dhaka’s Governance Architecture In Bangladesh, the field of power seems to be largely synonymous with the national arena of party politics. As business and politics are inseparable here, proximity to or a central position in the field of power is closely intertwined with better opportunities for financial accumulation through legal, informal (extra-legal) 91 That the state benefits from the informalisation of labour is one of the key arguments of the so called structuralist school on the informal economy (cf. Castells & Portes 1989: 13, 18, 27).

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and illegal economic interactions. Economic wealth, in turn, seems to be a prerequisite for influence in local and national governance processes. ‘Winning’ the field of power in terms of getting access to the benefits of political positions is the underlying logic and overarching aim of national party politics (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; Monem 2006; World Bank 2007; IGS 2008, 2009; Siddiqui et al. 2010; see table 8.4 in the annex for a brief overview of the most important macropolitical changes in Bangladesh’s field of power). Dhaka’s formal architecture of urban governance, in terms of the interplay of the most important organisations and agents of the state and the city authorities is inadequate to tackle the pressing challenges of the megacity. Moreover, it is rather a part of the problem, than part of the solution: “a total lack of coordination in the management of Dhaka city” (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004: 408) is exacerbated by inefficiency and a lack of accountability that manifest itself in corruption, bribery, nepotism and political patronage at all governance levels: from local bureaucrats and police officers, up to the Mayor. The concentration and indeed personalisation of power is thus an important characteristic of governance in Dhaka. Besides the key figures in the national government and the military, senior police officers, the Ward Commissioners and top-officials of the city’s service organisations, e.g. Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) or Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA; cf. Hossain 2011), are among the most powerful people. Following the logic of ‘being the state’, these agents close to the field of power possess ‘double power’, because they can abuse their formal bureaucratic or political position, but as bricoleurs they can also play with formal rules (cf. Cleaver 2002; Bourdieu 2006; Garcia-Rincon 2007; chapter 3.2.2). Thereby the most powerful can accumulate “wealth and power to benefit oneself, family, relatives and party people at any cost, in the easiest manner, and in the shortest possible time” (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004: 422), for instance by taking decisions favourable to oneself, by putting pressure on lower level bureaucrats so that undue favours are provided, by vigorous lobbying and extensive bribing, by exchanging favours with other powerful people, and by “outright theft and plunder” (ibid). Besides these state agents, the leaders of the political parties, influential industrialists, businessmen and traders as well as musclemen (mastaans), who are the local heads of criminal syndicates, are also positioned in or close to the field of power. Among other illegal sources of revenue the ‘political criminals’ are extorting ‘security money’ (so called chanda payments) from street vendors, local businesses and residents in turn for patronage (chapter 9.2.4). They maintain close links to politicians, trade unions and other associations and to the local authorities, including the police, pass on some of the extracted money and, in return, get protection from law enforcement agencies and often even positions in the state bureaucracy. The local politicians and bureaucrats, in turn, rely on the bribes from the mastaans and their organisational capacity, including their ability to mobilise protesters and voters among their protectorates (slum politics), to enhance their own political power and derive personal benefits from their position (cf. Monem 2006; see figures 3.1 and 5.6).

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getting rid of allegations through political power

close networks and informal practices of state agents

corruption, bribes and other criminal practices

capture of state power

illegitimate accumulation of money and power

Fig. 5.5: Relation of the Field of Street Food to the Fields of Power

Fig. 5.6: Circle of Personalization and Criminalisation of Politics Source: own draft based on Monem (2006)

Confrontational Party Politics In Bangladesh, a “winner takes it all”-governance system has historically developed, in which the degree of control over public resources is “the most critical factor determining political behaviour of interacting political actors” (IGS 2009: 5), and in which the political culture is characterised by patron-client-relations and social distrust. In this confrontational political system two major political parties stand against each other. Since 1991, the Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have taken turns in the centre of the field of power.92 After each election, the losing party, in the last election the BNP, boycotts all efforts towards consensus-oriented politics, while the winning party, in the last election the Awami League, establishes a “hegemonic control over the use of public resources to further their partisan interests (under the façade of public interest)” (ibid.). The prevalent mode of national and urban governance is highly beneficial to those political parties and state agents in power, who are then “simply not interested in any genuine change in the society, because that would undermine their existing wealth, power and influence” (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004: 423). While vividly demanding increased funds and improved management strategies to handle diverse bemoaned crises, such as the encroachment of public space, and generally supporting the idea of having reforms, the winning party is actively undermining any implementation efforts of institutional reforms that could lead to a more transparent, equitable and fair governance system and thus maintaining the status quo. 92 In the last 20 years, four parties with different ideological roots/power bases dominated politics. The Awami League won the last parliamentary elections in Dec. 2008 with 49% of the votes. BNP received 33%, Jatiya Party (JP) 7% and Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB) 5% (table 8.4).

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Implications of the Dominant Logic of Governance for the Field of Street Food What are the implications of confrontational politics at the national level and of Dhaka’s highly personalised governance system, in which the informal and indeed illegal practices of state agents play such a prominent role for the governance of the field of street food? First, the rule of law and thus also a fair governance system, in which every citizen has rights and responsibilities, only exists in theory. The formal regulation on street vending and the use of public space is relevant (chapter 5.3.2), but more important even are the informal modes of governance and personal networks. Second, party politics reach down to the very local level. In the arenas of street food vending, such as in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), the vendors are protected by their patrons of the ruling political party. In turn, the vendors have to maintain good social relations to these ‘power brokers’ (linking social capital) and pay chanda to them to secure their access to the vending site (chapter 8.1.2). Third, political changes at the national level, such as the military coup that initiated the reign of the Caretaker Government (CTG) in 2007/08 or the election win of the Awami League in late 2008, lead to perturbations in the field of street food vending, which have different manifestations in the local arenas (see table 8.8 and Annex 5). These include mass eviction drives that severely threaten the hawkers’ livelihoods, like at the beginning of the CTG in January 2007, more regular police controls the street vendors have to be prepared against, or the instalment of new power brokers at a site to whom the street vendors then have to build close ties again. Fourth, disturbances in the field of power often manifest themselves in shifts of the public opinion. Changing macro-political discourses, for instance against corruption, towards discipline and a clean, safe and orderly city, which are (re)produced by state agents, experts and the media, underpin the formal regulation of street food vending from a normative and cultural-cognitive perspective, and are used to justify restrictive measures against the hawkers. Because these public discourses crucially contribute to street food governance, the most prominent ‘story lines’ are addressed in chapter 5.3.4. 5.4.2 Formal Regulation of the Field of Street Food National Laws and Municipal Directives In the Constitution of Bangladesh it is outlined that “every citizen […] shall have the right to enter upon any lawful profession or occupation and to conduct any lawful trade or business” (Art. 40). Like in other countries, street vendors thus merely pursue their ‘right to a livelihood’ (cf. ILO 2002b: 50; Bhowmik 2010b:

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6f).93 The question is then, whether street trading as such is a ‘lawful profession’ or illegal. In Bangladesh, despite the growing demand for street food and despite the increasing number of street vendors, formal policies towards street vending did not change since the country’s independence. In contrast, the colonial laws on the sale of food, on shops’ registration and the rules of appropriate behaviour in public space were reiterated in legal frameworks in the late 1970s and 1980s. At the national level, the most relevant law on street vending is the Local Government Order of 1983. In Dhaka, the unlicensed sale of prepared food in public places has been declared illegal through the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance (1976) and the Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance (1983). With regard to the preparation and sale of food on the streets, the Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance from 1983 stresses that the Corporation may “(a) prohibit the manufacture, sale or preparation, or the exposure for sale, of any specified article of food or drink in any place or premises not licensed by the Corporation; (b) prohibit the import into the City for sale, or the sale, or the hawking for sale, of any specified article of food or drink by person not so licensed; (c) prohibit the hawking of specified articles of food and drink […]; (e) regulate the grant and withdrawal of licences under this section and the levying of fees therefore; and (f) provide for the seizure and disposal of any animal, poultry or fish intended for food which is diseased, or any article of food or drink which is noxious.” (DCC Ordinance 1983, Chapt. 3, section 95)

With regard to the inappropriate access and use of public space the DCC Ordinance states that “(1) no person shall make an encroachment, movable or immovable, on, over or under a street […] except under a licence granted by the Corporation and to the extent permitted by the licence. (2) The Corporation may by notice require the person responsible for any such encroachment to remove the same within such period as may be specified, and if the encroachment is not removed within such period, the Corporation may cause the encroachment to be removed through its own agency, and the cost, incurred thereon by the Corporation shall be deemed to be a tax levied on the persons responsible for the encroachment under this Ordinance. (3) Any person aggrieved by a notice issued under sub-section (2) may, within fifteen days, appeal to the Government whose decision thereon shall be final. (4) Notwithstanding anything in any other law, no compensation shall be payable for any encroachment removed or required to be removed under this section.” (DCC Ordinance 1983, Chapt. 7, section 115)

93 In India “all citizens shall have the right to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade, or business” (Constitution of India, Art. 19(1)(g), cited in Sundaram 2008: 23). The state is even obliged to direct its policy in a way that “the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means of livelihood” (Art. 39 (a), cited in Wipper & Dittrich 2007: 13).

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Similarly the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance from 1976 regulates offensive encroachments on public space: 67. Penalty for obstructing a footway: “Whoever drives, rides, leads, propels or leaves on any footway any vehicle, other than a perambulator, so that the same can stand across or upon such footway shall be punishable with fine which may extend to one hundred taka.” 68. Penalty for causing obstruction in street or public places: “Whoever causes obstruction in any street or public place […] by leaving any vehicle standing therein, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to one hundred taka.” 69. Penalty for exposing anything for sale contrary to regulation: “Whoever, contrary to any regulation made by the Police Commissioner, exposes or sets out anything for sale in or on any stall, booth, board, basket or in any other manner in any street or public place shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred taka.” (DCC Ordinance 1983, Chapt. 7, sections 67 to 69)

All of these formal governance tools are still in place in Dhaka today. In theory, based on these laws it should be possible for shop owners, street food vendors or other mobile hawkers to obtain a license that allows them to pursue their business legally within the premises of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). In reality, it is impossible for people with little social and economic capital, in terms of personal connections to DCC officials and sufficient money to bribe them, to obtain a licence for building even a small permanent food stall in a niche next to the footpath. And none of the more mobile street food vendors, who sell food from a rickshaw, a push-cart or a basket, reported that they could get a licence for selling food on the streets. As none is registered, all street vendors thus encroach on public space illegally and thus sustain their livelihoods in the “shadow zone of informality” (Altvater & Mahnkopf 2002: 92). On the one hand, the hawkers’ illegality is a simple legal fact. On the other hand, their legal status is the key to their vulnerability, to their exploitation by state agents and other power brokers, and – as the next chapter shows – the basis for their discursive marginalisation. The National Policy towards Street Food Vending In Bangladesh’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) street food vending is not addressed in the sections on urban poverty or the potentials of the economy, but rather and only in the section on health and food safety: “There are basically three issues around Food Safety. These are (i) access to quality and safe food for the people; (ii) reduction of food borne illness; (iii) behavioural change of the people in consuming and demanding safe food. […] The street food vendors act as an essential provider of cheap ready-to-eat food to the community. They also create a health hazard because of their use of contaminated food ingredients and water as well as the unhygienic handling of foods. Ready to eat food is also unwholesome because of its high fat content, […] Bangladesh needs to […] introduce a policy for quality control of street vended food, and undertake research activities on the epidemiology of food borne illnesses” (GoB 2005: 147f).

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In Bangladesh’s National Food Policy, street food vending as such is not addressed, but the Importance of food safety for national food security is reiterated (GoB 2006: 13). In the associated policy programme (NFPCSP) besides addressing food contamination, the “Institutionalization and Capacity Building of Street Food Systems” is identified as a priority to achieve food safety. An assessment of research needs for food security states: “Studies have pointed to the unsatisfactory conditions in which street vendors who cater to millions prepare, preserve, handle and serve food to consumers. Vendors’ poverty and illiteracy are contributing causes. Research is needed to establish mechanisms to institutionalize the street food systems and promote relevant capacities of street food vendors” (NFPCSP 2007: 45). “Enhancing quality of food services and impacts through better training and community ownership as well as establishing a realistic monitoring and evaluation system for street food vending can be a key part of action research. […] Research should focus on the nature and extent of the possible socio-economic and health and nutrition benefits accrued to both consumers and the vendors arising from the strengthening of the street food vending system” (ibid: 70).

The wording in both policy programmes already shows the discoursive framing of the topic. On the one hand, street food provides nutrition to the consumers and is closely related to poverty, both of the vendors and the customers. On the other hand, food safety and public health are the weak points of street food. It is argued that thereofre further research on street food vending and actions against street food vendors’ unhygenic practices are required. The next section will show, how such narratives structure the field of street food and marginalise the vendors. 5.4.3 The Power of Public Discourses on Street Food Vending In newspaper articles on hawkers’ evictions, in interviews with experts and state agents, or in discussions with colleagues, similar arguments and common judgements on street vending appear. The major discourses on any theme are often not openly unveiled, but rather concealed in distinct narratives that are often repeated and thereby reinforced. These discourse-generating narratives have been called “story lines” by the political scientist Maarten Hajer. Story lines allow “actors to draw upon various discursive categories to give meaning to specific physical or social phenomena” (Hajer 2000: 56) and they structure and simplify complex systems of knowledge. Moreover, story lines enable agents to position themselves in a political field, they unify like-minded agents in ‘discursive coalitions’, and they are used to legitimise certain practices, political campaigns and institutions as such (Schultheis 2010: 61).

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Number and frequency addressed in expert inter views

interviews with regulators

88 29%

21 29%

25 36%

The need of the urban poor to sustain a livelihood is addressed, and also the potential of street vending for poverty reduction.

36 12%

6 8%

15 22%

utility & demand

The high demand for and importance of fairly cheap, flexible or readily available services for poor consumers is highlighted.

33 11%

8 11%

8 12%

local food culture

Street food is an important element of urban life and an indicator of a rich and diverse Bangladeshi food culture. Often used in articles on Iftari snacks that are sold on Dhaka’s street during Ramadan.

19 6%

7 10%

2 3%

221 72%

52 71%

44 64%

Story Lines

Description of the Story Line

Positive connotations: Street (food) vending as a vital, necessary & important aspect of urban life urban poverty & livelihoods

Negative connotations: Street (food) vending as illegal, illegitimate and inappropriate and as a threat to the public order

newspaper articles

illegality

Street (food) vending as an illegal activity that is against the state law and against other formal rules such as directives of the Dhaka City Corporation.

31 10%

9 12%

2 3%

corruption & extortion

Local (criminal) relations between street vendors and powerful agents are addressed. This includes the extraction of security payments (chanda) from hawkers to the police, mastaans or political leaders.

53 17%

13 18%

15 22%

public security

The involvement of street vendors in petty crime is debated, and the general importance of maintaining discipline, law and order in public space.

14 5%

9 12%

1 1%

a functional city

Street vending is ‘in the way’ or competing with more adequate uses of public space, such as traffic, parking or recreation. Often used story line to legitimise the eviction of hawkers from the streets.

69 22%

7 10%

4 6%

modernity & development

Street (food) vending as backward, traditional or obsolete as it counteracts a modern city image and efforts for development and city beautification.

16 5%

0 -

3 4%

food safety, hygiene and public health

Street food as a public health concern, because the safety of food that is sold under unhygienic conditions is questioned. This story line is often used to legitimise the eviction of street food vendors.

39 13%

14 19%

19 28%

Tab. 5.4: Common Discourses on Street (Food) Vending Source: own analysis conducted by K. Schlake in 2009 and by B. Etzold in 2010/11 with Atlas.ti Note: These story lines were identified in 210 press articles on hawkers and street (food) vending in Bangladesh (mainly in Dhaka), which were published in between January 2003 and December 2009 in the newspaper ‘The Daily Star’, as well as in semi-structured interviews with six experts and 14 ‘regulators’ of street food vending (interviews 2007-2010). All articles of the Daily Star can be accessed in its news archive: http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/index.php#archive.

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Street vendors’ visible appropriation of public space makes them not only antagonists of state agents, but also subjects in a public debate that is embedded in an overarching economic, legal, social and cultural discourses: “Street vendors are accused of many things: of being dirty and ‘ugly’, of not paying their share of taxes, of selling illegal or contraband goods, of being unhygienic, of blocking public transit, and of making too much noise. […] the underlying complaint by many city administrators, local business, or residents is that they are there” (Cross & Karides 2007: 19).

Nine major discursive story lines on street food vending in Dhaka could be identified by analysing 210 articles of the local newspaper ‘The Daily Star’ (2003 to 2009), and by interpreting semi-structured interviews with six local experts, who were academics and NGO representatives working on urbanisation, poverty and labour relations, as well as a journalist, and with 14 so called regulators in the field of street food vending, i.e. policemen, security guards, ward commissioners, or representatives of Dhaka City Corporation. The frequency of being addressed in the articles and interviews sheds light on the relative weight of a story line in the public opinion.A depreciative attitude dominates the public discourse. Three quarters of all coded passages set street (food) vending in a rather negative light and address it as illegal, illegitimate and inappropriate and as a threat to the public order. The six depreciative story lines can be labelled a functional city, modernity and development, food safety and hygiene, and closely connected to one another illegality, public security and corruption and extortion. In contrast, three story lines address street food vending as a necessary, vital and even important aspect of urban life. These supportive story lines revolve around the themes urban poverty and secure livelihoods, utility and high demand, and the local food culture (see table 5.4). Mainly drawing on own interviews with state agents and experts, these story lines are introduced in the following. The analysis shows that these narratives provide a normative and cultural-cognitive underpinning for regulative institutions, in general (cf. Scott 2008), and that they are used to justify the eviction of street food vendors, in particular (chapter 8). Moreover, how people speak about street food vending, whether positive or negative connotations arise in the discussions, reveals the relative position of agents in the broader social field. Supportive Story Lines: Street (Food) Vending as a Vital Element of Urban Life The first story line on urban poverty and livelihoods revolves around street food vending as a source of livelihood for the urban poor. Some experts commented that given the influx of poor people into the megacity and the barriers to formal employment, street vending is a field of labour that grew significantly in recent years (interviews with A. Hossain, 30.12.07; M. Khan, 02.01.08; N. Islam, 26.02.10; chapter 5.2.4). As the urban poor need to sustain a livelihood, many regulators consciously ignore the vendors and justify their tolerance towards the street traders with their own social responsibility towards the poor: A police of-

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ficer reported despite their illegal activity, the police arrests street vendors only seldom, because “they are very poor people, who have no other choice than to do their business” (interview, 31.12.07). Similarly, a gateman at the university hospital pities the vendors and therefore handles them “flexibly”, as he said. Whenever it is possible, he allows them to sell in front of the hospital gate although this goes against his formal duties: “Gorib Manush, Ki Korbo?” (Poor people, what they will do?; interview, 10.06.09). Street food vendors, in turn, refer to this story line themselves and some try to use it to their own advantage. When asked whether some people would do him harm, Ahmed Hilam, a tea vendor in Islambagh, replied: “No, there is nobody like this. All the people help me, because I am poor. They have sympathy on me. Sometimes they also think how I could extend my business” (interview, 13.02.09). Abdur, who sells tea and snacks in front of the university hospital, has to deal with evictions by the police regularly. In case a policeman approaches him, he would say that he is “only a poor man”. He hoped that by evoking the state agent’s pity, he would be spared from eviction (interview, 07.02.09). The second narrative revolves around the utility of street (food) vending. The importance of fairly cheap, flexible and readily available food for the urban consumers, and in particular the contribution of required street food to the food security of the urban poor, is sketched in chapter 6.3.2. According to Anwara Begum from the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies there is a great gap between the services that public bodies such as DCC can provide in sufficient quantity and the actual needs that the citizens require. The services of the informal economy would be generated through the needs of the population (interview 09.07.2010). Several key informants underscored this hypothesis of the insufficiency of the formal food provisioning system. In Islambagh, for instance, the rise of the plastic recycling industries has increased the demand for street food. Thousands of workers, who live in the nearby slums of Kamraginchar, cannot afford the food from the authorised bather hotels, but rely on very cheap snacks from the street (interview with the manager of Islambagh’s community park, 03.03.09). A police officer, who is responsible for the campus of Dhaka University, told me that there were 29,000 students on the campus, who require good food, but who also want cheap snacks. On the campus, students can eat in the canteens of their student halls or get snacks from only three approved food shops. The street food vendors would only try to satisfy the very high demand for supplement snacks (interview, 02.01.08). When the authorities had banned street food vendors from the campus after the outburst of violence in August 2007 (chapter 8.3), many teachers and students had even approached the university’s security guards and asked them not to push the food vendors out, as they need and want these cheap snacks and the good tea (interview with a DU security officer, 13.01.08). The third positive story line praises street food as an important element of the local food culture. Open air food shops are a common feature in villages all over Bangladesh. Eating outside is then an aspect of the rural food culture that came into the city with rural-to-urban migrants. As part of an urban lifestyle, men, no matter whether they are rickshaw pullers or intellectuals, have always enjoyed a

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cup of tea at the street corner (interview, N. Islam, 26.02.2010). Nowadays, under the impact of globalisation and changing gender roles, Bangladesh’s whole food culture is further changing (chapters 3.6.2, 6.3.1 and 6.3.2). Among younger people, eating out has become a habit, and they enjoy pleasure street food, which reflects a rich and diverse food culture. A local newspaper’s magazine for a young audience was titled “Khao, Bangladesh, Khao! A special tribute to our street food industry”. It praised “mobile bistros” that serve “fresh, hand-made and delicate cuisine at the lowest prices imaginable. With the essence of local spices and flavours of Dhaka traffic jam, this range of deshi ‘fast food’ will leave any Bengali craving for more. […] street food is a deshi tradition that should be an eye-opener for everyone searching for cheaper, yet delicious substitutes”.94

This story line is often replicated in the newspapers during Ramadan when Iftari products are sold on Dhaka’s streets. On the buzzling market of Chawk Bazar in the heart of old Dhaka we counted more than 220 street vendors who sold special Iftari snacks and fruits to hundreds of people just before the break of the daily fasting (own observations and counting, 10.09.08). One customer reported that the taste of the Iftari snacks from the street vendors at Chawk Bazar “is simply divine and cannot be compared with anything that the modern restaurants offer.”95 Even the former ambassador of Bangladesh to the United Nations noted in a newspaper article that “street foods are an important source and way of life in cities. The street vendors, although a possible source of food poisoning outbreaks, are a necessary part of modern urban life”.96 Depreciative Story Lines: Street Vending as Illegal, In the Way and Backward Depreciative views seem to dominate the public debate on street food vending. The first rather negative story line addresses the illegality of the street food trade. According to municipal law, the sale or preparation of food is only allowed in restaurants, food stalls or markets that have obtained a license from the Dhaka City Corporation, and encroachments on the street, no matter whether they are permanent or temporary, have to permitted by the DCC, too (chapter 5.3.2). As virtually none of the interviewed street food vendors had a vending licence – although some heard rumours that such licenses do exist – and they do encroach on footpaths or the street without permission, all of them pursue their business illegally. The Chief Urban Planner of the Dhaka City Corporation, which has the duty to keep the city’s streets clean and orderly, clearly stated: “Street food vendors are not registered. They are not authorised. They cannot sell food legally on the streets” (interview, 07.01.2008). The story line of illegality enables the state to evict street vendors and other illegal, and thus illicit, encroachers on public space 94 “Khao, Bangladesh, Khao! [Eat, Bangladesh, eat!]”, in ‘Rising Stars´, The Daily Star, 03.01.2008. 95 ‘Chawkbazar air full of Iftar aroma´, The Daily Star, 08.09.2008. 96 ‘Food Adulteration: A serious criminal offence´, Daily Star, 06.08.2005 (emphasis added).

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and to demolish their structures whenever it is deemed necessary. The illegality story line appeared very frequently in the media in those years, in which there were multiple eviction drives against hawkers, for instance in 2005 (SAARC summit) and during the reign of the Caretaker Government in 2007/08. In the same years, however, the positive narratives of livelihoods for the poor and the demand for their services were also used by journalists in order to raise public awareness about the plight of evicted street vendors (see chapter 8.3). The second dismissive story line refers to corruption and extortion. Numerous media articles debate the political-economic relations between market traders and street vendors on the one side, and agents close to the field of power such as policemen, mastaans or political leaders on the other side. The extraction of security payments (chanda) from hawkers is described openly. In most interviews, state agents and regulators tried to avoid an answer to an obviously politically sensitive question: “What informal or illegal mechanisms exist that regulate the street trade?” The few answers I got nonetheless reveal the macro-political changes under the Caretaker Government, in which the fight against organised crime played a prominent role. A Ward Commissioner, the elected political representative of the city’s lowest administrative unit, said that she had heard of chanda payments to the police, but that nobody would know any details about it. She also pointed out that during the previous government hawkers were tolerated, but now the CTG would be very strict, because of the anti-corruption drive (interview, 06.01.2008). Similarly, the DCC’s Chief Urban Planner said that, in general, food markets were not primarily controlled by the DCC or the Government of Bangladesh, but rather by big businessmen. Local mastaans had used to play a prominent role, but would not at present (interview, 07.01.08). A police officer reported that illegal toll collection systems did exist, but now it would be strictly prohibited and the police would try to stop these payments (interview, 31.12.07). While the director of a local NGO reported that political mastaans have disappeared through the efforts of the military-backed interim government (interview with M.Q. Khan, CUP, 02.01.08), a journalist argued that there were no major changes, the ”unholy“ nexus between criminals and state agents would only operate in disguise (interview, 30.12.07). This study proves the continuity of extortion systems, which are a fundamental part of the informal governance of public space (chapter 8.1.2). In the context of the third rather negative story line, street (food) vending is addressed as a matter of public security and discipline. Hawkers’ daily practices are set in a ratio with petty crime and the importance of maintaining law and order in public space is reiterated. Interestingly, in 2007 it was noted in the media that an increase in cases of pickpocketing and other street crimes were linked to the mass eviction drives against hawkers and their search for livelihood alternatives (chapter 8.3). The Ansers, a special law and order force, are employed by the central government in times of political instability. An Anser commander stated they the director of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH), had called them to ensure public security and maintain discipline at the hospital as their own gatemen would fail in their efforts to do so and allow too many street vendors in front of DMCH (interview, 10.06.09). The Dhaka University also employs security guards

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who walk around the campus to ensure the safety of students, teachers and staff. It is one of their objectives to minimise the number of “outsiders”, like street vendors, on the DU campus (interview, DU security officer, 13.01.08). In Islambagh, a local political leader reported that food vendors would sometimes try to set up their push-carts right in front of the mosque, but he could not “permit” and drive them away that because of “the disturbance of discipline” (interview, 03.03.09). I have called the fourth depreciative story line a functional city. Street (food) vendors would be ‘in the way’ as they sit or stand on footpaths and even encroach on the streets and make it difficult for pedestrians to pass by. Their services thus compete with more adequate uses of public space, such as traffic (rickshaws, cars, etc.), parking or recreation. This narrative is closely related to very vivid debate about (the impossibility of) urban planning in the megacity. It is addressed in the media very frequently and has often been used by state agents to legitimise eviction drives. Ahead of the SAARC summit in Dhaka in 2005, an official from DCC justified eviction drives against 200,000 vendors, who would occupy about 70 percent of Dhaka’s 163 kilometers of pavements with security concerns and general measures towards ‘city beautification’.97 A readers’ letter to a newspapers shows that some middle-class citizens want free footpaths, but do not care much about the urban poor: “'They are poor'… if that is the line of argument then we should turn blind eyes to the people encroaching parks, car parks, fields or any empty places in the city to build slums. The purpose of having footpaths on both sides of the road is to ensure safety to the pedestrians and not to sell things. If you want to sell things, you have markets.”98 At the Sadarghat Ferry Terminal, we counted 168 vendors on the jetty and on the street right in front of the terminal in one afternoon (own counting, 12.03.2009, 5 p.m.). A key informant pointed out that too many food vendors would hinder passengers’ movements. Because overcrowding of the jetty poses a security risk, the BIWTA authority would have to drive the hawkers away occasionally (interview, 17.02.09). The Anser commander, who was employed at the university hospital, in turn said that the chaotic behavior of both visitors and street vendors causes too much congestion at the hospitals gates. As this poses a severe problem, in particular in the case of an emergency, they would have to keep the gate and the footpath free (interview, 10.06.09). In the light of the fifth story line of modernity and development, street (food) vending is a backward or even parasitic practice that is not only against the rule of law, but also detrimental to the overall national development and to the city authorities’ efforts to improve infrastructure, to beautify the city and to gain a modern city image (Cross & Morales 2007a: 6). According to Cross and Karides (2007: 19) in those world cities, in which investors seek to renovate potentially attractive areas for tourism and for profits on the real-estate market, the street vendors’ struggle for space is particularly acute. Although Dhaka is undergoing 97 ‘Pedestrians get back footpaths for a change´, The Daily Star, 11.11.2005. See also ‘pedestrians worst victims of road crashes´, 16.05.09, and ‘Footpath is a mysterious issue in our country´, The Daily Star, 20.04.08. 98 ‘The Dilemma of the Hawkers´, The Daily Star, 16.02.07.

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rapid transformations that relate to its integration in the global economy, the megacity is clearly not at the forefront of such a trend. Nonetheless, the debate about the value of representative plazas, clean public parks, nice riversides and free pavements, and thus about the appropriate use of public space is taking off in Dhaka, too (cf. Bertuzzo 2009; Preetha 2011; Hackenbroch 2013). To give an example, the environmental condition of and the encroachments on the river Buriganga are an eyesore for many citizens of Dhaka. Plans for development and beautification of the riverside in between Sadarghat and the Buriganga Bridge at Badamtoli have come up, in which katcha markets and street food shops do not play any role: “The economic life of the area could be revitalized through new commercial generators, such as well-planned shops and markets (rather than the “lakri” stores and chhapras [small wooden shacks], and hovels lining the river now), hotels, restaurants, and other enterprises. All these could create a tourist potential that in turn will generate new economic bonanza.”99 Following such a modernist vision of development as well, an official from the university noted that street vending will be completely banished, if only Dhaka’s infrastructure is improved and the nation develops further in economic terms (interview, 31.12.07). However, the automatic disappearance of street food vendors from Dhaka through economic development and urban renewal seems to be unrealistic. In city quarters that already have a posh image, such as Gulshan or Dhanmondi, it shows that street food vending continuous to exist. Indeed, the better-off do not consume any street food, but their service personal such as drivers or security guards are regular customers of street food shops. Moreover, the upper-class youth still enjoys pleasure street food from time to time.100 Following this logic, it is then not economic development, but rather a further changing food culture and the reduction of socio-economic inequalities that might lead to a decreasing significance of Dhaka’s field of street food vending in the future. Street Food as a Risk to Food Safety, Hygiene and Public Health The sixth and last depreciative story line revolves around food safety, hygiene and public health. Like in other cities of the Global South (cf. FAO 1997; Tinker 1997; Lues et al. 2006; te Lintelo 2009), the allegedly unhygienic and unhealthy conditions of street food are at the forefront of the public debate on street food vending in Bangladesh, too (cf. Naheed et al. 2002; CAB 2004, 2010; FPMU 2011). Street food vending is often discussed in the media, in public workshops and international conferences as a safety risk for consumers as the hygienic conditions of food markets in general and street food shops in particular, the food handling practices of the street vendors and the pollution and adulteration of food

99 ‘Sadarghat River Front Development´, The Daily Star, 15th Anniversary Special, 10.02.2006. 100 Cf. ‘Crimes, social nuisances haunt residents of posh Gulshan´, the Daily Star, 08.12.08; ‘Losing another ‘Mama´, The Daily Star, Rising Stars, 06.12.07.

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items are objected (see table 5.4, figure 5.7).101 Due to rising public awareness about food safety, at least among the more educated class, street food is increasingly seen as a public health concern. In Bangladesh’s Poverty Reduction Strategy street food vending has been addressed, but interestingly not in the sections on urban poverty or employment potentials of the informal economy, but rather in the section on food safety, where it states that a “large number of poor people have little access to quality food […] The street food vendors act as an essential provider of cheap ready-to-eat food to the community. They also create a health hazard because of their use of contaminated food ingredients and water as well as the unhygienic handling of foods” (GoB 2005: 147f). Further research on the epidemiology of food borne illnesses was demanded in this important policy document. As food safety is a fundamental aspect of food security, in Bangladesh’s National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme financed by the FAO, the European Commission and US-Aid, more research on the utilisation, the quality and safety of street food was also called for (NFPCSP 2007: 68ff). In Dhaka a study on street vending and food safety was recently conducted by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh. 300 street food vendors were questioned regarding their food handling practices and personal hygiene, and 400 food samples were collected from them. The micro-biological analysis of street food samples, such as singaras, the chickpea snack boot or sugar cane juice, showed a concentration of coliform bacteria and other germs far above the levels that are deemed acceptable according to international food safety standards (figure 5.7).

Fig. 5.7: Bacterial Contamination of Street Foods in Dhaka Source: FPMU (2011: 2; CAB 2010) Note: See the Street Food Glossary in table 6.12 in the annex for descriptions of these food items.

101 Cf. ‘Healthy tiffins give way to snacks and junk food´, 27.07.2003; ‘Food adulteration. Consumers’ rights at stake´, 14.12.2003, ‘No check on unhygienic street food´, 05.10.05, ‘Stopping gastroenteritis in summer´, 18.04.2009; ‘Schoolboy dies of food poisoning´, 04.10.2009.

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Reportedly, the reasons for bacterial contamination were: – – – –

unfavourable environmental conditions at the vending sites as some street shops are sitting right next to open sewers, not adequate food handling practices during transport, storage, preparation and serving of food, already contaminated water used for preparation, and inadequate personal hygiene.

As a result, consumers would be at a medium to high risk of acquiring food-borne diseases such as gastroenteritis and diarrhoea or even typhoid fever and hepatitis (CAB 2010; FPMU 2011). The study concludes that although particularly lower income groups meet “a substantial part of its dietary and nutritional needs” by eating outdoors, most street foods are “dangerous for the health of consumers” (FPMU 2011: 1). Comparisons with food samples from bather hotels, fast food outlets or canteens were not presented in the study, so it is difficult to judge whether eating street food actually poses a higher health risk than eating in modern restaurants. Studies in other cities around the globe, however, reject the common conception of street food as being unhygienic. The overall quality of street food would be “acceptable”, because the “food handling practices of [street] vendors generally reflect prevailing local standards and food sold on the street is not significantly more contaminated than that sold in restaurants” (Tinker 1997: 189, see also; Mensah et al. 2002: 549; Lues et al. 2006: 327). The urban poor’s lay theories of health and ill-health (cf. Sakdapolrak 2010: 205ff), their health strategies and their resilience to food being unsafe according to international standards, are often not acknowledged. Surveys show that about one third of interviewed slum dwellers in Dhaka argue that they would not take food or drinks from roadside shops, because the conditions of food preparation and sale are unhygienic and they would not want to risk becoming sick. Only a quarter of the slum dwellers does actually get sick occasionally from consuming street food and then suffer from stomach pain or diarrhoea. The majority, however, had never become sick from eating street food (see chapter 6.3.2). Most interviewed experts, who are part of the educated elite, share the dominant discourse of unsafe street food. According to Dr. Aliya Naheed from the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), there would be no doubt that a “chain of microbiological contaminations from processing to storing to vending” makes street food a public health risk. Nonetheless, wide gaps in the perception of the quality of street food exist: The educated rich would see all street food as unhygienic and refrain from its consumption. Most of the uneducated poor consumers would not be aware of the consequences of taking bad street food, or as they are used to unclean drinking water they would be more resilient to food-borne diseases that might be passed on by street food with a high microbial load. The vendors, in turn, would think that their food is indeed safe (interview, 14.01.08). Nazrul Islam from the Centre of Urban Studies commented that consumers themselves have to be vocal about the safety of street

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food: They would get a better quality and more cleanliness, if they only demanded it. But as most of the regular street food customers looked mainly for the price, everything would stay as it was and no attention would be given to improve food safety (interview, 26.02.10). This goes in line with a key informant’s observation who noted that the quality of the food sold around the plastic processing factories in Islambagh seems to have decreased, while the amount of vendors increased due to a very high food demand from the workers (interview, 03.03.09). State agents and local regulators of the arenas of street food vending make frequent use of the story line of unhygienic street food. When asked about the quality of street food in Dhaka, the director of the DCC’s Health Department stated that food safety is an important issue, no matter from where food is sold. As the DCC has only 18 sanitary inspectors who regularly do food quality and hygiene checks at the thousands of bather hotels and modern restaurants all over the megacity, they cannot control the increasing number of street food vendors, too. He therefore argued that NGOs and social organisations should be included in health care, sanitation and food safety issues. Most importantly, however, public awareness regarding “these unhygienic street foods” has to be raised (interview, 13.01.08). A security officer at the Dhaka University acknowledged that street vendors would be poor and have little other livelihood alternatives. It should, however, not be encouraged to sell food in open space. “Because they are unhygienic” the university authorities would “take a hard line” against street food vendors and not allow them to remain on the campus (interview, 31.12.07). Delegitimising the Social Practice – Marginalising the Vendors – Justifying State Action Frequent reference to the depreciative narratives on street food vending is a practice of the powerful to govern the field of street food vending restrictively. In South Asia, the quality, cleanliness and purity of food plays a pivotal role in public and private debates (cf. Mukhopadhyay 2004; te Lintelo 2009). Therefore, the story line of food safety is a particularly powerful tool of street food governance that dwarfs the arguments in favour of this trade (the story lines on urban poverty and livelihoods, on utility and demand, and food culture). There seems to be a powerful discursive coalition of agents from the state, the city municipality, consumer associations and the media, who link the aforementioned negative story lines as they argue that street food poses a health risk to the public and that the vendors are ‘in the way’ in multiple ways: politically, they do not obey the law, they are embedded in criminal networks and are a threat to the public order; functionally, they block crucial streets, pavements and thoroughfares; and aesthetically, they are an eyesore for visionaries of a modern, safe and orderly city. As follows, street food is delegitimised as an unsafe or even dangerous product, and, even more important, the social practice of selling street food is delegitimised, too.

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Seen from above (from positions of state power) street food vending is then not only illegal and informal, but also illicit and inappropriate; while seen from below (from the perspectives of the vendors themselves) it is ‘extra-legal’ and informal, but licit and appropriate (chapter 3.2.3). The repetitive use of the depreciative story lines thus contributes to the normative marginalisation of street food vending and provides the ground for state action against street food vendors and their further exploitation (see chapter 8).

5.5 INTERIM CONCLUSION: ILLEGALISATION AND MARGINALISATION OF THE FIELD OF STREET FOOD What is the position of the field of street food vending in the megacity of Dhaka? Under which conditions did it emerge historically? How does the relation to the state and public discourses shape the conditions in the field? These questions drove the analysis in chapter five. My findings can be summarised with reference to the buzz-words illegalisation and informalisation, megaurbanisation and impoverishment, as well as regulation and marginalisation. First, although I could not provide sufficient insights on the early history of the street food trade (prior to the 1950s), it is likely that the sale of small snacks and drinks in public spaces has been a well-established profession back then. Under colonial rule, this unregulated,102 unregistered and uncounted social and economic practice was categorised through formal modes of governance as illegal – the emerging field of street food vending was illegalised. After colonisation, under Pakistani rule, the colonial logic and subsequent laws largely prevailed. After independence in 1971, at the same time when the concept of the informal sector was invented and travelled around the globe, street food vending became an inherent part of this subcategory of the urban economy – the well-established field of street food vending was informalised (chapter 5.2.1). Second, Bangladesh’s independence spurred a conflation of wealth, knowledge, people and power, i.e. a rapid concentration of economic, informational, social, symbolic and statist capital, in Dhaka. The city’s exceptional primacy, their number of people and their territory grew further through megaurbanisation at a globally unprecedented speed (chapter 5.2.3). The impoverishment of Dhaka’s growing population continues to be single most important driver for the growth of the field of street food: Incoming migrants needed employment and lower-middle class and poor consumer groups demanded readily-prepared food. In the past 30 years, the further evolution of this field reflects the broader social, economic, cultural and political transformations in Bangladesh (chapter 5.2.3/5.2.4). 102 Of course, rules introduced by the Moguls, Muslim law and social norms have regulated economic interactions and public life prior to Colonial rule effectively. However, analysing these was beyond the scope of this study.

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Third, street food vending in Dhaka is a prime example of the ambivalent relations between a ‘Third World’ state and its predominantly poor citizens. The existing formal regulation is far from the reality of the everyday lives of the poor and thereby restricts their livelihood options. On a legal basis, whenever they feel obliged to do so, municipal authorities have the option to curtail the street food trade as the vendors ‘expose food for sale’, to evict the vendors as they ‘cause an obstruction’, to demolish their shops as they ‘encroach on the street’, and to criminalize their vending practices as they are ‘unlicensed’ (chapter 5.3.2). Given the highly personalised structure of the field of power (chapter 5.3.1), agents with statist capital, i.e. police officers or DCC-officials, can play with the existing laws by turning a blind eye or allow exceptions to the rule in order to generate personal profits (see chapter 8). Moreover, frequent reference to their illegality and to other discursive story lines that revolve around health and food hygiene, city functionality and beautification as well as secure public spaces are often used to set the everyday practices of the street food vendors in a negative light. The discursive marginalisation of the street food vendors is an example for the rejection of poor city dwellers’ licit claims for their right to a livelihood (chapter 5.3.3). In Bangladesh, it therefore shows that the combination of legislation, policy frameworks and public opinion is a powerful tool of macro-political governance that aims at legitimising the illegal practices of agents close to the field of power, while it further delegitimises the unwanted everyday practices of the weak. Nonetheless, hegemonic attitudes towards street food vending cannot obscure the fact that, not only in Bangladesh, street food plays an important and even increasing role for urban food security (cf. Sujatha et al. 1997; Tinker 1998, 1999). The following chapter therefore turns to fields of employment and urban food consumption for further inquiry.

6 STREET FOOD VENDING AND URBAN FOOD SECURITY The following chapter examines the contribution of street food vending to employment and food security in Dhaka. Conceptually, I draw on food system concept and on the discussion of urban food security as laid down in chapter 3.5. In a first step, by looking at available statistical data, fields of food – and the field of street food as one of them – are identified as crucial fields of labour in Bangladesh and Dhaka (chapter 6.1). In a second step, the field of food consumption is addressed with a focus on food security and a changing urban food culture. Results from a food consumers’ survey proves that food consumption patterns crucially depend on households’ incomes, i.e. on the access to labour and food (chapter 6.2). In a third step, the relation of the field of street food vending to the field of food consumption is looked at. In doing so, I distinguish between street food as a supplement and as a substitute to home-prepared food and between pleasure and required street foods. As street food is most often cheaper than food from permanent bather hotels, it is of particular importance for the urban poor and for an increasingly mobile workforce. It is shown that street food vending is not only part of the urban food culture, but also highly significant for urban food security.

Key Question: What is the contribution of street food vending to urban food security? 1.

How many people are employed in Dhaka’s fields of food and in the field of street vending?

2.

What is the state of food security in Dhaka? Which consumer groups take which kinds of street food? Who relies on street food for food security? Where are the hot spots of street food consumption in Dhaka?

3. 4. Fig. 6.1: Dhaka’s Fields of Food and (in)formal Labour Relations

5.

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6.1 FIELDS OF FOOD AND THE FIELD OF LABOUR Why Numbers do Matter “‘Political Arithmetik’, for instance, is an important aspect of modern power […]. The use of classificatory frames, objectification and counting as an aspect of normalizing power is something quite unique to the modern state. […] Statistical representations have by far been the most potent form of representation and indeed of constructing the worlds, for enabling interventions […] in the economic, social or political fields” (Kalpagam 2000: 43).

Nation states – and also international organisations like the UN – do have the power to collect, disseminate and analyse statistics. In turn, assembling data enables knowledge production and effective governance techniques (cf. Bourdieu 1994: 7; 1998: 106; Foucault 2005). British colonial rule in South Asia marked the beginning of systematic data collection on the population and the mapping of its territories. This knowledge production by the state culminated in new forms of governance through classification systems and through the selective recognition of social and occupational groups (cf. Appadurai 1996; Kalpagam 2000; Bandyopadhyay 2009). As follows, public discourses, state policies and interventions, e.g. in the context of poverty alleviation, are often based on academic analysis of the ‘objectified truth’ of statistical data. It appears that a part of the fascination in the informality debate stems from the fact that one is looking at social phenomena that are hard to grasp. One tries to ‘count the uncountable’ and ‘measure the immeasurable’. Street food vendors and other agents in the informal economy are not only not taxed, not politically represented, not legally embedded, or not socially protected; but they are also not registered, and thus not ‘countable’ through direct statistical methods of the state apparatus. Nonetheless, there seems to be a need for reliable, if not ‘objective’, statistical data on street vendors (cf. ILO 2002c: 51). Being aware of the discrepancies between the available population and labour force data collected by Bangladesh’s Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and own surveys, the following sections gives a statistical overview of formal and informal employment in Bangladesh and Dhaka (6.1.1), and of fields of food as the single most important field of labour (6.1.2). Own estimates then show that street food vending provides a livelihood for at least 95,000 people in Dhaka, and is thus not a marginal, but a vital, element of urban labour relations (6.1.3). 6.1.1 Formal and Informal Labour in Bangladesh and Dhaka Informality is one of the most significant aspects in the working life of the majority of Dhaka’s population: In 2010 approximately 5.4 million people, i.e. two third of the total labour force, worked in informal employment relations in Dhaka. For the national statistics, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) defined the informal sector as “employment in enterprises with less than 10 workers” (Amin 2002: 9). The data provided on the base of this definition is used for inter-

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national statistics such as those assembled by the ILO or the World Bank. According to such a definition, Bangladesh’s informal sector compromises 79 percent of the employed labour force (BBS 2004: 117). But if we do not look at the nature of the businesses, i.e. the ‘informal sector’, but focus on ‘informal employment relations’ (as suggested by Chen 2005) the number and share of people in the informal economy is by far greater. According to Maligalig et al. (2009: 2), informal labour relations can be defined as employment that is “not subject to labour legislation, income taxation, social protection or entitlement to certain employment benefits.” They use five indicators to define informal employment relations in Bangladesh: the employment status, the sector of work, the mode of payment, the registration of the business, and the availability of written accounts in the business (ibid: 5ff). Their data suggest that not 79, but 88 percent of all employment relations can be classified as informal (see table 6.1 in the annex). In rural areas (92%) by far most labour relations are informal, while in Bangladesh’s rapidly growing urban areas 82 percent of the working people are employed informally. Virtually all labour in the agricultural sector (99.6%) and in domestic employment (99.1%) is informal. In comparison, 94 percent of labourers in the construction sector, 89 percent of all workers in wholesale and retail trade as well as in the transport sector, 86 percent of people working in hotels and restaurants, and 70 percent of industrial labourers are in informal employment relations (ibid: 21). Within the informal field of labour, the largest segment are the self-employed workers, such as street vendors, with 45 percent; 25 percent are irregularly paid wage workers, such as day labourers; and 25 percent are unpaid family workers. Only five percent are regularly paid employees, and 0.3 percent are employers themselves (ibid: 17, 26). Among men, 87 percent were in informal labour relations, while among women 91 percent worked informally – in particular as unpaid family workers or day labourers (ibid: 26ff). In Dhaka Division, about 83 percent of all employment relations are informal, and in all Bangladesh’s statistical metropolitan areas, including Dhaka megacity, the average share was 67 percent (Maligalig et al. 2009: 20). In 2010, Dhaka’s active labour force stood at approximately 5.6 million people. Hence, 3.7 million people were in informal employment relations; three percent of them (115,000 people) were hawkers, and 2.6 percent (97,000 people) street food vendors (own estimate). In Dhaka, in between 500,000 to 750,000 (Islam 2005: 25; Siddiqui et al. 2010: 241, both estimates for 2005) men work as rickshaw pullers. Street vendors are then probably the second biggest occupational group in the informal economy. Other informal employment opportunities in Dhaka are factory work, construction labour, peri-urban agriculture or other day labour, for instance as a carrier of goods at markets. Most poor women, in turn, are involved in the readymade garments industry, precariously employed as domestic maids or involved in unpaid family labour (cf. Siddiqui et al. 1990; Amin 2002; Salway et al. 2003; Islam 2005; World Bank 2007; Maligalig et al. 2009; Siddiqui et al. 2010). These basic trends of informality are displayed here in order to show that informal employment in Bangladesh, in terms of irregular incomes, insecure employment, no social protection, is neither a marginal social phenomena nor the mere problem of

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a particular social or occupational group. The majority of the people in Bangladesh and in the megacity of Dhaka, including 97,000 street food vendors, are predominantly living and working in informality. 6.1.2 Employment in Bangladesh’s Fields of Food Fields of food are the most fundamental socio-ecological field upon which all human beings depend. Economic practices in this field largely drive the economies of the countries of the Global South, the livelihoods of billions of people, and thus their food security. The global field of food generates substantial profits, although only three percent of the World Gross Product stems from agricultural production (World Bank 2008: 341).103 In South Asia, food production, processing, trade and preparation are the drivers of the economy. In Bangladesh, agriculture, fishery and forestry contribute 18 percent, wholesale and retail trade (non-food items included) 14 percent and food preparation in bather hotels and restaurants 0.7 percent to the GDP (BBS 2011a: 1). Together, these sub-fields make up one third of the GDP (ibid: 4). The field of food provides direct employment for one third of the world’s population and for almost half of the people living in South Asia (ILO 2009).104 According to the national labour market statistics, the field of food is the most important sector of employment in Bangladesh: Almost 57 percent of all employment is food-related, 63 percent in rural areas and 37 percent urban areas. In rural Bangladesh approximately 24.7 million people are producing food through their labour in agriculture and fishery (55% of all rural employment), are processing food (0.8%), are trading food (7%), and are preparing food in bather hotels or street food shops (0.3%). When debating urban food systems, the emphasis often lies on the tremendous economic, political and logistical challenge of providing food for millions of people (cf. Guyer 1987; FAO 1998; Aragrande & Argenti 2001). It often seems to be overlooked that the production, processing, trade, transport and preparation of food is one of the most important field of employment in the Urban South (cf. Lam 1982; Smith 1998; Bohle & Adhikari 2002). At least 5.9 million people work in the field of food in the cities and peri-urban areas of Bangladesh; about 37 percent of all urban employment then relates to food. For the megacity of Dhaka, one can estimate for 2010 that 1.9 million people work in the fields of food (table 6.2). The following sections rely on official employment statistics. It needs to be noted that in all sub-fields of food there is a large number of people, who are not regis103 Sectoral GDP-share: World: Agriculture 3%, Industry 28%, Services 69%; Low-income countries: Agriculture 20%, Industry 28%, Services 51%; South Asia: Agriculture 18%, Industry 28%, Services 54% (World Bank 2008: 341). 104 For 2008, the sectoral share of employment was: Globally: Agriculture 33.5%, Industry 23.2%, Services 43.3%; in the Global South: Agriculture 36.4%, Industry 21.7%, Services 41.9%; in South Asia: Agriculture 46.9%, Industry 22.6%, Services 30.4% (ILO 2009: 31)..

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tered, not taxed, and for whom neither employers nor the state provide social security (chapter 6.1.1). Informality, in terms of labour relations between employers and workers and exchange relations between traders and street vendors, is an inherent characteristic of Dhaka’s fields of food. Total population Potential labour force (+15 years) Labour particip. rate Economically active population (+15) Employment rate Employed pop. (+15) Employed pop. in the field of food Food production

National 148,692,000

Rural 107,216,000

Urban 41,476,000

Dhaka SMA* 14,930,000

96,450,000 59.3 %

68,833,000 59.5 %

28,328,000 59.2 %

10,197,000 54.5 %

57,313,000 40,955,000 16,770,000 5,558,000 95.7 % 95.9 % 95.0 % 92.6 % 54,849,000 39,276,000 15,932,000 5,146,000 31,099,000 24,744,000 5,911,000 1,909,000 (56.7%) (63.0%) (37.1%) (37.1%) 26,218,000 21,681,000 3,919,000 1,266,000 (47.8%) (55.2%) (24.6%) 494,000 314,000 223,000 72,000 Food processing (0.9%) (0.8%) (1.4%) 27,000 16,000 112,000 36,000 Food storage (0.05%) (0.04%) (0.1%) 236,000 128,000 41,000 Food wholesale trade 329,000 (0.6%) (0.6%) (0.8%) 3,730,000 2,396,000 1,482,000 479,000 Food retail trade (6.8%) (6.1%) (9.3%) 274,000 118,000 159,000 52,000 Food preparation (0.5%) (0.3%) (1.0%) (non-private) (in brackets: food-related employment as share of total employment) Tab. 6.2: Registered Employment in Bangladesh’s Fields of Food Data source: Estimate for DMSA; population data for 2010 (UN 2012). The number of employed people in the respective sub-fields of food in Dhaka was calculated on the basis of the extended labour force (above 15 years; World Bank 2007a: 102) and the shares of food related employment of total employment in urban areas (Labour Force Survey 2002-03; BBS 2004). Food Production

51.500 (3%)

Food Processing

478.600 (24%)

Food Storage 41.200 (2%)

Food Wholesale Trade

36.000 (2%)

Food Retail Trade

72.100 (4%) 1.267.000 (65%) Fig. 6.2: Employment in the Dhaka’s Field of Food

Food Preparation (non private, in bather hotels, etc.)

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Food Retail in Old Dhaka: Anondo Katcha Bazar

Urban Agriculture in Dhaka: Ricefield on Dhaka’s Eastern Urban fringe

Prepared Food Vending in Dhaka: Bather Hotel selling Biriyani in Nilkhet Picture 6.1:Sub-fields of food in Dhaka Source: B. Etzold, October and November 2007

Employment in the Field of Food Production and Processing Food production is the biggest sub-field in (peri-) urban areas, too, as it provides two thirds of all jobs in urban food systems, and one quarter of all urban employment opportunities (see table 6.2). In Dhaka around 1.3 million people work in agriculture, mainly in the peri-urban space that is included in Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area, and not in the densely populated Dhaka City Corporation. With 27 and 12 percent of all jobs this is the third most important field of urban employment for poor women and men, respectively (World Bank 2007: 17f). There is a significant number of jobs in the field of food processing, but two third of these are in rural areas, as the rice and grain mills and fish processing workshops are near the producers. Nonetheless, Dhaka has a tradition of food processing (Siddiqui et al. 1990: 28ff) and the number of modern food processing and packaging companies seems to increase. In 2010, about 72,000 people were employed in this segment in Dhaka.

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Employment in the Field of Food Exchange, Distribution and Retail About 36,000 people were formally engaged in storage of food in warehouses and at large food markets, but as food markets are largely organised informally the number of people in this segment is probably far greater (see the examples by Keck (2008: 32) on food storage). Food wholesalers – in the case of Bangladesh, particularly rice, wheat, vegetables and fish traders – are crucial nodes in any food distribution system. 30 percent of Bangladesh’s 329,000 food wholesale traders operate in urban areas. In Dhaka, every day about 13,000 tons of food flow through the hands of an estimated number of 41,000 traders at more than 85 large wholesale markets (cf. Keck et al. 2008; Keck 2012; Keck 2013). After food production the food retail sector is the most labour intensive subfield of food. In Bangladesh, there are roughly 3.7 million retail traders; in Dhaka, probably more than 479,000. In Bangladesh’s cities employment in food retail accounts for one quarter of food-related employment and nine percent of all labour. Four business models co-exist in this sub-field of food distribution: retail shops, kitchen markets, supermarkets and mobile hawkers. There are tens of thousands of grocery stores and neighbourhood shops that sell unprepared food such as rice, wheat flour, pulses, spices, onion, cooking oil, beverages and a broad range of household goods all over the country. From numerous kitchen markets (katcha bazaar) customers get fresh products such as vegetables, fruits, fish and meat. Many of these markets are built illegally wherever they are needed. Often they encroach on streets or other public spaces. Hundreds of thousands of iterant hawkers walk through the neighbourhoods in Bangladesh’s cities and sell vegetables, fruit, milk, eggs, meat or fish, or other not-prepared food items. In the last ten years, there has also been an increasing number of modern supermarkets, in particular in the megacity of Dhaka. The global trend of “supermarketisation” is coming to Bangladesh, too, and is likely to transform the retailing market in the next decade (cf. Traill 2006; Humphrey 2007; Wiggerthale 2007; Franz 2010).105 In contrast to the local kitchen markets and retail shops that are dispersed all over the cities, the supermarkets are spatially concentrated in or near the living quarters of the upper-class. While the informally operating smallscale retailers and kitchen markets offer their products to a price that is within the reach of the majority of Dhaka’s population, the products are offered at considerably higher prices in the supermarkets. The consequences of supermarketisation in Bangladesh for employment, for food production and supply chains as well as for rural and urban food security require critical examination.

105 ‘Supermarkets to spread out´. The Daily Star, 10.03.2009, http://www.thedailystar.net/.

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Employment in the Field of Food Preparation The next significant segment is the field of commercial food preparation.106 In Dhaka most people do not go home from work for their lunch due to high costs in terms of time and transport. They therefore depend on food from restaurants, food stalls or street vendors, or on informal food delivery services. According to the available labour statistics, in Bangladesh, about 274,000 people are employed in restaurants, fast-food outlets, and bather hotels; in Dhaka the number stands at around 52,000 people. With 1.0 against 0.3 percent, non-private food preparation has a greater significance in urban than in rural areas. Of course, this relates to the food culture that is changing more rapidly in the cities – more people are eating out more often – but also to the needs of an increasingly flexible labour force that requires readily available, tasty, nutritious, and cheap food. Not only in the megacity of Dhaka, but in the other major cities of Bangladesh alike, the demand for prepared food exceeds the capacities of the formal food system, i.e. the registered, licensed, tax paying, permanently built food stalls, by far. Two informal modes of food preparation and delivery are common in Dhaka, like in other Asian megacities. The first are informal delivery services, which cater for the needs of people who prefer to eat home-prepared meals, but cannot return home for lunch. As many do not want to rely on food served at canteens or restaurants, before lunchtime, thousands of rickshaw-pullers and carriers deliver prepared food to their customers’ workplaces in metal-carriers (tiffins). Depending on the distance, this service costs only 100 to 300 Tk (1 to 3 Euros) per month. Those working people who can afford it – largely business men, traders and midincome workers – can then enjoy fresh food prepared by their respective wife, mother, or daughter (Nahar & Huq 2006). The second prepared-food service is street food vending. Full rice dishes, snacks and tea are available from small (semi-) permanent stalls on the pavements or in small niches next to the road. More mobile vendors sell cut open fruits, popular snacks and drinks from baskets, push-carts or rickshaws at the roadside. Approximately 97,000 people work in Dhaka’s field of street food.

106 Of course most food is prepared and eaten at home. This rather private segment of the field of food consumption that is most crucial for urban food security is not focussed at here.

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6.1.3 Employment in Dhaka’s Field of Street Food: An Estimate “Despite their numbers and visibility, there are few good estimates of the number of street vendors. […] an important feature of the street trade that makes it difficult to measure […] is a great variance in the number of street vendors counted depending on the time of day or the season of the year” (ILO 2002c: 51).

Street Vendors in Dhaka The estimates of the number of hawkers in Dhaka vary between 80,000 and 500,000. For the year 2005, Islam (2005: 26) estimated that there were at least 300,000 hawkers in the megacity.107 Recently, he renewed his estimate to 500,000 for the year 2010 (own interview, 26.02.2010). On the basis of Bangladesh’s Labour Force Survey (BBS 2004: 138) and the 2001 Population Census (BBS 2007a: 377), I estimate for the year 2010 that not less than 115,000 hawkers live and work in the megacity of Dhaka. A more thorough estimate is not only difficult, because of the lack of official data, as hawkers do not pay any tax and only very few are registered with the city authorities, but also because of the dynamics of that business (cf. ILO 2002c: 51). Own counting and mapping exercises of street vendors effectively demonstrate that the number of hawkers at one site changes according to the season, the day of the week, the time of the day, weather conditions, or police presence. Moreover, mobile vendors are difficult to count. Street Food Vendors in Dhaka In a recent study undertaken for the FAO, the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB) cites a study that estimated the number of street food vendors in Dhaka to be 200,000 (for the year 2000), but they also refer to a census by the Dhaka City Corporation according to which the number was 90,000 in 2003 (CAB 2010: 1; 75).108 The policy brief of that same study, in turn, states that “in Dhaka alone, around 200,000 people earn their living by selling street foods” (FPMU 2011: 1).

107 N. Islam’s estimate was based on a newspaper report: Representatives of the Bangladesh Chhinnamul Hawkers Samiti – a kind of lobby association for street vendors – said that around 130,000 hawkers worked only within Dhaka City Corporation (DCC), of which 60,000 were permanent and 70,000 seasonal hawkers. Only 14,000 hawkers of them would be enlisted with DCC (Islam 2005: 26, see also Siddiqui et al. 2010: 253). In 2007, another hawkers association is quoted in the newspaper with the number of 300,000 street vendors in Dhaka (‘Street vendors appeal for rehabilitation´, The Daily Star, 14.03.07). 108 Sharit Bhowmik, an Indian scholar working on street vending, quotes a newspaper article, in which it is argued that 90,000 street vendors worked within the DCC area in 2003 (Bhowmik 2005: 2257; 2010a: 23). In another article, a DCC representative said that “the capital has 163-km footpaths and about 2 lakh [200,000] vendors are engaged in small business on those” (‘Pedestrians get back footpaths for a change´, The Daily Star, 11.11.2005).

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On the basis of population and employment data, data on Dhaka’s slums, and drawing on results of own surveys, I calculated own estimates for the year 2010:

– Of roughly 5,366,000 slum dwellers living in 1,100,000 households, at least

53,900 families depend on street food vending as the main source of income. If each of these households is supported by only one vendor, then there are 53,900 street food vendors living in slum households and around 237,200 people depend on them. – Of 218,000 people living in mass accommodations in Dhaka’s slums, 12,600 are street food vendors, who then support around 46,500 people. – If 66,500 street food vendors live within slums, at least 30,200 street food vendors live outside slums (in old Dhaka, in lower middle-class living quarters, and on the street), and in turn at least 141,700 people depend on them. – As follows, not less than 96,700 street food vendors are living and working within the megacity. That is 0.65 percent of Dhaka’s population, 1.7 percent of its active labour force, and 2.6 percent of informal employment relations. – As follows, at least 425,400 people or 2.85 percent of Dhaka’s total population directly depend on the income generated by street food vendors. – Multiplying 96,700 street food vendors with the vendor’s average number of customers (84 per day) and assuming that each customer is taking only one street food item per day leads to the estimate that 8,122,800 people or 54.4 percent of Dhaka’s population take street food every day. No. of people

No. of street vendors

No. of street food vendors

No. of people, depending on SF vending for HH income

Share of SF vendors

5,366,000

-

53,900

237,200

55.7 %

in slum in mass accommodation

218,000

-

12,600

46,500

13.1 %

outside of slums

9,346,000

-

30,200

141,700

31.2 %

Total

14,930,000

115,000

96,700

425,400

100 %

Share of total pop.

100 %

0.77 %

0.65 %

2.85 %

-

Place of living in slum households

Tab. 6.3: Estimate of the Number of Street (Food) Vendors in Dhaka Data source: own calculations for Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area based on Labour Force Survey 2001 (BBS 2004), Population Census 2001 (BBS 2007), the Centre for Urban Studies’ slum census 2005 (CUS 2006), on a Food Consumers Survey in Dhaka’s Slums (n=204) and a Street Food Vendors Survey (n=120), both conducted in 2009. Note: The path of my estimates is shown in the annex.

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Street (Food) Vendors in other Megacities in the Global South Comparing my own estimate with data in other available publications shows that in Asia, only Mumbai (~250,000), Delhi (~200,000) and Calcutta (~150,000) have more street vendors than Dhaka, while Bangkok (~100,000) has slightly less (see Table 6.4 in the annex). The Indian Government, in its National Policy for Urban Street Vendors, not only acknowledges the crucial role of hawkers for the national economy, but also estimates that ten million people or two percent of the population of any Indian metropolis are street vendors (Government of India 2004; Bhowmik 2005: 2256). A higher share of hawkers of the total population in most other cities (except Delhi, Manila and Mexico City) indicates that the number of hawkers in Dhaka is likely to be even substantially higher than my modest estimate showed. There could be as much as 298,000 hawkers in Dhaka (2 percent of the population of DMSA in 2010), or even 500,000 as Nazrul Islam (Interview 26.02.2010) suggested.109 By number of people involved, the sale of prepared food in cities’ public spaces is probably the largest segment of the street trade worldwide. The number of street food vendors in the metropolises largely depends on the local food culture (is eating out very popular or not?), on the socio-economic structure (is there a large number of very mobile, yet poor labourers?), on the structure of the formal food provisioning system (are there canteens for office workers, kiosks or snack shops at travel hubs, etc.?) and the formal regulation of the trade (does the state support street food vending, for instance by providing the infrastructure, or rather impede it through eviction drives, hefty fines, etc.?). In many studies the hawkers are not differentiated according to the products that they sell, whether it is clothes, household utensils, raw or prepared food, or in turn other case studies on street food only give shares of items sold without trying to assess the total number of food vendors in the study area or their share of the labour force.110 However, if the data collection methods of national labour statistics are improved in terms of taking into account different types and products of street vending, the results can be quite surprising. In 1995, an occupational survey in South Africa, for instance, found only 2,038 street vendors all over the nation. But the improved Labour Force Survey of 2000 noted that there were 323,000 street food vendors and 122,000 non-food street vendors in South Africa (ILO 2002c: 52). This incredible increase is in the first instance not caused by an in109 In a classical study of hawkers in Asia cities, McGee (1970: 14) published estimates of the number of hawkers for the late 1960s and the ratio of hawkers to the total urban population, which were as follows: Bangkok 2.1%, Kuala Lumpur 0.8%, Singapore 2.2%, Jakarta 2.3% and Hong Kong 3.2%. It is interesting to note that despite 40 years of (at times extremely rapid) urbanization under the paradigm of modernization and proclaimed formalization, this ratio is still within a similar range (as in Bangkok) or even exceeds this (as in Kuala Lumpur). 110 There was no hint about the share of street food vendors of the total labour force in the case study of the town Manikganj, which had a population of 38,000 at the time of the study (in 1983). The 550 street food vendors who lived and worked there back then, accounted for 1.5 percent of the total population (Tinker 1997: 76ff).

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crease of the number of vendors (which might additionally be the case), but due to refinements of the data collection methods The comparison with other studies on street food vendors shows that the modest estimate of almost 97,000 street food vendors in Dhaka is a lot higher than the estimates for Bejing (72,000), Delhi (60,000), Bangkok (26,000), Kuala Lumpur (16,500), Hyderabad (12,500), or Durban (10,000). Only Calcutta (150,000) stands out with a greater number (see table 6.4 in the annex). If one walks through the busy streets of Dhaka, observes the heavily crowded footpaths were vendors sell food items and notes the enormous number of small tea stalls that are erected at almost every second street corner, one might argue that Dhaka is indeed one of the street food capitals of the world. 6.2 DHAKA’S FIELD OF FOOD CONSUMPTION Street food vendors are embedded in broader distribution networks with wholesalers, retailers and food processing companies (chapter 7.3.2), and are thereby able to provide prepared food for the consumers in a flexible manner. But which consumer groups particularly rely on street foods? And what is then the contribution of street food vending to the field of food consumption, or to the field of food security? In order to answer these questions, one first has to describe the field of urban food consumption as such and the general patterns of food (in)security in Dhaka, which are closely linked to people’s access to food and to Dhaka’s changing food culture. 6.2.1 Food Security in Dhaka What makes people in Dhaka food insecure? Food security is not only a social condition, but also a process that relates directly to the sub-fields of food, and thus to the availability of, the access to and the utilization of food (Ericksen 2006; Ingram et al. 2010; see chapter 3.5). Although it is quite a substantial logistical challenge, sufficient food is available in Dhaka. Every day more than 13,000 tons of food products are brought into the city and distributed via the food markets (see map 7.2). In theory, this is sufficient to adequately meet the food requirements – at least 2.200 Kcal per day – of all 14.7 million people living in the megacity (Keck et al. 2008: 30). However, as there is only very limited scope for subsistence food production in Dhaka, the food security of the growing population largely depends on how these people are integrated into the urban labour market. How people get access to food is crucial, because only people with a regular income can afford to buy food in sufficient quantity and quality, as long as food prices do not continue to rise (cf. Bohle & Adhikari 2002; Gertel 2010; Zingel et al. 2011; Keck et al. 2013). Looking at livelihood groups and their respective levels of income therefore helps to differentiate the social field of food consumption. The assumption then is that the volume of economic capital is linked to the social posi-

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tion and to the lifestyles of city dwellers, i.e. their habitus. Together these factors structure consumption patterns and tastes – whether they are driven by desire or necessity (cf. Bourdieu 1999; Heynen 2006; chapter 3.5.3) and hence by food security or food insecurity. Addressing food insecurity in urban slums is highly relevant, because the urban slum population is projected to grow worldwide (cf. UN-Habitat 2006b; Davis 2007), and because slum dwellers are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity (cf. Ruel et al. 1998; Maxwell 1999; Bohle & Sakdapolrak 2009). According to Pryer (2003: 41, 148ff) about half of Dhaka’s slum population is chronically undernourished; and members of female-headed households are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity as a result of disadvantaged access to the labour market. Our project team therefore conducted a Food Consumption Survey in nine slums of Dhaka in between April and June 2009.111 205 slum residents were asked about their food preferences, their (street) food consumption and shopping habits, their perception of the food price hike in 2007/08, and about their individual coping strategies in the light of food insecurity. As only slum residents were interviewed, the following results do not give a complete picture of Dhaka’s field of food consumption, but rather of the urban poor’s field of food insecurity. Food Expenditure and Food Security of Slum Dwellers In the following section, the slum households’ major livelihoods, i.e. the respondents’ most important source of income, is first taken as an independent variable in order to show the relevance of agents’ positions in the field of labour for food security. In a second step, economic capital, i.e. household income, is used as an independent variable in order to underscore the crucial importance of cash-income for food security, i.e. the access to food, in megacities. Food security is assessed at the household level on the basis of five core indicators: the share of households headed by women, the level of income, the level of food expenditure, the coping strategy score (CSI),112 and the share of respondents who are underweight (Body Mass Index below 18.5) (see also Zingel et al. 2011).113

111 For the survey nine slum settlements located in different parts of Dhaka were selected (see map 4.1 on the study sites and chapter 4.3.2 on methodology and sampling). 112 The Coping Strategy Index (CSI) is a tool to measure food insecurity on the household level (cf. Maxwell et al. (1995). It combines context-specific coping strategies, people’s perceived severity of these strategies and the frequency of their use into a composite index. 113 According to the WHO, people with a Body Mass Index (BMI = weight/height²) below 18.5 are underweight; normal weight is between 18.5 and 25; overweight is between 25 and 30, and obesity above 30See http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp?introPage=intro_3.html (last access: 16.07.2013). The BMI of the respondents were calculated through a cross-analysis of our dataset with the data by the INNOVATE project. I hereby would like to Dr. Khan and colleagues for the cooperation. For their work see, for instance, (Khan et al. 2009; 2010; Khan & Zanuzdana 2011; Grübner et al. 2011a, b).

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The Politics of Street Food

Livelihood groups in Dhaka can broadly be distinguished by occupation (cf. Pryer 2003; World Bank 2007). A look at the food insecurity-scores of different occupational groups shows that the households of workers with a permanent job in private services or in agriculture enjoy the comparatively highest level of food security (mean CSI-scores of 40 and 46, respectively). Moreover, their household’s income as well as their food expenditure is far above the respective averages. Only a minor share of these families (in total constituting 10 per cent of the sample) are headed by women (see Table 6.5). On the contrary, those families that largely depend on the incomes of women who work as domestic servants (40 percent of this group) or of male security guards (household services) have the lowest income and thus also spend the smallest amounts of money on food. Half of the respondents from this group were underweight. A mean CSI-score of 63 indicates that they are highly food insecure. Self-employed people in trade or retail, for instance street food vendors, or in the transport sector (e.g. rickshaw pullers) and in the ready-made garments industry (e.g. factory workers) are situated in between the above mentioned extremes. Among all, beggars and day labourers (in the group of others) have the highest mean CSI-score with 74 and 66 respectively. People with casual income or no income at all can afford only two full rice meals a day. It becomes clear from these numbers that urban vulnerability to food insecurity is largely determined by the access to gainful employment. In the megacities of the Global South, access to the labour market is the key indicator for people’s vulnerability and food insecurity. Numerous studies (cf. Lam 1982: 53; Pryer & Crook 1988: 26ff; Maxwell 1999: 1945; Bohle & Adhikari 2002: 411; Pryer 2003:141) showed that the urban poor spend a by far greater share of their income on purchasing food then does the middle-class or the elite (and also more than the rural poor), which makes them particularly susceptible to price hikes of food. Low and unstable incomes, in turn, seriously hampers the satisfaction of their nutritional needs. In Dhaka city, 20 percent of the population is poor in the sense that they live below the upper poverty line, which is calculated on the basis of food consumption (cost of basic needs method; see Table 5.2). According to a World Bank Study (2007: 9) the richest income quintile in Dhaka spends about 32 percent of its income on purchasing food, while the poorest quintile of the megacity’s inhabitants on average spends 62 percent of their income on their supply of food. Our own data that was collected in Dhaka’s slums during the on-going price hike of basic commodities in 2009 suggests that the share of income spent on food is substantially higher (Table 6.6). 40 percent of Dhaka’s slum dwellers spend more money on food than they actually earn. Spending 127% of the income on food alone, as the poorest income quintile does, is only possible if people continuously draw on their savings or money is repeatedly borrowed for the daily (food) needs. As poor people do not have access to bank loans, family members, friends, and informal money lenders are the major source of credit. Moreover, it needs mentioning that many poor city dwellers do not have regular and reliable sources of income, but rather rely on occasional informal employment, like day labour.

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Street Food Vending and Urban Food Security

Economic Sector, in which main income earner works Finance & private service industry

share of all HH

share of HH headed by women

share of HH in lowest income quintile

7%

7%

27 %

HH income p.pers. in HH/ month

HH food expenditure p.pers. in HH/ month

Share of income spent on food

CSIScore

share of HH with BMI < 18.5

1662 BDT 1416 BDT 95 %

40

40 %

57 %

3%

0%

0%

1898 BDT 1403 BDT 78 %

46

13 %

4%

4%

1449 BDT 1120 BDT 83 %

58

23 %

Manufacturing (incl. RMG )

8%

12 %

24 %

1799 BDT 815 BDT

60

35 %

Transport (incl. rickshaw)

25 %

4%

16 %

1538 BDT 1551 BDT 115 %

60

41 %

Trade / Retail (incl. hawkers)

25 %

6%

16 %

1619 BDT 1464 BDT 98 %

61

35 %

5%

40 %

50 %

789 BDT

116 %

63

50 %

13 %

19 %

33 %

1177 BDT 1198 BDT 112 %

67

40 %

100%

9%

19 %

1515 BDT 1316 BDT 99 %

59

37 %

Agriculture Construction

Household services Other Total / Mean

876 BDT

69 %

Tab. 6.5: Occupational groups, Income, and Food Security in Slums Data source: Food Consumption Survey in 9 slums in April-June 2009 (n=205) Notes: The higher the CSI-score, the more severe coping strategies are used more often in the respective households, i.e. the more food insecure these families are (cf. Maxwell et al. 1995). Exchange rate at the time of the survey: 100 BDT (Bangladeshi Taka) = 1.062 EUR.. Relative Income Group, based on total HH income per month

share of all HH

share of HH headed by women

HH income p.pers. in HH/ month

HH food expenditure p.pers. in HH/ month

Share of income spent on food

CSIScore

share of HH with BMI < 18.5

Poorest Quintile

19 %

28 %

791 BDT

980 BDT

127 %

60

46 %

Poor Quintile

17 %

3%

1038 BDT

1168 BDT

116 %

60

38 %

Middle Quintile

36 %

8%

1380 BDT

1277 BDT

96 %

58

38 %

Better off Quintile

7%

0%

2109 BDT

2057 BDT

93 %

61

13 %

‘Best off’ Quintile

21 %

0%

2643 BDT

1595 BDT

69 %

53

31 %

100 %

9%

1515 BDT

1320 BDT

99 %

58

36 %

Total / Mean

Tab. 6.6: Relative Income Quintiles, and Food Security in Slums Data source: Food Consumption Survey in 9 slums in April-June 2009 (n=205)

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The Politics of Street Food

Table 6.6 and Figure 6.3 (see colour pages) show a correlation between income levels, food expenditure and food security. Households in the poorest income quintile have less than half of the average income (per person) at their disposal. Consequently, less money is available per head to purchase the required food and the households are less food secure (as indicated by a CSI-score of 60). There exist, however, marked disparities within each income group. The fact that 28 percent of the households within the poorest quintile are female headed highlights the fact that the access to employment and income, and thus to food, is highly unequal. Divorced and widowed women are often stigmatized and socially excluded, with severe consequences for their family’s food security and health. Many of them even live on only one or two meals per day (25% of the poorest HHs). Food Consumption Patterns of the Urban Poor Not only the food expenditure, in terms of the money spent on food, reflects the household income, but also the composition of their ‘food baskets’ (see figures 6.3 and 6.4, colour pages). Generally, the largest share of food expenditure is spent on rice. On average, a slum household consumes about 12 kg of rice per week and spends about 71 Taka per week on rice for every person that needs to be fed. The most vulnerable households, in turn, spend 26 percent of their food budget (including expenditure for eating outside) on rice. Almost exclusively they buy lower quality coarse rice. In contrast, the families that are relatively better-off not only buy more rice per person, but also better rice. For them, rice makes up 18 percent of their food expenditure. The better-off a family is, the more money is spent on fish. While the poorest almost exclusively buy small fishes (choto mach) and these only in small quantities, the more affluent ones buy bigger species (i.e. rui) and the rather expensive but highly valued fish hilsha, i.e. the ‘national fish’ of Bangladesh. The same applies to meat: the poorest can hardly afford it and only spend two percent of their food budget on small quantities, whereas, the more affluent families spend up to nine percent on meat. For dairy products, poor slum dwellers spend just one percent, while the ‘richest’ slum households can afford to spend four percent on milk, cheese, curd, and other dairy products. An interesting aspect – that links the field of home-prepared food to the field of commercial food preparation – is that both income groups spend more than 20 percent of their food budget on eating outside. The comparatively ‘best off ‘ slum dwellers spend 11 percent of their food expenditure on food from restaurants, canteens and bather hotels (27 Taka per day), and 9 percent on street food (21 Taka per day). The poorest spend less money in absolute terms on eating outside (13 Taka per day on food from bather hotels, and 18 Taka per day on street food), but with 14 percent of their food budget they spend comparatively more on readily available snacks, small dishes and tea from roadside shops and mobile street vendors (see Figure 6.4, colour pages). This trend, i.e. the poor depending compara-

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175

tively more on street food, has already been sketched by the street food study undertaken in the rural Bangladeshi town Manikganj (Tinker 1987; 1997: 87).114 6.2.2 Transformations in the Urban Food Culture Changing Lifestyles and Food Habits While the previous section gave a rather static picture of present food consumption patterns, in the following it is shown that an increase in street food consumption is part of broader transformation of the urban food culture and of changing social norms and gender roles, too. It is widely known that urban food cultures in Asia are at present undergoing rapid transformations under the impact of globalisation (cf. Pingali 2006). In Bangkok, ‘eating out’ has been common for decades which led to the establishment of a distinct culture of public eating, from which the street food trade benefited substantially (cf. Yasmeen 2001; Nirathron 2006, 2010). In Hyderabad, new lifestyle choices as well as globalised food purchasing and consumption habits emerged in the recent past. The affluent and lower middle-class people increasingly buy food from supermarkets and malls, they consume more meat, dairy and wheat products, and they spend more money on fast food and eating out (cf. Pingali 2006; Lohr & Dittrich 2007; Dittrich 2008; Dittrich & Hoffmann 2010). In the traditional food culture of Bangladesh a good ‘full meal’ consists of rice, fish or meat, vegetables and dhal. The full meal that is prepared by the women in the house and eaten at home is highly valued. In general, home-prepared food is seen as more tasty, more healthy, more clean or hygienic, and cheaper than the food that is taken from outside. 115 However, food preferences, eating habits, and lifestyles have changed significantly in the past 20 years: “So I think nowadays, over the years, street food has become very very common and spread all over the city particularly in the shopping areas. […] So many food shops, food selling of all kinds of food prepared from home or they prepare in the street like making Cababs or making burgers and fried items and so forth.” --- Nazrul Islam, CUS, 26.02.2010 ---

114 The study undertaken in the mid-1980s in Manikganj found that 16% of the families’ total food budget is spent on street food. The income-poorest quarter of the inhabitants spent even 23% (Tinker 1997: 181f). 115 Semi-structured interviews with 43 street food consumers (conducted in January 2008) revealed these attitudes towards the good ‘full meal´ and street food. Many discussions with friends and scholars in Dhaka, the expert interviews and the food consumers’ survey in Dhaka’s slums underscored this first assessment. In the Food Consumers Survey conducted in nine slums in Dhaka, 98.5% of the respondents said that one could only get a good full meal at home, 2 persons (1%) said one could get it at home and in bather hotels, and only 1 person said it is available from street-side shops.

176

The Politics of Street Food “In general, the food habits of the city dwellers are changing rapidly. 16 years ago people felt uncomfortable to eat outside, but now eating outside becomes a culture. […] People from all classes increasingly eat outside, also the highly educated, but important is the cleanliness and hygiene to them. Many people depend on street food for their lunch and for afternoon snacks.” --- Mustafa Quaium Khan, Coalition for the Urban Poor, 02.01.2008 --“Food consumption patterns are changing from original or traditional slow food (rice, dhal, fish) to ‘quick’ foods, such as street food, snacks, etc. This change is directly related to capitalism and industrialisation as time-constraints become more crucial for the daily organization of lives. In the rural areas, however, people still stick to traditional foods.” --- Ahmede Hussain, journalist of ‘The Daily Star’, 30.12.2007 ---

Without a doubt, the field of prepared food is gaining in significance in Dhaka. Citizens eat out more often, they take street food at the street corner in their neighbourhood, at the bus stop on their way to work, at the market when they are (food) shopping, or in the park and at the play grounds when spending some leisure time. On the one hand, street food vendors benefit from the transformations in the food culture. With an increasing number of people who demand food from ‘outside’ there are also more livelihood options for street food vendors. On the other hand, street food vendors can also be seen as part of a subaltern “avantgarde” (interview with A. Hussain, 30.12.2007) that actually drives the ongoing socio-cultural and economic transitions in the megacity. Changing Social Norms and Gender Roles Another implication of globalisation in the field of food consumption is that social norms and gender roles are changing, too. This trend relates to the integration of Dhaka into global commodity chains. The already sketched rise of the ready-made garments industry since the 1980s led to a steep increase of female labour force participation in Bangladesh in general, and in Dhaka in particular (BBS 2004; Pryer 2003: 72). In 2000 about one third of the female working age population (older than 10 years) were actually involved in some income generating activities in Dhaka, in particular as garments workers, domestic maids or in the urban agriculture (World Bank 2007a: 17f; Salway et al. 2003).116 As more women have taken up gainful employment away from home, they have less time at home for domestic chores, although they still prepare all meals for the family.117 This indicates that the division of labour and traditional gender roles are challenged, but rarely changed (Dannecker 2002: 168ff; Pryer 2003: 77). In extremely poor 116 With 49% the share of working women is significantly higher in the slums, as the study by Pryer (2003: 73) indicates. In slum households, in which women worked, they contributed 33% of total household income. 117 In our food consumers survey conducted in nine slums in Dhaka (n=205, April-June 2009) in 97% of the households the women, either the wife, (grand)mother, daughter or a maid, were responsible for cooking.

Street Food Vending and Urban Food Security

177

households, only dinner is made at night, leftovers are eaten in the morning, and snacks during the day. Most people then take street food not as substitute of home-prepared meals, but rather as supplement snack or drink in between (see next chapter). Still, own qualitative interviews indicate a strong linkage between women’s employment and their husbands’ increasing dependence on street food. Growing female labour is not only an issue of street food consumption, but also an issue of employment in street vending (cf. Tinker 1997; Brown 2006b). Increasingly, urban poor women ‘take their space’ in the megacity of Dhaka despite facing discrimination, harassments and displacement (cf. Hackenbroch 2013). Although their absolute number in the field of street food is still small – only five percent of the street food shops in my survey (n=120) were run by women – more and more women become street food vendors themselves. Their involvement in the informal urban labour market is driven by the force of necessity (chapter 7.2). 6.3 STREET FOOD CONSUMPTION IN DHAKA “Street foods are fast, convenient and cheap” (Tinker 1999: 327). “In a megacity like Dhaka there are all levels of people - like in a skyline. Therefore, all kinds of products and services have to be available at different price levels, according to the incomes of the different people in Dhaka and the availability of labour. Otherwise, the city would not be functioning. In general, the mobility of the labourers, the working people and the service-providers themselves is highly important for the functioning of the megacity. It is imperative that street food vendors provide their services, as they particularly cater to the food needs of mobile labourers such as rickshaw pullers and commuters, who come into Dhaka on a daily basis. Both groups need street food for their daily diet as it is fairly cheap and food is not available to a sufficient extent from restaurants or canteens.” --- Anwara Begum, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, interview 09.07.2010 ---

Street food is highly valued by Dhaka’s consumers for its easy availability all over the city, for its comparatively low price, for its nutritional and refreshing qualities and its taste. Multiplying the (estimated) number of street food vendors in Dhaka (96,700) with the vendor’s average number of customers (84 per day according to the Street Vendor’s Survey) yields interesting results: Assuming that each customer is taking only one street food item per day, then at least 8,122,800 people or 54.4 percent of the megaurban population would take some street food every day. Comparing these figures with data from our Food Consumption Survey (n=205) conducted in nine slums in Dhaka shows a surprisingly good conformity: 55 percent of the slum dwellers take some street food at least once a day, while 19 percent responded they consume street food sometimes and only 23 percent refrain from buying anything from the street (see table 6.6).118 118 A larger survey (n=1938) conducted in the same slums, however, indicates that only 38 percent ‘normally buy ready-to-eat food that is sold on the street´ (INNOVATE Public Health

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The Politics of Street Food

A consumer’s perspective allows two contrasting, yet not contradicting, perspectives on street food. First, street food can function as a supplement or as a substitute for home-prepared food. Second, if we take into account that “luxury taste” stands against the “taste of necessity” (Bourdieu 1999: 285), one can discern between those consumers who want particular street food items and consume it in their leisure time (pleasure street food) and those who urgently need it for its nutritional content in order to being able to work (required street food). Selfevidently both perspectives cannot be clearly separated from another in a general overview of street food consumption: Sometimes particular street food products are consumed ‘in between’ as desired supplements. At other times, when travelling for instance, street food is a necessary substitute of home-prepared food. Nonetheless, these categories should be kept in mind, when looking at the results that are presented in the following section. 6.3.1 Street Food as a Supplement to Home-prepared Food Street food serves as a supplement to self-prepared meals for most customers, such as office workers, students or school children, who like to have a snack, some drinks or sweets in between, i.e. its consumption seems to be driven by desire rather than by necessity. A highly mobile hard-working labour force, such as rickshaw pullers and day labourers, requires full meals as well as small and energy-rich snacks and drinks in between in order to keep them going throughout a long working day (cf. Sujatha et al. 1997; Tinker 1997; Blair 1999).119 For them, comparatively cheap street foods are an “unsung bargain” (Tinker 1997: 187) and a necessary supplement to their diet. Data from our food consumers’ survey strongly underscores this ‘supplement thesis’. By far most male respondents take their breakfast (82%), their lunch (86%) and their dinner (97%) at home, and women hardly take full meals from outside (see table 6.7). 10 and 12 percent of the men eat their breakfast and/or lunch in a local food stall (bather hotel), and six and two percent of the interviewed women do so. Only five percent of the men buy some street food as a breakfast on a normal working day. These figures show the social and cultural value of a home-prepared meal in Bangladesh. Not surprising, 99 percent of all respondents had the opinion that the only place where one could get a good full meal is one’s own home, not a restaurant or on the street (see also Tinker 1997). Survey 2009). This smaller share might be due to respondents’ understanding of ‘ready-to-eat food´. Here; they might not consider tea, juices and fruits as ‘street food´, but these were included in our survey. It is also not clear what ‘normally´ means. 119 The dietary value of street foods is often high. Full dishes with rice are rich in protein, minerals and contain crucial vitamins. Fatty snacks provide energy through their high fat and/or sugar content. Sweet tea provides caffeine and sugar and thus energy, too (Tinker 1997: 187f). A study in Hyderabad indicated that almost 20% of the daily caloric intake of working men stems from street foods. 60% of the calories taken with street food items were from full meals, 33% from snacks and 31% from sweet tea (Sujatha et al. 1997).

179

Street Food Vending and Urban Food Security Places where food is normally taken Meal

at Home

Bather hotel, food stall men women

Outside, on the streets men women

At place of work men women

Nothing is eaten men women

men

women

Breakfast

82%

91%

10%

6%

5%

2%

0%

1%

3%

0%

Lunch

86%

93%

12%

2%

0%

5%

0%

0%

2%

0%

Dinner

97%

99%

1%

0%

0%

1%

0%

0%

2%

0%

Snacks in between

11%

27%

15%

13%

50%

27%

5%

1%

19%

31%

Drinks in between

5%

19%

16%

15%

57%

36%

5%

0%

11%

23%

Tab. 6.7: Places where Respondents take their Food Data source: Food Consumption Survey (2009; n=205; 105 female, 100 male respondents) Note: There is a bias in the figures towards the consumption of food at home during the day, because the interviews were conducted throughout normal working days. Tthose who work outside the slum and do not eat at home, but in bather hotels or on the street, are not well represented.

In between the full meals there is, however, enough time and often also the need for supplement snacks. When asked where they consume snacks and drinks in between, half of the male respondents replied that they take snacks (50%) and drinks (57%) on the street, while 15 and 16 percent buy these at bather hotels, and 5 percent at their place of work (table 6.7). Overall, 55 percent of the respondents consume different kinds of street food on a daily basis, 19 percent take street snacks sometimes, whereas 23 percent stated that they never eat any street foods (see table 6.8). Those who consume street food normally buy snacks or drinks from street vendors near their home (50%), near their workplace (35%) or from no particular places, for instance when they are travelling (15%). As shown in the following, there is a poverty-, a livelihoods- and a gender-dimension to the consumption of street food. The comparison of the respective figures for the relatively poorest and ‘best off’ income groups in the slums shows different consumption habits and dependencies on street food (table 6.8): 49 percent of respondents from the poorest income group take some street food every day; and 36 percent of them state that street food is important for their daily diet. On average, this group spends 18 Taka per day on street food, which is more than they spend on food from permanent restaurants and about 17 percent of their total food expenditure. Members from this group not only take street food because it is readily available, but also because it is comparatively cheap. In contrast, 76 percent of members of the most affluent quintile (can afford to) buy street food every day; two third even say that street food is (highly) important for them. This group also spends most money on street food with 29 Taka per day, which represents about 13 percent of their total food budget. The general trend seems to be clear: the more affluent a slum dweller is, the more often supplement snacks and drinks from the street are consumed,

180

The Politics of Street Food

which further improves his/her nutritional situation. While the consumption of street food cannot be seen as a clear indicator for food security (table 6.7), the easy access to street food, both in physical and financial terms, obviously contributes to the food security of the urban poor. Who eats what kind of street food also depends on the consumers’ respective occupation and on the mobility that their job requires: Street food is seen as particularly important by 78 percent of those employed in the construction industry. Two thirds of these day labourers state that they consume street food every day, mostly because highly flexible street vendors provide snacks and drinks near the construction sites and street food is thus easily available for them. On average, they spend 24 Taka per day on it – the highest amount for all occupational groups. More than half of the highly mobile people working in the transport sector, such as taxi or CNG drivers and rickshaw pullers appreciate street food as important. As street food is literally available at every other corner in Dhaka, 59 percent of them take some street snacks and drinks every day. An interview (11.12.2007) with a 56 year old rickshaw puller during a ride through Old Dhaka revealed that he does not like to take full rice meals on the street, but relies heavily on street snacks. Throughout the day, he usually eats two or three Pauruti (bread rolls), two or three bananas, five or six cups of Cha (strong sweet tea), and sometimes also cake.120 Per day, he spends up to 50 Taka on different street food items, which is 25 percent of his income. For the last 15 years, he often takes snacks from the very same street vendor in a quiet side street. He then not only enjoys the rest and the food, but also the adda (chat, light conversations) with other rickshaw pullers and the street vendor, who became a good friend. This is quite typical; our slum survey shows that almost one fifth of the street food consumers regularly go to the same street food vendor. Office workers and service personnel also consume street food every day. With their higher income and better food security (table 6.5) they do not depend on street food, but rather appreciate it because of its easy accessibility and good taste. Only one third of them say that street food is important for their daily diet. Two occupational groups among the poor are least inclined to consume street food: Only 29 percent of factory workers, among whom are many ready-made garment workers, and 40 percent of domestic maids and security guards take street food every day. There are two explanations for this. The first is that people in these occupational groups, which are particularly relevant fields of employment for women, simply spend less time outside in the vicinity of street vending shops as they are in the factory or within their employer’s home most of the time. The second is that they largely bring their own food from home to the workplace in tiffin carriers – as hundreds of thousand female garment labourers do.

120 Own observations underscore this pattern: If day labourers or rickshaw pullers have a couple of minutes for a break, they rest, drink water or tea, eat some bananas or bread rolls, or chew some paan shupari. N. Islam also stated: “The common items for the working people are the biscuits, breads or bun and bananas” (26.02.2010).

181

Street Food Vending and Urban Food Security Food expenditure on ‘eating outside’ (per day)

Relevance of Street Food importance of street food for the daily diet

share of respondents that take street food ...

street food

important

unimportant

daily

sometimes

never

Poorest Quintile 13 BDT 24 BDT Poor Quintile Middle Quintile 27 BDT Better off Quintile 7 BDT

18 BDT 13 BDT 19 BDT 22 BDT

36 % 42 % 51 % 47 %

62 % 56 % 44 % 47 %

49 % 41 % 54 % 47 %

18 % 24 % 22 % 20 %

28 % 35 % 24 % 27 %

‘Best off’ Quintile 27 BDT

29 BDT

66 %

34 %

76 %

13 %

7%

Female (n=105) Male (n=100)

21 BDT 24 BDT

15 BDT 25 BDT

30 % 69 %

64 % 30 %

37 % 73 %

24 % 14 %

32 % 13 %

Total Average

24 BDT

20 BDT

49 %

47 %

55 %

19 %

23 %

Relative Income Group, based on total HH income per month

food from bather hotels

Tab. 6.8: Relevance of Street Food for Slum Dwellers in Dhaka Data source: Food Consumption Survey conducted in nine slums (April-June 2009, n=205)

Both aforementioned aspects point to the fact that there is a significant gender dimension to street food consumption. Table 6.8 clearly shows that women rely less on street food than men. Dhaka is a city is still a city with a low visibility of women in public space as the Muslim social norm of Purdah restricts women’s mobility and confines their life world to the home and its immediate neighbourhood (Kumar Das 2003: 169; Salway et al. 2003: 886; Siddiqui et al. 2010: 19). As a consequence, women spend less time outside, usually eat at home or not at all in public, and thus also have less opportunities to enjoy street food (see also Tinker 1997: 85). Nonetheless, more than one third of the interviewed women stated that they consume snacks or drinks from street vendors every day. In contrast, 73 percent of the men take street food on a daily basis. With 15 Taka, women’s street food expenditure – mostly spend at tea and snack shops within the slums – is by far less than men’s, who spend 25 Taka per day on average. Not surprisingly, only 30 percent of female respondents argued that street food is important for their daily diet, while more than two third of the men said so. Pleasure Street Food Above, the street food consumption patterns of the urban poor were elaborated on the basis of own survey data that represents are predominantly poor population. But street food is not only the food of the poor. In Dhaka there are of course also thousands of students, school children, and middle-class families who buy tasty sweets, soft drinks, and some more expensive street food snacks when they spend their leisure time in the very few green parks and open public squares, such as the

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The Politics of Street Food

park Suhrowardy Udyan or the monument Central Shaheed Minar in the heart of Dhaka city (Preetha 2011). Eating out more often is part of the changing urban food culture. More affluent consumers do not have to eat street foods out of nutritional needs, but rather want to consume street foods, “because of the pleasure, for the taste and the enjoyment, for entertainment and to pass a ‘good time’” (interview, A. Naheed, ICDDR,B, 14.01.2008). Children enjoy eating Matha and Chutneys, Chanachur, Badam, all kinds of fruits, sweets, and ice cream. Some popular street food snacks are remnants of a distinct Bengali food culture that rests on the sourness of tamarind and the hotness of chillies and pepper, like Jhal muri, Fuchka, Chatpotti, and Chanachur (see Mukhopadhyay 2004 for Calcutta street foods and the Bengali hierarchy of tastes). But coffee, Coca-Cola, packaged ice cream, plastic packets with potato chips, or the typical Southeast-Asian fried noodles are consumed by the urban middle-class, and in particular the youth, too. These street foods that are evidence of a globalisation – or rather a glocalisation of the urban food culture – were hardly available from street vendors in Dhaka 20 years ago. The consumption of this pleasure or convenience street food can be observed at many occasions, for instance on the Victory Day (December 16th) or at the Ekushey festivities (International Mother Language Day on February 21st and the famous Book Fair), but no further investigations were undertaken in this direction. Only from observations two things became quite clear: On the one hand, people enjoy the rich diversity of available street food specialties in Dhaka and consuming snack food and drinks in public space is an important part of the urban leisure culture (pictures 6.2 and 6.3). On the other hand, street food vendors who sell more expensive snacks at popular recreational sites, such as public parks, address a clientele with more purchasing power than vendors who sell to commuters or day laborers. In turn, if vendors can offer their food products at special festivities, they can make substantial profits that exceed their average daily incomes by far.

A street vendor sells Coca-Cola and Fanta from a specially rebuilt and company-owned transport rickshaw on the campus of Dhaka University. Since 1990 Coca-Cola is sold in Dhaka in this way. Pict. 6.2: The Glocal Street Food Culture Source: B. Etzold, November 2007

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6.3.2 Street Food as a Substitute of Home-prepared Food In interviews experts and key informants often remarked – and generalised quite bluntly – that certain social groups particularly rely on street food as a substitute for home-prepared meals: ‘normal’ people, when travelling; the poorest of the urban poor; and highly mobile labourers. To provide an example, a boat manager at Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal argued that it would be very convenient for travelers to get goods, drinks, snacks and small meals right until the ferry leaves. By buying from semi-permanent vendors on the jetty or from mobile vendors who even come on the ships, the consumers would reduce the risk of missing their ferry as they would, if they went to permanent food stall inside the terminal. Moreover, the food offered by the street vendors is cheaper than the food that is available on the ships (interview with boat manager, 17.02.2009). The same holds true for bus and train passengers, who often have to travel long hours to reach their respective destinations, and therefore also make frequent use of the services of street food vendors at these public transport terminals (see table 6.10). When travelling, however, many people also take their own home-prepared food in tiffins with them; either because it is cheaper for them, or because they do not want to eat food from outside. Among the urban poor, many labourers have special food needs that mainly relate to their high mobility, as they are working away from home all day and their hard labour requires energy-rich food. While the ‘street-food-as-supplementhypothesis’ could be proved quite convincingly with our own food consumers’ data, the other side of the coin, i.e. the ‘street-food-as-substitute-hypothesis’, is more difficult to support. One can gather some insights on required street food by looking at three aspects: The reasons why, and occasions when street food is consumed (tables 6.11 to 6.13), and the specific prices of street food items. There are three important reasons why street food is consumed – they all relate to the core dimensions of food security. The first is its easy availability: 38 percent of those respondents who take street food daily said that c. Around 95,000 street food vendors provide small snacks, tea and fruits at every other corner in the megacity. This is particularly important for people whose occupation requires great mobility; 53 percent of rickshaw pullers, load carriers, CNG or taxi drivers thus gave this answer. The second reason is an easy access to street food, i.e. its comparatively low price. 18 percent of the street food consumers replied that food from the street is cheaper than from bather hotels, while a minority even believed that it is cheaper than home-prepared food; an argument that is even more convincing, if the time needed for food shopping and preparation are taken into account (cf. Tinker 1997: 183). The third reason relates directly to both: The good availability and easy access to street food enables consumers to take a quick snack or buy a small drink whenever they feel it is necessary, that is when they are hungry or thirsty as 58 percent of the respondents said. In this regard, it is interesting to look at the respondents’ differing income: 73 percent of the poorest consumers take street food, when they have to because they are hungry and it is needless to

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say only if they can afford to. The same holds true for half of the more ‘affluent’ consumers. Many of them rely on street food, when they are travelling. In contrast to the travellers, who occasionally turn to street food, the most vulnerable city dwellers, such as Dhaka’s growing number of pavement dwellers, street children and beggars, neither have the assets, nor the access to permanent shelter (and were therefore also not included in our survey), cooking facilities and adequate food. Many of these poorest of the urban poor live “hand to mouth” and also do not have the time to prepare food themselves. They have to eat, and if they do not benefit from the vulnerable group feedings of NGOs or religious communities, street food shops are the only available and affordable source of prepared food to them. A small minority in our sample (3 %) requires street food, because they do not have anybody who is preparing a meal for them, or they cannot do it themselves. Like the street dwellers they rely on street food permanently. Relative Income Group, based on total HH income per month Poorest Quintile

Why do you take food/drinks from roadside shops or mobile vendors? It is cheaper It is cheaper Nobody is It is availIt is than from than home- cooking for Other able easily tasty bather hotel food me 37 %

26 %

15 %

7%

7%

4%

Poor Quintile

32 %

32 %

24 %

-

-

8%

Middle Quintile

43 %

23 %

13 %

2%

-

13 %

Better off Quintile

46%

15 %

15 %

-

-

23 %

‘Best off’ Quintile

32%

13 %

24 %

5%

8%

16 %

Total Average

38 %

22 %

18 %

3%

3%

12 %

Tab. 6.9: Consumers’ Reasons for taking Street Food

Relative Income Group, based on total

HH income

Poorest Quintile

When do you take food/drinks from street shops or mobile vendors? Indicator for Indicator for Pleasure Street Food Required Street Food When I want When I am bored (for When I am When I am to enjoy the entertainment) hungry or travelling taste thirsty 13 % 7% 73 % 7%

Poor Quintile

22 %

4%

59 %

19 %

Middle Quintile

26 %

2%

56 %

16 %

Better off Quintile

39 %

8%

39 %

15 %

‘Best off’ Quintile

29 %

0%

53 %

16 %

Total Average

25 %

3%

58 %

14 %

Tab. 6.10: Occasions, at which Consumers eat Street Food Data source of both tables: Food Consumption Survey conducted in nine slums (April-June 2009; n=205; valid n=165; answers only from respondents who take street food daily or sometimes)

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The street food consumption of the most food insecure people in Dhaka is particularly driven by the taste of necessity, and not by the taste of desire. Nonetheless, even the poorest can choose to eat those snacks that they particularly like. Thirteen percent of the consumers in the poorest income quintile state that they take street food items, because they want to enjoy the taste, and seven percent answer they eat street food when they feel bored. Among the comparatively ‘better off’ and ‘best off’ quintile 39 and 29 percent, respectively, mainly eat street food items because they want to enjoy the taste (see table 6.10). 6.3.3 Popular Street Foods in Dhaka Favourite Street Foods and Drinks What the urban food consumers chose to eat, and what not, and which food they can afford to buy, and which not, also indicates the structure of the social field of street food. Throughout the empirical research, I counted almost one hundred different food items “that can be eaten without further processing and [are] sold on the street, […] or from stalls or shops having fewer than four permanent walls” – to repeat the street food definition by Irene Tinker (1987: 52). I distinguish between eight types of street food items according to their specific characteristics: Full meals or ‘wet’ dishes, small and ‘dry’ snacks, bakery products, sweets and ice cream, milk products, whole or cut-open fruits and vegetables, drinks and other ‘consumable’ products (see tables 6.12 and 6.13 in the annex for more detailed descriptions of street food items in Dhaka, and their respective prices). Eating full meals on the street is still a taboo that not all social groups dare to break. Seventy percent of the slum dwellers in our food consumers’ survey stated that they never take rice meals from the street. Interestingly, though, is that a greater share of the ‘richest’ quintile in the slums (26%) takes rice meals from street vendors on a daily basis compared to the poorest quintile (15%) (see table 6.11). It is still cheaper to cook rice and dhal for a few persons at home than buying a rice meal from outside. Correspondingly, 16 percent of poorest respondents say that street food is too expensive (table 6.14). Nonetheless, street food is cheaper than restaurant food: A full ‘wet’ rice meal121 consisting of rice, vegetables, chicken or fish curry and/or dhal only costs 30 to 50 Taka on the street, compared to 50 to 80 Taka that have to be spent in a bather hotel (see table 6.13 for the prices of street food items). If people cannot eat their lunch at home and they cannot afford the food from bather hotels or canteens, they have to bring their own food from home or resort to street food. Our data shows that more mobile and physically hard-working labourers in agriculture (29%) or in the con121 Full meals are also referred to as ‘wet dishes´, because they include sauce or dhal and thus have to be served on a plate (cf. Tinker 1997: 84). The fact that these dishes are ‘wet´ and kept warm, but neither cool nor very hot, has implications for possible micro-biological contaminations, i.e. coliform bacteria, and the risk of contracting food-borne diseases.

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struction industry (15%), van and rickshaw pullers (14%), petty traders (18%) and other service-personnel (20%) rely more heavily on full rice meals from the street than many factory workers or domestic helpers, who often bring their food to their workplace or get something to eat there (only 6% and 0% of these occupational groups take full street meals daily). Although many people dislike to take a full meal from the street for lunch or dinner, it is more common to take two or three Rotis or Porothas (kind of pan-cakes made of whole wheat) with vegetables or scrambled eggs as a quick and with 9 to 13 Taka a comparatively cheap breakfast. share of respondents that take the following products from street vendors Relative Income Group, based on total HH income per month Poorest Quintile Poor Quintile Middle Quintile Better off Quintile ‘Best off’ Quintile Total / Mean

full meals (rice/ruti) daily never 15% 72% 9% 74% 10% 75% 13% 67% 26% 57% 14% 70%

rice cakes (pithas) daily never 13% 51% 3% 50% 3% 56% 7% 40% 2% 45% 5% 51%

salty-spicy snacks daily never 3% 59% 0% 59% 13% 44% 7% 40% 10% 38% 7% 48%

bakery products daily never 8% 56% 9% 50% 19% 53% 0% 40% 12% 45% 12% 51%

share of respondents that take the following products from street vendors

Poorest Quintile Poor Quintile Middle Quintile Better off Quintile ‘Best off’ Quintile Total / Mean

tea and biscuits daily never 51% 26% 44% 35% 57% 21% 40% 20% 64% 19% 54% 24%

sweets and ice-cream daily never 8% 64% 0% 68% 1% 68% 0% 53% 2% 55% 2.5% 63%

fruit juices (incl. sugar-cane juice) daily never 0% 69% 0% 68% 1% 49% 7% 40% 2% 47% 2% 55%

fruits daily 0% 0% 1% 0% 0% 0%

never 62% 59% 52% 50% 49% 54%

Tab. 6.11: Street Food Consumption Patterns of Slum Dwellers Data source: Food Consumption Survey (valid n=202; several answers possible) Note: ‘daily’ includes ‘several times a day’, other answers were ‘few times a week’ and ‘seldom’

Dry snacks, like Puri (3 Taka), Samosas (4 Taka), Singharas (3 Taka), Jhal Muri (5 Taka) or Pithas (3 to 5 Taka) are very popular and not expensive supplements in the daily diet. Surprisingly, only seven percent of all respondents regularly buy salty/spicy snacks and five percent take the small rice cakes Pithas every day, which are particularly favoured by the poor (see table 6.11). One vendor explained why consumers like his products: “Pitha is cheaper than bread. Bread and a banana cost nine Taka, but two Pitha cost only six Taka. Pitha is hot, so people like it with Chutney (vorta). It is cheap and tasty” (interview, 19.02.2009). As Pithas are freshly prepared on site and served-hot, they are particularly favoured

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on cold winter mornings and evenings, when temperatures fall below 10 degrees. Moreover, they are a typical example for consumption habits that travelled from rural areas – there are dozens of types of Pitha – to the city. Other popular, but more expensive snacks are Chattpotti (25 Taka) and Fuchka (15 Taka), both tasty snacks on the basis of chickpeas, potatoes, onions, hot spices and Tamarind sauce. These two products, for instance, are not required, but rather desired street food that is enjoyed by students, people from the middle-class and rather affluent slum dwellers in the afternoon or early evening in the park or on the occasion of special festivities. Bakery products are among the most important snacks for the poor. Bread rolls (6 Taka), biscuits (2 Taka) and dry cakes (6 Taka per piece) are cheap, easily available at every tea stall, not likely to be micro-biologically contaminated, and good to quickly satisfy a labourer’s hunger (at least temporarily) and enable him to continue his arduous job. Not surprisingly, with 24 percent, rickshaw pullers and other people working in the transport sector are the biggest consumer group of these snacks. Overall, 12 percent of the interviewed slum dwellers daily buy some bakery products from the street. Sweets and ice cream are clearly ‘luxury’ products, which are consumed only by a minority of adult slum dwellers. Not more than 2.5 percent of all respondents eat sweets every day, while almost two-thirds never take some themselves. Occasionally, however, also slum dwellers or street vendors themselves buy sweets, chocolates or ice-cream for their children. The same applies to milk or curd products. While the curd drink Matha has been referred to as an important traditional street food product in expert interviews in former times (see chapter 5.2.1), it seems to be of less significance today, as 71 percent of our respondents say that they never buy milk products from the street. Fruits are mostly sold from push-carts or rickshaws and are sold as a whole, e.g. apples, oranges, mangos or pineapple, or are served cut-open as little pieces, e.g. papaya, guava or water melon, for direct consumption. Except bananas, which are cheap (only 3 or 4 Taka per piece) and available from every tea stall, fruits are more expensive products that are consumed because of their taste and as refreshment. More than half of the respondents in the consumer survey stated that they never buy fruits from street vendors, and 62 percent of the poorest income quintile said so. Nonetheless, also the poor value their taste. The fact that some seasonal fruits, like jack fruit, can also be bought in small pieces at a comparatively modest prices gives a poor rickshaw walla also the opportunity to eat it, while he would not be able to afford the vitamin-rich whole fruit. Over the course of the last 20 years, one observer noted an increase of fruits for sale on the street. More affluent city dwellers consume more fruit and at the traveling hubs, such as the ferry terminal, people also buy fruits before they commence a longer journey (interview with a boat manager at Sadar Ghat, 17.02.2009). In times, however, when consumers have to carefully prioritise their food expenses, the consumption of fruits seems to decline (interview, Shahajan Islam, 31.08.2008). Freshly boiled black tea (Cha), either served with sugar and milk or with sugar and ginger (Adar Cha), is by far the most favourite beverage that is available

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from the street. Mainly men meet with friends or colleagues and have a chat while drinking a cup of tea and a biscuit or a cigarette. Drinking tea on the street is part of the urban lifestyle. More than half of all respondents in the consumers’ survey replied that they take tea (at least) once a day. Two thirds of the comparatively more ‘affluent’ slum dwellers consume tea every day, while 51 percent of the respondents in the poorest income quintile do so (see table 6.11). This shows that although the price for a small cup of tea doubled between 2006 and 2008 (from 2 to 4 Taka, see table 6.13 in the annex), almost everybody can afford it. If one differentiates the consumption habits according to people’s occupational sector, one finds that with 73 percent the rather affluent office and private sector workers as well as the construction labourers (with 63 percent) are more inclined to take tea daily than slum dwellers working in manufacturing. Nowadays, tea is not only served at rather permanent street shops, but also served from mobile vendors who walk around with tea flasks and some bread rolls, biscuits or sweets. More affluent consumers and glocal trend setters such as students not only demand tea, but also global soft drinks like Coca-Cola or Fanta (see picture 6.4) and instant coffee – of course the globally omnipresent Nescafé – that is more expensive than tea. Street food vendors, in particular on University campuses, thus provide softdrinks and coffee readily. However, tea is still the most favourite street drink in Dhaka; it is a vital element of the street culture: “A tea shop is like the bar in the west. Middle class people, intellectuals, everybody goes for drinking a cup of tea or many cups of tea and Adda [gossip]. […] Coffee has come up now. The modern mobile instant coffee machine and all this. So this is the modern version. But tea is the culture either in fixed shops or in temporary side walk shops or even mobile.” --- Nazrul Islam, CUS, 26.02.2010 ---

Two other ‘consumable’ products that need to be mentioned are cigarettes and Paan-Shupari, i.e. pieces of the Shupari- or Betel-nut that are chewed with Betelleaves and chalk-paste. Both products are available from thousands of small unconsolidated tea stalls, from push-cart vendors and also from mobile street vendors. And both products – not containing nutrients, but rather narcotics – help to drive out the feeling of hunger and tiredness. Least Favourite Street Foods Of course there is no accounting for taste. People have different socio-economic backgrounds, i.e. a different volume and structure of capital, and they have made different experiences that structure their lifestyles and food preferences, i.e. their food habitus. It is nonetheless interesting to note, which food items were disliked. Halim, a thick soup that largely consists of lentils, oil, onions and meat, was mentioned by 20 respondents in our survey as not particularly liked. Other people do not like sweet and sour pickles (Achar), the fried Puris or the chickpea-potato snack Chatpotti. Common attitudes on street food come into play here. One concern that was raised a few times in interviews with street food consumers was the

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relation between street food and dirty roads. The assumption was that street food that is sold alongside dusty roads, but which is not covered (e.g. with a plastic lid), becomes heavily polluted by dirt, exhaust fumes and bacteria. In contrast, if there is less dust in the air, for instance during the rainy season or in the early morning hours when there is less traffic, or if the vending site is a more distant from the road, then street food would be more safe to eat. ‘Any dusty food’ was thus the most frequent answer to the question, which kind of street food people did not like. 6.3.4 Is Street Food Unhygienic? Slum Dwellers’ Perceptions Like in other megacities in the Global South (FAO 1997; te Lintelo 2009), consumer concerns that revolve around the unhygienic and unhealthy conditions of street food are at the forefront of the public debate on street food vending in Bangladesh, too (Tinker 1997; Naheed et al. 2002; CAB 2004). And indeed, a recent analysis by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh shows that all of the 300 collected street food samples were highly contaminated with germs, in particular with coliform bacteria. Street food is then unhygienic, if the World Health Organisation’s standard specification for “acceptable” microbial load in food is taken as a basis (CAB 2010; FPMU 2011; see chapter 5.3.3). Interestingly, the urban poor’s lay theories of health and ill-health (cf. Sakdapolrak 2010), their health strategies and their resilience to food being unsafe according to international standards, are often not acknowledged. The unhygienic conditions at the street food vending sites were mentioned by almost half of those respondents, who do not take street food regularly, as the most important reason why they refrain from eating food from the streets (table 6.14). 10 percent of the interviewed slum dwellers disliked ‘any dusty food’, which is sold along roads and is not adequately covered. And five percent justified their abstinence from eating street food with the risk of becoming sick. Relative Income Group, based on total HH income per month

Poorest Quintile Poor Quintile Middle Quintile Better off Quintile ‘Best off’ Quintile Total Average

Why don’t you take food or drinks from roadside shops or mobile vendors? Because of unhygienic I get sick from This food is Other conditions of food prepathis kind of too expenreasons ration and sale. food. sive. 10 % 16 % 26 % 26 % 6% 6% 18 % 56 % 4% 12 % 12 % 56 % 33 % 63 % 38 % 47 % 9% 9% 14 %

Tab. 6.14: Consumers’ Reasons for not taking Street Food Data source: Food Consumption Survey (valid n=78; only answers by people who never /sometimes take street food)

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According to the results from a Public Health Survey in Dhaka’s slums,122 42 percent of the respondents said that none of their family members had ever become sick from eating street food. Only a small minority (5%) stated that some of their family members have become sick many times or often from consuming street food, while one quarter noted that this had happened sometimes (23%) and one third percent said it rarely happens (30%). Those who once got sick from consuming street food stated that they incurred stomach pain (34%), diarrhoea (9%) or other gastric problems (6%). They believed that they became sick, because the food had been prepared in an unhealthy environment (35%), because the served food was bad in quality (10%), or because the water used for preparation had already been polluted (10%). According to our own survey, in turn, two third of the slum dwellers believed that eating street food is not safe for the rich people, but the poor people can eat street food as they are used to its consumption. This shows that the answer to the question, whether street food is safe to eat or unhygienic, cannot be answered purely from a micro-biological point of view. It also depends on the normal food consumption patterns, the health and the microbial resilience of the consumers. Moreover, the public discourse, in particular popular narratives about the purity of food, about eating outside, about youth culture and about urban poverty, structures our perception of the safety of street food. Like in Calcutta, an evaluation of the hygienic conditions of street food in Dhaka therefore seems to be lie somewhere in “between elite hysteria and subaltern carnivalesque” (Mukhopadhyay 2004). 6.4 SITES OF STREET FOOD CONSUMPTION IN DHAKA Like all goods and services, street food shops are unevenly, but not randomly, distributed in space. Looking at food vending in public space implies that a place’s position within the urban fabric, its function as well as its economic and symbolic value is looked at. In each arena, the street food vendors’ appropriation of space competes with other uses. The most important locations of street food consumption and vending are, however, those places, where people assemble in great numbers, whether these are junctions of public transport, markets, industrial areas or densely populated living areas (cf. Brown 2006d: 24f; Nirathron 2006: 27). Although one can get some street food at almost every street corner in Dhaka, I want to highlight six particularly important hot spots of street food consumption.

122 Survey (n=1938) undertaken by the INNOVATE research team (Krämer/Khan, University of Bielefeld, and Hostert/Grübner Humboldt, University of Berlin) in 2009 at the same study sites as our survey. The street food related results have not been published yet.

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Hot Spots of Street Food Consumption. First, street food is sold inside and right in front of publicly accessible buildings and hubs of public transport, such as the national bus terminals in Saidabad or Gabtoli, the Kamalapur train station or the ferry terminal in Sadarghat (see case study below). Travellers on longer journeys and commuters on their way to/from work need food that is readily-available and cheap, that can quickly satisfy one’s immediate hunger or that can be taken on the journey. Examples are small snacks, fruits, tea and bottled water as well as cigarettes and paan-shupari. As the large travel hubs are clearly underequipped with bather hotels, food shops and kiosks, street food vendors fill this market niche. The most important stations for the inner-city bus lines, for instance Gulistan, do not have separately demarcated areas, but rather occupy several street lanes. Here, the bus traffic mixes chaotically with the flow of cars, taxi-cabs, rickshaws and pedestrians. Food hawkers, who want to generate a profit from dense passenger flows, compete directly with the predominant use of street space. Every small bus stop or larger street corner, where people gather to catch a CNG or a rickshaw, is also an attractive spot for food vendors. As hundreds of rickshaw-pullers also wait for passengers at the travel hubs and load carriers and day labourers work there, street vendors serve supplement snacks to travellers and required street food to these vulnerable consumer groups. Second, ever since the commercial centre in Mothijheel was established, office workers and lower-paid service personal are regular street food customers on their way to or from work and in their breaks, in particular around lunch time. Dhaka’s growing service sector and the construction of every new office tower provides another livelihood opportunity for street food vendors. Dhaka’s large markets, like the wholesale markets Babu Bazar, Kawran Bazar (cf. Keck et al. 2008; Etzold et al. 2009; Keck 2012) or the New Market, provides employment for hundreds of people and attracts thousands of customers. With a diverse range of products street food shops serve the needs of all different consumers that come to work or shop at the markets: they sell tea to traders and shoppers, and nutritious but cheap snacks to day labourers. At night, when the large markets are reequipped with goods, informally employed load carriers can get a warm meal and tea from street shops that operate all night long. For a street food vendor, a good vending position at a large market is a guarantee for a regular and high profit. Third, in industrial areas such as the quarter Islambagh, where Dhaka’s plastic recycling industry is located (Hackenbroch et al. 2009; Kulke & Staffeld 2009), street vendors sell full meals, snacks and beverages to wage workers, day labourers, and traders (see pictures 6.3). The importance of the cities ever growing garment industry for the street food trade has already been addressed (chapter 5.2.3). Flexibility with regard to the vending site can pay off for a street food vendor. At every larger construction site there is demand for food. Street vendors might come to the site every day or temporarily built a small shack in order to sell tea and snacks to the employed workers or day labourers, who often live at the site. After a few months, when construction work is finished, the street vendor moves to another site, too.

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Fourth, Dhaka’s residential areas vary greatly in terms of their residents’ socio-economic status, their density and their physical structure, if one takes the height of buildings, the used construction material, the road conditions, the available green spaces and traffic into account. Accordingly the scenes of everyday life and the residents’ uses of public space differ remarkably.123 Nonetheless, in all living quarters there is the demand for readily available snacks as supplements to home prepared food. Permanent street food shops are located at street corners, on the pavements, in niches next to the road or above the open sewage drains. Mobile vendors offer their services from rickshaws or pushcarts, or walk around a neighbourhood with their goods. First and foremost, the hawkers cater for the people who live in the respective area. If one walks around in a slum settlement in the afternoon, one can see children running around and lining up to buy a cheap snack like jhal muri, some local sweets or ice cream from mobile vendors. Other slum dwellers also enjoy tea, biscuits or pithas in between. There, small tea shops also offer other goods for domestic use like soap or toothpaste. In some shacks not only tea and pithas are served; neighbours also come together to watch TV or DVDs. The shops are then not merely food shops, but the community’s central points for chats, leisure and entertainment (as observed in the slum Bishil in Mirpur). As one’s immediate neighbourhood can be considered as a semi-public space, street food vending inside the slum opens a socially valued and fairly secure income earning opportunity for women (see pictures 7.3 and 7.4). In more affluent living quarters such as Gulshan or Dhanmondi, in which the residents themselves normally do not consume any street food, there is nonetheless a high demand for street food. The people who work there, for instance as drivers, security guards or gardeners, also value some tea and light snacks in between. Fifth, institutionalised public spaces such as university campuses or schools are important sites of consumption, too. There, street vendors cater for students, children and staff, who want to enjoy pleasure street food. The formal directives on street food vending in these publicly accessible buildings and areas vary from case to case. When vendors cannot enter the school grounds, they line up in front of the schools to sell tasty snacks like Jhal Muri, sweets and ice cream. On Dhaka University Campus, for instance, street vending is formally not allowed either, but due to the high demand and informal modes of regulation the employed security guards cannot or do not want to impede the street trade effectively (see chapter 8.1.2). Besides its canteens that serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, all over the vast campus of Dhaka University there are only nine small food shops where staff, students and visitors can get supplement food in between. Their number is insufficient for the food needs of 33,000 students and 1,800 teachers. The supply gap is filled by approximately 200 street food vendors, who have built little shacks or tents from which they serve meals, tea and snacks, or who come to the campus

123 A lively description of city walk through six structural areas in Dhaka – the old town, ‘traditional´ and new urban areas, the slums and squatter settlements, the elite’s living quarter and the urban fringes – has been presented by Bertuzzo (2009: 68).

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daily with their push-carts, rickshaws and baskets to sell refreshments, sweets, ice cream and soft drinks (pictures 7.4). Sixth, with a growing middle-class and a changing food culture, public outdoor spaces are becoming increasingly important sites of food consumption. Families, couples and the youth spend leisure time in public parks and on large squares, on play grounds and sports arenas, in theatre halls and cinemas all over the city. The park Suhrowardy Udyan and the monument Shaheed Minar in the heart of Dhaka city or the Manik Mia Avenue near the national parliament are important areas for recreation and entertainment (Preetha 2011). At these sites, (semi-) mobile street vendors offer pleasure street foods such as fuchka or chatpotti, sweets, ice cream and beverages from baskets or trays, push-carts or even larger motorised vans (see previous chapter on pleasure street food). Every single vending site at each of these consumption hot spots can be considered as a distinct arena of street food vending. While there might be similarities in the broad patterns of street food consumption, each arena has its specific modes of formal and informal regulation, its advantages for the established vendors and its barriers to entry for new vendors, as well as its own customer dynamics. In contrast to the more static formal food provisioning system – you either have a shop or bather hotel that is licenced by the DCC or not – the informal food services are more dynamic and flexible. The advantage of more mobile street vendors is that they can adapt easily to the spatial and temporal rhythms of their customers. They can meet the high food demand in peak-hours, for instance around noon in the lunch-break. Moreover, street vendors flexibly address the specific food needs and desires of commuters, office workers, students, day labourers or rickshaw pullers. Each consumer group has easy access to street food in terms of availability all over the city and in terms of comparatively low prices. Street food thus plays an important role for urban food security. Following the Rhythm of the Boats: Street Food at Sadarghat Ferry Terminal On the street in front of the university hospital, changes in consumers’ demand and shifts in the regulation of public space shape the daily rhythm of vending (see chapter 8.1). The following case study, in turn, shows that the rhythm of arrival and departure of ships at the Sadarghat Ferry Terminal and thus the changing number of customers in the arena determines the patterns of street food vending. River ferries on the mighty rivers Ganges (Padma), Brahmaputra (Jamuna) and Meghna are still an important mode of transport in Bangladesh. The ferry terminal of Bangladesh’s Inland Water Transport Association (BIWTA) in Sadarghat is Dhaka’s most important hub of boat transport for people. From here, passengers arrive from or depart to Gaibandha, Barisal, or other cities that are located at the banks of the major rivers. According to BIWTA officials about 30,000 people pass through the ferry terminal every day. The food needs of the outgoing passengers drive the local street food business: Many arrive more than one hour before departure and thus pass the time by eating some snacks or drinking tea; others

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buy fruits, whole loafs of bread, biscuits and bottled water for their long journey. This high demand cannot be met solely by the 20 formally registered and consolidated bather hotels and kiosks inside and opposite of the terminal (black symbols on maps 6.1). This opens up income earning opportunities for street food vendors, whose number increased from around 100 in the year 2000 to 150 or even 200 vendors in 2009. Although formally not allowed, the BIWTA authority tolerates the vending activities and informally collects at least 100 Taka per day from every vendor (interviews with a boat manager and a ticket officer, 17./22.02.09). In late August 2008, my research assistants counted and mapped the number of vendors at the site and also noted the respective mobility types and the kind of food that was sold (see figure 6.6 and maps 6.1). In the morning hours almost 100 shops or vendors sold food to travellers. The first map shows that all permanent bather hotels and kiosks (black symbols) are situated in the buildings opposite the terminal, while West of the terminal there are unconsolidated food shops, from which rickshaw pullers, day labourers and other poor customers can get full meals and tea (blue symbols). On the jetty, to which seven ferries were tied, semi-mobile and semi-permanent vendors sold fruits, bakery products, light snacks and tea (red/orange symbols). Only few mobile vendors walked around offering sweets or fruits (green symbols) (see map 6.1a). Around noon, some shops were open inside the terminal, but most vending activities took place on the jetty and on the street. The overall number of vendors had increased to 120 as two more boats had landed. In the afternoon, in turn, the number of ships, customers and vendors decreased again – this is usually the quietest part of the day at the terminal (see map 6.1b). In the evening, the street food business is at its daily peak, because most ferries leave Dhaka in between 6 and 9 p.m. and travel overnight. 18 permanent food shops were open and 150 street vendors offered fruits, snacks, bakery products and tea to an uncountable number of travellers bound to leave on one of the 12 ferries. There was still a lot of traffic in front of the terminal. But most business was on the jetty, on which not less than 100 mobile and semi-mobile vendors crowded. In order to benefit from the flow of passengers, the vendors try to position themselves close to the ships that are going to depart soon (see map 6.1c). One tea vendor, who was sitting at a table at the end of the jetty, explained that his business is closely tied to the schedule of the paddle steamer “The Rocket”, which always lands near his vending spot. In the early morning, when the Rocket arrives in Dhaka, he is not opening his shop as the passengers leave the boat in a hurry and usually do not take tea then. During that time he works as a goods carrier around the harbour. His shop is open from lunch time until 11 at night. In these nine hours he serves 70 to 80 travellers and earns 200 to 300 Taka. But he makes most of his profits in the two hours before the Rocket departs at 8 p.m. On Fridays, when the Rocket does not leave, he does not work at all, because there are simply not enough passengers at his end of the jetty (interview with Md. Ahmed, 02.03.09). On average the interviewed vendors at Sadarghat sold food to 78 people per day, and thereby made a profit of 344 Taka (~ 3.50 EUR) per day, which is slightly more than the average for all vending sites.

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6.5 INTERIM CONCLUSION: STREET VENDING CONTRIBUTES TO FOOD SECURITY What is the contribution of street food vending to urban food security? In this chapter I tried to answer this central research question by looking at two core aspects in the debate on urban food security and street food vending: employment opportunities and food consumption. First, it was shown that the field of food is the single most important field of employment in Bangladesh, and indeed also in the megacity of Dhaka. Almost 2.9 million people, or 37 percent of the megaurban labour force, work in food production, processing and storage, wholesale and retail trade and in food preparation. Through their hard labour, these food workers make food available and accessible for the 14.9 million people living in Dhaka; they work for urban food security. Moreover, the food workers’ income secures their own families sufficient access to food. Although the field of street food is continuously subject to discursive marginalisation and actual abatement, maybe 97.000 street food vendors sustain the lives of more than 425,000 people, i.e. three percent of the megaurban population. These numbers show that street food vending is not a marginal economic activity. In contrast, Dhaka is one of the street food capitals of the world. Second, the structure of Dhaka’s field of food consumption is – like all social fields – highly differentiated. This also applies to the street food consumption patterns of the urban poor. Own estimates suggest that more than half of the Dhaka’s inhabitants buy dishes, snacks and drinks on the street every day. Full meals, small nutritious snacks and refreshing drinks are consumed either as a substitute to home-prepared food or as a supplement in the daily diet. Broadly generalizing, one can assert that the more affluent slum dwellers are, the more often supplement snacks and drinks from the street are consumed, which further improves their nutritional situation. Moreover, looking at the livelihoods of the poor shows that hard-working day labourers and more mobile workers, such as rickshaw pullers, particularly depend on street food. Driven by the taste of necessity, they acknowledge street food for its low price and for its availability all over the megacity. Gender differences need to be noted, too: one third of the interviewed women eat street food every day, while almost three quarter of the men does so. One can conclude that easy access to street food plays a crucial role for the food security of the urban poor, i.e. for one fifth of the megaurban population. Even more so, as the flexible, mobile and hard-working labourers in the informal economy serve as backbone of Dhaka’s overall economy, one can imagine the importance of street food for the functionality of the city. Without the many snack vendors and street food stalls, the labourers working in transport, construction, manufacturing or trade could not be fed adequately at all times, and city life as such would collapse. This aspect seems to be widely overlooked by Dhaka’s urban middleclass and elites, who – although they occasionally take a sweet tea from the vendor at the corner or are tempted by Singharas, Fuchka or other desired street snacks – most often refrain from eating food on the streets. Although highly interesting, the street food consumption patterns of more affluent social groups were

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not studied. Further research could investigate whether the field of street food consumption is largely structured or even dominated by the pleasure street food consumption of the more affluent young and the middle class, who are increasingly eating outside and also value the culture of street food, or by the required street food consumption of the poor. Overall, chapter six clearly demonstrated that the sale of street food is not merely a food-provision service for the urban poor only. Instead street food vending must be understood as basic, yet important and vivid socio-economic practice that contributes significantly to a functioning and more resilient distribution of food, to the food security of the megaurban consumers, not only, but in particular of the urban poor, and to the quality of city life as such. Street food is available all over the city, but six hot spots of street food consumption are particularly important: the hubs of public transport, commercial centres, industrial production sites, residential areas, schools and university grounds, and public parks and squares. The chapter also showed that the field of street food is a growing and yet increasingly diversified social field, which is confronted by ambivalent trends: the emerging urban food culture of eating outside and changing social norms and gender roles – both important local implications of globalisation – on the one hand, and pervasive poverty and the criminalisation of the informal economy on the other hand. Against this background, my analysis will go one step further in the next chapter as I look into the social field of street food and investigate the vendors’ trajectories and vending styles, their capitals and capabilities, their social position and relations, and thereby their own vulnerabilities.

7 INSIDE THE FIELD: STYLES OF VENDING, SOCIAL POSITIONS AND VULNERABILITY While the previous chapter focussed on the relation between street vending and food consumption, this chapter looks at the street food vendors themselves as the most important agents in their field. Selling prepared food is an essential employment opportunity for more than 97,000 people in Dhaka. Just as slums are no homogenous units, because poverty levels, living standards and the slum dwellers’ vulnerability differ considerably (cf. Pryer 2003; Sakdapolrak 2010; Zingel et al. 2011; Hackenbroch 2013), the field of street food is highly heterogeneous, too. In the following, I combine insights of semi-structured interviews, participatory research and a questionnaire survey in order to describe the field of street food in its internal differentiation and fragmentation. The hawkers have dissimilar migration and working trajectories, specific histories of entering the arenas that are tied to their network relations, and different informally acclaimed rights to public space (chapter 7.2). As follows, their working conditions and their economic success in terms of incomes and expenditures differ markedly (chapter 7.2). Moreover, there are different levels of chronic poverty and degrees of food security in the field and the vendors’ vulnerability to various livelihood risks differs, too (chapter 7.4). With Bourdieu, one can assert that these differences are not coincidental, but depend on the vendors’ social positions, and thus on their endowment with different types of capital. A relational analysis is able to reveal the similarities and dissimilarities between the hawkers. It shows how they acquire a certain position in their arena, and which consequences follow for their scope of action. The styles of street food vending (introduced in chapter 7.1) are then not merely different ways of pursuing a business, they are rather distinct social practices of agents who take on positions and thus develop a disposition to think, judge, and act (habitus) in a specific way. The spatiality of the vendors’ practices largely reflects their relative social position, of which they are well aware. Recognition by others (symbolic capital) is thus crucial for the distinctions inside the field (chapter 7.5). Overall, the chapter shows that street food vendors’ success or vulnerability depends to a large degree on the vendors’ access to and use of public space, and thus on their personal relations to authoritative agents in their arena. For street vendors, the urban space as such is a crucial livelihood resource (cf. Brown 2006d). Key Question: How do differently endowed street food vendors sustain their livelihoods? 1. 2.

Which styles of vending exist and how do they relate to the appropriation of public space? Who works as a street food vendor, and what barriers exist to enter the field and the arenas?

3.

How is the street trade organised, what links to other traders exist, and how profitable is it?

4.

What drives the vulnerability of street food vendors and which livelihood risks do they face?

5.

How are the distinctions inside the field perceived by the vendors themselves?

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The Politics of Street Food

7.1 DISTINCTIONS IN DHAKA’S FIELD OF STREET FOOD 7.1.1 Basic Demographic Information on Street Food Vendors The age of the interviewed vendors ranged from 15 to 65 years, while the average age was about 39. The vast majority of vendors are married; most of those not married are younger than 25 years. Some female vendors I spoke to in semistructured interviews were widowed or divorced, but all women in the survey are married. Two vendors were Hindus (both mobile vendors), while 98 percent were Muslims. On average, the street food vendors have two children; four to five people usually live together and share their household resources (see table 7.1). This represents the household size in Dhaka District of 4.3 people (BBS 2011b). While there are no remarkable differences of these aspects in between our different sub-groups of analysis, some characteristics, however, seem to relate directly to the vending style. It is not a coincidence that there was no woman among the truly mobile vendors, nor among the permanent shop keepers: the access to street vending is restricted to them by social norms (chapter 7.2.2). Almost half of the street vendors, but only one quarter of the vendors from permanent consolidated food shops was unable to read or write. The higher illiteracy rates among the semi-permanent hawkers can be explained through the relatively high number of women in that group. Five out of six female vendors were illiterate as they never went to school (83%). Among the male vendors the illiteracy rate was 40 percent. Half of all vendors finished primary school education, while four vendors had more than ten years of schooling (high school graduation). Despite having little formal education, most vendors, however, do develop good practical business skills that enable them to circumvent risks and seize opportunities.

Street Food Vending Styles Permanent shop consolidated Permanent shop unconsolidated Semi-permanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total/Mean Total/Mean for street vendors

number shops illiteracy age in run by rate sample women

share of married vendors

share of Muslim vendors

number numof ber of children people in hh

13

0

23 %

38

85 %

100 %

1.7

4.4

25

0

40 %

41

80 %

100 %

1.8

4.3

15 43 24 120

3 3 0 6

60 % 37 % 54 % 43 %

41 37 39 39

80 % 74 % 88 % 80 %

100 % 98 % 96 % 98 %

2.4 2.0 2.6 2.1

4.9 4.3 4.3 4.4

107

6

45 %

39

79 %

98 %

2.1

4.4

Tab. 7.1: Basic Characteristics of Street Food Vendors according to different Vending Styles Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Note: In most of the following tables the respective total or average is also shown for the street food vendors, and thus excludes the permanent consolidated food shops (the comparison group).

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7.1.2 Street Food Vending as a Spatial Practice Temporality plays a crucial role for the appropriation of space (Bourdieu 2005a: 118). The broad range of vending practices that was witnessed in Dhaka was subsumed into five major styles of street vending, along a continuum from only temporary to a permanent appropriation of public space (see table 7.0 in the annex for a full list of vending styles in Dhaka). Which style of vending is employed by a vendor depends on his financial capacities and skills, the items he sales, consumer demand, the available space at and the institutional specifics of the local sites. Yet, most importantly, the developed style depends on the vendors’ social relations. The street food vending styles thus relate directly to all the five dimensions of appropriating public space (chapter 3.3.2). The Truly Mobile Vending Style – Temporary Encroachment of Public Space Mobile street food vendors do not have fixed premises, but sell their products by walking around with a basket of banana or other fruits (42%), some light snacks (42%) such as jhal muri or peanuts, a tray with cigarettes and paan (as other, 8%), or a flask of tea, some biscuits or moa. Only temporarily, they squat on the street (58%), on the footpaths (38%), or other public places. At night they take all their equipment and food home. Their greater flexibility compared to permanent vendors enables them to access customers at various places and at particular times. 29 percent of the interviewed mobile vendors sold at more than one vending site. Mobility helps them to circumvent problems with the police or the city authorities, making them less sensitive to evictions (chapter 8.3). One fifth of the interviewed vendors sold food in this truly mobile manner (see tables 7.1 to 7.3). The Semi-Mobile Vending Style – Regular Encroachment of Public Space Semi-mobile vending units, such as push-carts, rickshaws or small tables and boxes, are moved occasionally to reach consumers at different places at different times. These vendors pursue their business on the pavement (51%) or on the street (49%). Most of them (95%), however, remain at one vending site throughout the whole day. If necessary, they are still flexible to move quickly. At night, after having finished the business, most of them leave their vending site with all their goods (65%), while some leave food and/or equipment on the site and somebody is watching after it (35%). For this group, fruits are the most prominent food item (56%), but some also sell drinks (16%), in particular tea and juice (shorbot), snacks (9%), sweets or ice-cream (2%). Cigarette and paan-shupari vendors also sell in this way (as other, 12%). Semi-mobile vendors account for one third of the interviewees in our survey.

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The Politics of Street Food

The Semi-Permanent Vending Style – Regular and Durable Encroachment of Public Space Semi-permanent vending units consist of heavy push-carts or larger tables with benches that are set up for the day, always at the same vending spot, for instance, on the footpath (53%) or on the street (33%). It is possible to move or carry them away, but only with considerable effort. At night, the vendors pack their goods together and leave them on site (67%) or take them home (33%). Only one of the 15 interviewed semi-permanent vendors does business at other vending sites, too. Most of these vendors sell beverages (40%), in particular tea and sugarcane juice, and fruits (27%). Some sell full dishes and snacks (13% each), such as pitha or fuchka. This group accounts for 13 percent of the interviewed vendors. One fifth of them were women.

The Permanent Vending Style – Durable Encroachment of Public Space Static street shops are set up permanently at one site. Their persistence and thus their economic as well as symbolic value depend on the material used for their construction. Unconsolidated permanent shops (so called kutcha or jhupri structures) have been built illegally with comparatively cheap material, like bamboo, wood, some plastic or tin sheets. These tents or small huts are located on open ground or in small niches right next to a footpath (20%), or encroach on the footpath (44%) or on the street (28%). Some of them are open all night (12%). At those shops that are closed at night, the vendors usually leave all their equipment at the site. Most of the wooden or tin huts can be locked, others are protected by security guards at night (32%). 20 percent of the vendors take goods home at night. These street shops account for one fifth of the street food vending units in the survey. From two third of them tea, biscuits, small snacks and cigarettes are sold. Only few sell full rice meals. In slums, one can get everyday consumer goods like soap or tooth paste from these shops that then resemble kiosks. Permanent consolidated shops are more solidly built of brick and usually have a tin roof (so called pucca structures). They are located on open ground next to a street (23%), or encroach on the footpath (15%) or on the street (39%). This persistent encroachment on public space requires larger capital investments and more tenure security. As the shops usually have more than three permanent walls, they are not considered as real street food vending units in this study (following the definition from Tinker 1997: 17), but rather as comparison group (11% of interviewed vendors). Full rice dishes and snacks are sold from 15 percent of the permanent consolidated shops. Almost two third of them are larger tea stalls, where consumers can get hot tea, biscuits and cake, bottled water and soft drinks, fully-packaged snacks and sweets, cigarettes and paan-shupari.

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

Vending Styles

Vending Location on open on the on the ground street footpath next to street

Permanent consolidated

201

Share of Vendors who… sell at take all chose venddifferent goods ing spot share vending home at themself sites night

39 %

15 %

23 %

0%

8%

54 %

11 %

28 %

44 %

20 %

0%

20 %

48 %

21 %

33 %

53 %

13 %

7%

33 %

80 %

13 %

49 % 58 %

51 % 38 %

0% 4%

5% 29 %

65 % 92 %

77 % 96 %

36 % 20 %

43 %

43 %

9%

8%

51 %

73 %

100%

Mean for street 44 % 47 % vendors only

8%

9%

56 %

75 %

89 %

Permanent unconsolidated Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total/ Mean

Tab. 7.2: Vending Locations of Street Food Shops Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Notes: not all possible categories are listed in the table, so the sum per line is not 100%.

Share of food items sold … Vending Styles

full dishes

bakery snacks products

sweets, dairy icecream products

fruits

drinks

number

Permanent consolidated

15 %

15 %

7%

0%

0%

0%

62 %

13

8%

4%

4%

0%

0%

8%

68 %

25

13 % 0% 0%

13 % 9% 42 %

7% 2% 0%

0% 2% 4%

0% 2% 4%

27 % 56 % 42 %

40 % 16 % 0%

15 43 24

Total/ Mean

5%

16 %

3%

2%

2%

33 %

32 %

120

Mean for street vendors only

5.6 %

17.8%

3.7 %

1.9 %

1.9 %

37.4%

35.5%

107

Permanent unconsolidated Semi-permanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile

Tab. 7.3: Types of Street Food sold according to Vending Styles Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

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The Politics of Street Food

Mobile tea, paan shupari and cigarettes vendors

Semi-mobile peanuts and chanachur vendors

Permanent unconsolidated tea and snacks shop

Semi-permanent push-cart selling tea and snacks

Permanent consolidated tea and snacks shop

Pict. 7.1: Styles of Street Food Vending in Dhaka Source: B. Etzold (2007-2010)

7.2 ENTERING THE FIELD, CLAIMING ACESS TO THE ARENAS 7.2.1 Street Food Vendors’ Migration Trajectories Neither the dynamic process of megaurbanisation, nor the field of street food can be understood without looking at migration processes. A study in the late 1990s revealed that two third of all migration movements in Bangladesh originated from rural districts and aimed at the urban centres, rural to rural migration accounted for ten percent and international migration for 24 percent (Afsar 2003: 1).124 As 124 More recent data indicate that international migration from Bangladesh is increasing in scope and importance. In 2007, more than 830,000 Bangladeshis worked abroad, 82% of them went to countries in the Arabian Gulf region (Afsar 2009: 1). In 2010, about 12% of all households in Bangladesh had migrants in their family; 4% internal and even 8.6% international (BBS 2011c). The remittances of Bangladeshi international migrants increased steadily over the

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

203

Dhaka is the most important destination in the country, migration is the motor of its growth, not only in terms of population numbers. Since 1990, each year in between 300,000 and 400,000 immigrants arrived in Dhaka (World Bank 2007: xiii). This explains that 87 percent of Dhaka’s slum dwellers are migrants (Khan et al. 2010). Moreover, rural-urban migration initiated Dhaka’s settlement development and spatial expansion, the growth of its economy and its food demand. Migration movements unveil problems, risks and socio-economic fragmentations of megaurban life as well as potentials for innovation and for livelihood security.125 Whatever actual motivations for migration are, the personal trajectories of rural-urban migrants shape their present habitus and therefore influence the way they are sustaining their livelihoods at present. In Bangladesh, the migrants’ place of origin (basha – normally the home village of the father) has an important symbolic value in everyday interactions, even if people came to Dhaka decades ago. Moreover, many families in Bangladesh organise their livelihoods translocally as a part of the family (still) lives in the home village, locally involved in agriculture, while some family members (temporarily) work in Dhaka’s garment factories as day labourers, rickshaw pullers or street vendors. Maintaining close relations to family members, local patrons and other people in the home community is seen as a normal – yet important – part of life. Being able to draw on close translocal networks can become an important asset in times of ecological, political, economic or personal crises.126 Almost all of the street food vendors in this case study (96% in the survey) were internal migrants and some also spoke about their plans for international migration. On average, the interviewed street vendors moved to Dhaka 17 years ago. Almost two third of them arrived in the past 20 years, 31 percent in the 1990s, and one third since the year 2000. Eighteen percent migrated to Dhaka in the 1980s, ten percent in the 1970s, and only eleven percent came to Dhaka before independence in 1971. My initial assumption that mobile vendors were migrants that had arrived in Dhaka only fairly recently proved to be wrong. Although I met some mobile vendors who had arrived in the megacity just weeks before, most vendors had, at the time of the interviews, already spent more than 13 years in Dhaka. However, the mobile vendors formed the group that lived in the city for the shortest time. In contrast, the semi-permanent vendors came to Dhaka about 25 years ago, on average (figure 7.1 and table 7.6).

past 30 years and accounted for 9.5% of Bangladesh’s GDP in 2007 (UNDP 2009: 161). Irregular labour migration to India and informal financial flows add to both figures. 125 See Kraas (2007a) for an overview of ecological, economic, political and social dimensions of risks and disadvantages of megaurbanisation, but also benefits and advantages. The livelihood realities and hopes of urban dwellers have been well described in the “State of the World Population 2007” Report (UNFPA 2007: 14ff). 126 See Etzold and Sakdapolrak (2012) for the debate on migration and social vulnerability. Migrants households’ translocal relations are discussed by Thieme (2007) for the case of Nepali migrants in India and by Steinbrink (2009) for rural-urban migrants in South Africa.

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The Politics of Street Food

Fig. 7.1: Street Food Vendors’ Migration to Dhaka Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Note: In total there were 115 migrants among the interviewed street vendors. There is no data on the arrival year of seven migrant vendors.

Origin of Dhaka’s Street Food Vendors People from all districts of Bangladesh migrate to Dhaka in search for more secure livelihoods. In some areas, however, out-migration is more common: the districts with a higher out-migration are poorer than others, they are highly exposed to natural disasters, and they have better transportation connections with metropolitan cities like Dhaka (Islam 1999). According to our survey, the distance to Dhaka is clearly an important factor influencing internal migration patterns of street vendors. There is no clear link between the vendors’ migration and the population density, poverty levels or food insecurity in the respective districts of origin. Map 7.1 (see colour pages) shows the districts of origin of those 115 out of 120 vendors that were not born in Dhaka district. Thirteen percent of the migrant vendors were born in a nearby district such as Munishganj (12%); they only have to travel up to 50 kilometres to visit their home village. Another 37 percent of vendors come from a district which is in between 50 and 100 kilometres from Dhaka, like Comilla to the East (5%), Chandpur to the Southeast (6%), or Farid-

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

205

pur to the Southwest (3%). The home of 45 percent of the vendors is up to 200 kilometres away, which implies longer travelling times when visiting the extended family. The families of the vendors coming from coastal districts, such as Barisal (12%) or Bhola (13%), are particularly vulnerable to natural calamities like cyclones, floods and river erosion (IOM 2010). A small share of vendors comes from Khulna in the Southwest (4%) or from Sylhet in the Northeast (3%). Only one vendor was born more than 200 kilometres away from Dhaka. Major Reasons for Migration In Bangladesh, the interplay of poverty, food insecurity and high vulnerability to environmental stresses in the rural areas, and more livelihood opportunities and better access to education in the cities are the key drivers of rural to urban migration. As recent migration theories suggest, there is never solely a single cause (a push- or pull-factor; cf. Massey et al. 1998) motivating or forcing people to migrate. Yet, for most people coming to the megacity the economic opportunities are the most important reason for moving (cf. Begum 1999; Islam 1999; Kumar Das 2003).127 For 91 percent of the interviewed migrant vendors, the major reason to migrate was the prospect of a (better) job and thus the hope to acquire a higher income (see table 7.4). Almost half of the vendors (48%) stressed that they generally sought a better life in Dhaka than in their home village before. Nine percent were affected by rural unemployment, but only one of the vendors stated that he could not feed his family properly in his home village. Although food insecurity is still widespread in the rural areas of Bangladesh and the access to food clearly relates to internal migration patterns, food insecurity, according to the survey, does not seem to be the prime issue of concern. And yet, some migrants noted that they had lost agricultural land through river erosion and therefore had to seek alternative livelihood opportunities in the city (9% of vendors; see also box 7.1). Family reasons can be important motives for migration, too: Five percent of the vendors came to Dhaka as a child with their families, so the decision to migrate was not upon them. Three percent of the migrants came to the city for marriage. For ten percent, family problems, such as a divorce, played a role in their migration decision. Only two percent of the migrants stated that they moved to enable themselves or their children a better education, but own qualitative interviews showed that once they are in Dhaka they are able and willing to invest substantial amounts in their children’s education, and thus in their own future. 127 According to an overview of several studies on internal migration to Dhaka conducted in the 1970s/80s, 55% of the movements were triggered by economic reasons, 27% by environmental causes, and 9% by personal or family reasons (Islam 1999). A study by Begum (1999) found that 60% of the interviewed slum dwellers in Dhaka primarily migrated to the megacity for economic reasons, 17% for environmental reasons, 17% for social reasons, and only 2% for educational reasons. A study by Kumar Das (2003) revealed that 35% of slum dwellers came to Dhaka due to unemployment, 48% due to landlessness back home, 13% due to lost land through river erosion, and 1.5%, all women, due to divorce or after they became widows.

206

Vending Styles

The Politics of Street Food Share of vendors who are migrants

What were the major reasons for your move to Dhaka? Livelihood opportuEnviEduFamily reasons roncanities ment tion

(not born in Dhaka District)

better better unemlife in business ployDhaka /income ment in Dhaka back home

loss of land through river erosion

with family as a child

for due to marfamily riage problems (divorce, etc.)

self or children

Permanent

92%

67%

100%

8%

–

–

8%

25%

–

Permanent

96%

46%

88%

4%

4%

4%

–

8%

–

100%

40%

80%

–

7%

7%

7%

7%

13%

93%

45%

85%

8%

15%

8%

–

10%

–

100%

42%

88%

8%

8%

–

4%

4%

–

96%

48%

91%

9%

9%

5%

3%

10%

2%

consolidated

unconsolidated

Semipermanent Semimobile Truly mobile Total

Tab. 7.4: Street Food Vendors’ Major Reasons for Migration Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120; several answers were possible)

Box 7.1: Food Insecurity and Migration in Bangladesh Bangladesh’s most food insecure areas are the Northwest, a drought zone in the West, the Sylhet basin, the Southern coastal belt, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Southeast (see Government of Bangladesh & World Food Programme 2004). Even in these areas sufficient food is available throughout the whole year, and rice is even exported to the capital from some of the most food insecure regions (see Keck et al. 2008). Subsistence production is often insufficient to feed families throughout the whole year, in particular during the lean season in September/October – the so called monga period – when additional resources are necessary to buy food. Rural-urban migration is therefore often seasonal in nature: migrants in the city generate income to support family members in their village, and the labourers return during the work-intensive crop-planting and harvesting seasons. On the one hand, rural food insecurity is thus a question of access to food in terms of affordability and allocation of food and a significant driver of migration. On the other hand, migration contributes crucially to rural food security through the migrants’ remittances and their labour power at important times. Bangladesh is expected to become one of the most severely affected countries by the effects of climate change. The debate about the complex relations between climate change, food insecurity and migration in Bangladesh is thus in full swing (cf. Poncolet 2009; Warner et al. 2009; IOM 2010; Findlay & Geddes 2011; Penning-Rowsell et al. 2011; Ahmed et al. 2012; Etzold et al. 2013).

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Migration often heavily depends on kinship ties, friendship and shared places of origin. The relations between migrants, former migrants and non-migrants constitute translocal migrant networks (cf. Massey et al. 1998; Steinbrink 2009). Having ‘translocal social capital’, in turn, increases the likelihood of migration movements, because networks “lower the costs and risks of movement and increase the expected net returns to migration” (Massey et al. 1998: 42). For the case of Dhaka, Kumar Das (2003) underscored the importance of chain migration and migration networks, and thereby questioned a too simplistic understanding of migration in terms of the most prevalent pull- and push factors (cf. Begum 1999). He argues that migrants were not merely motivated by the magnitude of rural poverty still prevailing, and/or attracted by the comparatively better living conditions in the city and the access to the urban labour market, but in particular stimulated to migrate through networks developed between the places of origin and the city slum (Kumar Das 2003: 105). Interestingly, the results of my research on this aspect substantially differ between the vendors interviewed in the quantitative survey and the in-depth and more personal semi-structured interviews. In the Street Vendors’ Survey it was asked whether they initially received help for their move to Dhaka. 60 percent of the 115 migrants interviewed replied that they did not get help from anybody, while one quarter of the respondents stated that they had received support from the family living in the home village. Only five percent of the migrants, at the time when they arrived, could draw on the help of close family members or distant relatives who were already living in Dhaka. On the contrary, I gained the impression throughout my qualitative research that translocal social capital was one of the most important factors to explain why and when people migrate to the city, where they settle within the city, where and what kind of work they can obtain, and (for the case of street vendors) to which vending site they can get access to. As shown in the next section, the personal migration trajectories are closely tied to working histories and, most importantly, to the vendors’ personal relations. Migration Trajectories and Translocal Livelihoods of Street Food Vendors In the following, the life stories – or trajectories – of three street food vendors are introduced to not only show the reasons why they came to Dhaka, but also the way how they are maintaining translocal relations to their home village, and how they became street food vendors. This section gives first insights into typical urban livelihoods and to the social conditions in Dhaka’s informal economy. Abdur128 is a 30 year old semi-mobile street food vendor who sells tea and snacks in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Abdur grew up in a village near Comilla (100 kilometres Southeast of Dhaka) and came to Dhaka at the age of 16. At that time, his uncle was working in the hospital and Abdur 128 The voices of some of the vendors introduced here appear repeatedly throughout this study. All names displayed here are, however, fictive names in order to protect the interviewees.

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The Politics of Street Food

could live with him in the ‘staff colony’, a slum within the hospital premises where security guards, cleaners, or ward boys, were allowed to live with their families (see case study 8.1). Initially, Abdur had planned to work in the hospital too, but he could not afford the high bribes for getting into this formal employment. Moreover, he thought that he could make more money as a street vendor than as a fourth class worker who only earn around 5,000 Taka per month. A few months after his arrival, his mother also moved to Dhaka and started to work as a babysitter inside the hospital, looking after the children of the patients. Abdur’s father stayed at home where he was working as a fish trader. Since the demise of his father three years ago, the family members in Dhaka have rarely visited their home village. Although Abdur earns up to 350 Taka per day (~3.50 Euro) his income is highly insecure as his street business is often affected by police eviction drives. He therefore spoke about the idea to migrate to Oman in the Arabian Gulf, or to re-migrate to his home village, although he would prefer not to be forced to leave (own interviews, 17./20.11.2007, 31.08.2008, 07.02.2009; case study 8.6). At the age of ten, Tasneem, now 30 year old, came to Dhaka in search of a better life. She first worked as a domestic maid, then as labourer in the plastic recycling industry in Islambagh. Six years ago, she started a street food business in front of a plastic processing factory. At that time, her husband, who used to work as a rickshaw puller, could not support the family sufficiently, because he fell ill. Since then, she has operated her small permanent shop with her ten year old son. For two Taka, she offers vapa or chitoy pitha (little rice cakes). Most of her customers are local plastic labourers who value this snack because of its taste, nutrients and the cheap price, and because it is quickly available for them in the short breaks they have. If she works all day, she earns about 100 Taka (less than 1 Euro). Considering the recent rapid price increase in Dhaka, it is getting extremely difficult for her to survive of this money. She now maintains a translocal household since her husband is still not able work due to his disease, and moved back to his home village. He depends on his wife for his medical expenses (see table 7.5; case study 7.2). Nazim Hussain is 40 years old. He sells tea, snacks and cigarettes from a little semi-permanent shop on a footpath close to the Shaheed Minar on Dhaka University Campus. He was born in a little village near Munshiganj, about 30km to the Southeast of Dhaka. As a young man, he worked in a large jute mill and migrated to Dhaka in the late 1980s, when many jute mills in Bangladesh were shut down due to a national economic recession and low prices for jute on international commodity markets. For the last 20 years, he had maintained his street side shop at the same place. Occasionally, he tried to get a permanent retail shop somewhere else in Dhaka, but always failed because he could not afford the initial investments. He has been married for 15 years. His wife and their four sons are all living in his home village. Like in this case, the families of 22 percent of the male street vendors that we interviewed live in rural areas. The families thus maintain translocal households.

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Time

What happened? What was she working? How are the rural-urban relations?

30 years ago (~1979)

She was born in a village in the North of Bangladesh as the third of four children and lived with her parents, both farmers. She said that when her little brother died, her mother became ‘mad’ and her father married a second wife. Since then, her life in the family had become more difficult. She did not get adequate food and was not treated well by her elder brothers and by her step mother. That’s why, she left her village.

20 years ago (~1989)

At the age of ten, she accompanied an older female neighbour to Dhaka to work in her house as a domestic helper. She worked there for 1½ years, but then worked as a maid in many families in different quarters of Dhaka. She complained that as a maid there was “no freedom in life” as she had to work the whole day till late at night and the house owners often treated her badly. Nonetheless, she worked as a maid 5 to 6 years.

15 or 14 years ago (~1994/95)

She left the house maid job and moved to the slum Kamrangirchar to live with a another female neighbour from her home village. At that time, she began to work in Islambagh’s plastic recycling industry. She had to sort different plastic products and do cleaning jobs within the factory. She earned around only 600 Taka per month (~ 12 Euro at that time). During these years, she got to know her future husband, who was a rickshaw puller, and got married soon thereafter. She continued the work in the factory after the wedding for another three years.

12 years ago (~1997)

She gave birth to her son back at her husband’s village and stayed there for three years. Her husband continued to work in Dhaka as a rickshaw puller and came for visits occasionally.

9 years ago (~2000)

When her son turned three, she came back to Dhaka and stayed at Islambagh with her husband. Again, she worked as a plastic labourer. As she and her husband both had to work the whole day, there was nobody to take care of their child, which then didn’t eat properly and “looked like an orphan”, as she noted bitterly. She had a bad conscience about this and left her work at the plastic factory, also because she got severely sick during that time. These were very difficult times for them.

6 years ago (~2003)

Her husband suggested to start a pitha business and provided the money to start selling rice cakes in front of a local plastic factory. It helped to improve their situation, because she earned more money and could look after her son, too. Sometimes, her husband also helped her after rickshaw pulling. From the hard work as rickshaw puller, her husband became very ill. His health status became worse rapidly.

1 year ago (~2008)

Her husband stopped to work completely due to his disease and they didn’t have enough money to take a proper treatment. The situation became worse and it was not possible for him to stay in Dhaka. He moved back to his village and now lives there without proper treatment. Tasneem stayed in Dhaka with her son, who is going to school. Since then, she has continued to sell pithas near the same factory. Now, she earns around 100 Taka per day. With this little money she tries to manage all their living and food expenses in Dhaka, and also to save some money for the medicine and treatments of her husband. As travelling to the village is expensive, they can rarely see another. Most often, she is just sending him the money.

Tab. 7.5: Timeline with a semi-permanent pitha vendor Data source: in-depth interview with timeline, 13.02.09

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The Politics of Street Food

Throughout the week, Nazim Hussain keeps close contact to his family by mobile phone. Once a week, he makes the two-hour-journey home and stays one day. He always brings home the money he had earned in Dhaka. His family uses most of the remittances for daily expenses, for improvements of their house and for the education of their sons. In the past, he also made little business investments in his village, like a chicken farm, but he was not very successful. Two years ago, he took up a loan from a money lender in his village to pay for international labour migration. An ‘uncle’ had offered him a job in the United Arabian Emirates and demanded 150,000 Taka (~1.440 Euro) for the facilitation of the migration, but the opportunity did not work out. Although he got most of the money back from his distant relative after two years, the interest rate for the money borrowed from a ‘loan shark’ was so high that he had to sell parts of his land to pay back the interests due to this risky migration investment. He justified his ambition to migrate internationally with an economic rationality: He believed that by working in the Gulf States he could make a lot of money in a very short time which he could then send back and reinvest in Bangladesh. He did not want to merely “eat up the money” he had saved through his work as a street vendor (interviews, 30.10.07, 06.09.08, 17.02.09, 28.02.10; see case study 8.2). These examples demonstrate that many rural-urban migrants draw on multiple resources (from the city and from their village, from family members and from money lenders), that they are able and willing to take great risks in order to invest in a better future, and that high social costs, false expectations and even betrayal are a normal part of people’s migration experience. 7.2.2 Fluid Working Trajectories Taking up Street Food Vending The urban poor in Dhaka often change their profession and their place of work for different reasons, because they lost their job, because the family situation changed, or just because a new livelihood opportunity arose (cf. Kumar Das 2003; Salway et al. 2003). On the one hand, they cannot rely on the livelihood security that would come with a permanent job in public services, for instance. On the other hand, they are (forced to be) flexible and mobile and can adapt to changing circumstances fairly quickly, which is a crucial advantage in times of crises. According to a journalist (interview, 30.12.07), the urban poor experience changes in livelihood activities more frequent now than it was the case 20 years ago – often not because of an opportunity to substantially improve their lives, rather because they are forced to make changes in order to sustain their families somehow. Most of the street vendors have been working in the street economy for the last ten years (on average); that is seven years after they initially came to Dhaka, and took up the present street business eight years ago (see Table 7.6).

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability Age

Vending Styles Permanent consolidated

38

Permanent unconsolidated Semi-permanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total average

Years since move to Dhaka* 14

Years since starting as a street vendor 10

211

Years since starting present food business 7

41

20

8

5

41 37 39

25 15 13

15 8 11

14 7 10

39

17

10

8

Tab. 7.6: When did the respondents become Street Food Vendors? Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=115; only migrants, not born in Dhaka district)

Labour Trajectories The most important former jobs of street food vendors are listed in Table 7.7. Almost one out of five present street vendors were farmers with their own fields, or agricultural wage labourers before coming to Dhaka and starting their street businesses. To give an example, the semi-mobile tea vendor Salim, now 28 years old, came to Dhaka with his father when he was 16 years old. As his father was a farmer before, both of them went back to their home village to work as day labourers in agriculture during a time when they could not continue their business in Dhaka due to a street vending ban during the rule of the Awami League. After that time, they returned to street food vending in the megacity (interview 30.10.07, 07.09.08; see chapter 8.2.1). Fourteen percent of the interviewed vendors previously worked in construction or as day labourers. Md. Ahmed, for instance, a 35 year old man from Shariatpur, is working as a carrier of goods in the Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal, but also opened a small tea shop on the jetty as a part time business. The loss of a job cannot only be an incentive for migration, but also for changing professions. One 55 years old man, who is selling papur (a type of fried ‘bread’) on Dhaka University Campus, reported that until his tools were stolen he was working as a carpenter in Bagherat in Southern Bangladesh. As he could not afford to buy new tools, he could not continue that work and decided to go to Dhaka and search for an alternative livelihood option. Now, street food vending allows for the same income (150 Taka per day) as he got at his previous work place (interview 04.11.07). Twenty-six percent of the vendors were involved in other businesses, either working in other permanent shops (13%) or selling other products than food on the street (13%). As an example, Salim had sold plastic goods such as cups and pots in front of the hospital after he first arrived in Dhaka, but changed after a few months to selling street food snacks (pithas) and later tea and biscuits as this proved to be more lucrative.

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The Politics of Street Food farmer

day other other rickshaw nothing, school, factory cook, labou- shops street driver unstudy work kitchen rer or busi- vending employed helper ness jobs

Vending Styles Permanent consolidated Permanent unconsolid. Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total Share of total

1

1

2

4

2

4

3

7

2

3

3

2

1

-

3

-

1

2

2

2

-

-

8 9

8 1

6 1

4 4

1 3

2 4

6 -

3 -

1 -

22

17

15

15

12

11

10

4

2

9%

8%

3%

18%

1

14%

13%

13%

10%

-

-

-

1

2%

Tab. 7.7: Former Professions of Street Food Vendors Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

Ten percent of the interviewed street food vendors were former rickshaw pullers. They changed to street vending, because they saw better income opportunities and/or because pulling a rickshaw or a van (i.e. rickshaws or simple carts with a platform for transporting goods; see picture 7.2) is an extremely physically demanding job, which they did not continue due to low income, ill-health or age. Salahuddin, a 32 year old food shop owner in Bishil slum, came to Dhaka at the age of 20 and became a rickshaw driver. He noted that “rickshaw pulling is really very hard working. But I didn’t have cash” to save money and to do another business. He only earned around 100 to 150 Taka per day. He got married ten years ago. As his wife also earned 2000 Taka per month as a worker in a garments factory, they managed to save some money. Four years ago, they then opened a small (unconsolidated) shop with a loan of 20,000 Taka from a small savings association, which they are still paying back. Salahuddin’s wife quit work in the garments and now supports him in the shop. Now, they are making a profit of about 500 Taka per day. Salahuddin said that his life has improved a lot since he started street vending: “I was a Rickshaw Puller. Now, I am in this position. It is like a dream” (interview, 27.02.10). Eight percent of the interviewed vendors, and 20 percent of those younger than 25 years, left school to become a street vendor. Tanvir is a 24 year old semipermanent vendor who is selling tea and little snacks nearby the Shaheed Minar monument on the University Campus. He finished school in a small rural town near Chandpur at the age of 16. As he hardly had any prospects for a decent job in his village, he came to Dhaka and started to work as a street food vendor with his cousin. Now, they are still sitting next to another, but he runs his own business (interview, 10.12.07). Another example is Mohammad, a 21 year old man. As a young boy, he came to Dhaka with his older brother and was sent to school there.

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At the age of twelve, he left school, because he was not interested in studying. Instead, he started to sell boiled eggs in his neighbourhood in Islambagh. Three years ago, he diversified his business. Throughout the day, he is now selling clothes on the road (profit 500 Taka per day). In the evening, he takes on his eggs business (profit 200 Taka per day; interview, 08.02.09). Other street vendors were working in factories before. The case of Tasneem has already been told. Aram Berak, a 40 year old man, had worked in a large jute mill near Dhaka for 22 years, but in 1999 he – among thousand other workers – had lost his job when the mill was closed. Although a high compensation was promised to the workers, none of the them received anything. He therefore came to Dhaka and started to sell tea on the University Campus. His profit of 200 Taka per day is almost twice the amount he earned at the jute mill, however, his income is less secure (interview, 01.11.07). One might expect to meet more street food vendors, who previously worked as cook, kitchen hand or helper in a food stall, but only two percent of the vendors interviewed in the survey had worked in the prepared food economy prior to their street food business. However, there are exceptions like Kazi Anwarul, around 30 years, who works as a cook for a highly profitable ‘street restaurant’ opposite the university hospital. Before he got employed in this permanent-unconsolidated food stall four years ago, he worked for seven years in a bather hotel in Old Dhaka, but got fired when he demanded a higher wage. On the street, he now earns more than before (4,500 Taka per month compared to 3,000 Taka; interview, 12.12.07; case study 8.5). Similarly, Nasreen, a 42 years old woman, first worked as a kitchen hand in a permanent food stall before she started her own small street food business, about ten years ago. She sells basic rice dishes to day labourers and rickshaw pullers for only 10 Taka, while sitting on the ground near Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal. After her marriage, Nasreen did not need to work since her husband had a decent job as a trader in a little company. But after he died in an accident, she had to work to sustain her family and took the job in the bather hotel (interview, 02.03.09). Both the data from the survey and the individual case studies show that there is no typical pathway for a career as street food vendor. When and how people enter the field of street food rather depends on the vendors’ personal trajectory – both in terms of migration and labour – and often also on personal shocks, as the examples of Tasneem and Nasreen demonstrate. However, it seems like previous experience in the informal economy, family support and close relations to influential people at the respective vending site constitute important factors for the establishment of a street food business.

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The Politics of Street Food

7.2.3 Access to the Field of Street Food Ease of Entry into the Informal Economy People with little formal education or specialised skills – and in particular migrants – often face difficulties in finding adequate employment in the public sector or in private factories and enterprises. These barriers of entry into formal employment, that exist in many cities of the Global South, have often been noted (cf. ILO 1972; de Soto 1992). In turn, it was assumed that the informal economy is easy to enter and can absorb surplus labour (ILO 1972: 4). It was also proposed that the poor strategically chose to “go informal” in order to secure their livelihoods as they do not benefit from formal regulation (de Soto 1992: 43) and that they seek autonomy from the state and take their space in the city owing to the sheer “force of necessity” (Bayat 1997: 10; 2004: 92). The social reality in Bangladesh – confirmed by my own research findings – underscores these popular assumptions on the informal economy. In Dhaka, the access to formal employment, both in the public sector and in large private companies, is often impaired by manipulation through political parties, corruption and personal networks. Many applicants have to pay tremendously high bribes to middlemen in order to stand a chance in the recruitment process for an adequately paid job that also provides social security benefits.129 Informal wage employment in formally registered factories, for instance in the garments sector or the plastic recycling industry, and self-employment thus provides a good, and often the only, way out of this dilemma. Indeed, as fairly little capital is needed to open a small street food stall or selling tea or snacks in a mobile manner, entering the field of street food does not seem to be difficult. The value of street vendor’s necessary equipment is 6,500 Taka (65 EUR), on average; building a kutcha shop or buying a push-cart requires higher initial investments. Mobile vendors need to invest less in order to start their business as the examples of Rena or Ramid demonstrate. The daily business expenditures are low (between 800 and 2,700 Taka; see table 7.11). Moreover, many goods are purchased by food retailers or delivery companies on credit in the morning and actually paid in the evening. On the one hand, it can be 129 In 2009/2010, more than 170 new jobs as sweepers, ward boys and cooks (so called 4th class workers) at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital were promised to not less than 350 people. The applicants, among them many street vendors who do business in front of DMCH, had to pay bribes between 200,000 and 400,000 BDT (up to 4,000 EUR) to secure such a position in public services. In return, they would have earned 7,000 to 9,000 BDT per month, got access to government-owned flats, a pension and other future benefits. When the irregularities in the recruitment process became public, the responsible people from the DMCH were transferred and the recruitment started anew. Many applicants’ ‘investments´ in bribes were, however, lost. This was a severe blow for their livelihoods and a heavy toll for their own future. (Source: own interview with Salim and Abdur, 05.03.2010; newspaper articles in The Daily Star: ‘DMCH staffs demand transparency in recruitment´, 8.1.10; ‘Staff recruitment at DMCH suspended´, 16.1.10; ‘Ministry sitting on DMCH probe report. Graft in Recruitment´, 20.3.10; ‘DMCH staff recruitment cancelled for anomalies´, 30.4.10; ‘Scrapping DMCH Recruitment. Protesters make self-immolation attempt: 12 hurt´, 4.5.2010.)

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concluded that it is indeed easy to enter the social field of street food. On the other hand, gender differences clearly exist in this regard. Moreover, while taking up street vending as such might be easy, it is often more difficult to gain permanent or at least regular access to a profitable vending site (chapter 7.2.4). Women’s Access to Dhaka’s Field of Street Food In many countries of the Global South, e.g. in Thailand or in Ghana, the street trade is largely in the hands of women (cf. Tinker 1997; Nirathron 2006). Alison Brown (2006c: 186) noted that “street trading is gendered. Both in terms of the activities that women and men undertake and in the spaces they occupy.” In Dhaka women are underrepresented in the field of street food. In Bangladesh, women’s access to labour, in general, and to street food vending, in particular, is restricted by social norms. Although the rate of female labour force participation is steadily growing (cf. BBS 2004; World Bank 2007; BBS 2010), women constitute only six percent of the formally registered workforce in wholesale and retail trade (Maligalig et al. 2009). In Dhaka, the most important income opportunities for poor women are the garments industry, jobs as domestic workers and live-in maids, and to a smaller extent also day labour, brick-breaking, other factory work, urban agriculture or vegetable vending (cf. Dannecker 2002; Kumar Das 2003; Pryer 2003; Salway et al. 2003; World Bank 2007; Siddiqui et al. 2010). In the street food study undertaken in Manikganj in the late 1980s, only six out of 550 street food vendors were female (Tinker 1997: 77). And Dhaka, even today, is “a city with comparatively low visibility of women in public spaces, particularly in market places, work situations and in the streets” (Siddiqui et al. 2010: 19). This can be largely explained through the Islamic norm of Purdah, which is the “seclusion of women from public view” (Kumar Das 2003: 169). Compliance to this norm restricts the opportunities for women to work outside of their home. Recent surveys conducted by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh, however, show that the share of women in Dhaka’s street food trade seems to be growing: In a study from 2003, only two out of 200 vendors (1%) were women, while six years later, twelve women (4%) were among the 300 interviewed vendors (CAB 2004; 2010). Experts also noted a rising number of female street vendors. This increase can be seen as an indicator of growing impoverishment, and of the broader transformations of social norms and gender roles, too: “10 to 15 years ago, you saw no woman working in the public due to Purdah, but now it has really changed. Because out of sheer necessity of having to make a living somehow, more women sell food items now in public space. This indicates that the whole culture and social norms are changing.” --- Ahmede Hussain, journalist, 30.12.07 ---

Street food vending is an increasingly viable livelihood option for women. On the one hand, women do play a crucial, yet sometimes “invisible”, role in the street food trade by preparing the food that is then sold by men on the street (Tinker

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1997: 15). They also cook home-prepared meals, which are supplied daily at lunchtime to their own husbands, to workers at their workplace, to shop owners in their shop, and to businessmen in their office and distributed in metal containers (tiffins) (Nahar & Huq 2006). On the other hand, the “force of necessity” (Bayat 2004: 92) drives many women into entering the job market themselves. Unlike middleclass households, poor families merely cannot afford to adhere to the hegemonic social norm of Purdah and need to include female labour to generate a cash-income, in particular households, which are headed by unmarried, divorced or widowed women, or in which male family members are un- or underemployed (cf. Pryer 2003; Salway 2003; World Bank 2007; Siddiqui et al. 2010).

A woman is sitting in a permanent kutcha shop in the slum Karail and sells tea/snacks.

Near New Market a woman is preparing pithas on a small stove. Pict. 7.2: Women selling Street Food in Dhaka Source: B. Etzold 2007 to 2010

A female boroi vendor inside the slum Bishil Sarang Bari Bustee.

A pitha vendor temporarily squats on the railway track near Kawran bazar .

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

217

In my Street Vendors’ Survey, six out of 120 street food vendors (5%) were women. The female street vendors do, however, not sell in a truly mobile manner – and thereby still adhere to Purdah as they are not seen moving around. Half of the women sold goods by sitting at one spot all day (semi-permanent vending style), the other three only moved around occasionally with their little vending unit (semi-mobile). But none of the female street food vendors had access to a permanent vending site or were owners of one of the more profitable consolidated food shops. The women who are selling on the street have lower incomes than men, and women in general do not have access to the most profitable vending sites. This is a clear indicator for gender discrimination in the Bangladeshi society, in general, and in the field of street food, in particular. As learned from the cases of Tasneem and Nasreen, women’s decision to get involved in street vending is particularly closely tied to the family history and often evoked by personal shocks. Until seven years ago, Rena, now 45 years old, was employed as a domestic worker with a family in Lalbagh, a slum area in the Southern part of Dhaka. But when her husband, a rickshaw puller, decided to take a second wife, they moved to Bishil slum in the north of the megacity. She was bound to come with him. Due to the high costs and the long time needed for commuting this distance, she had to quit her job as domestic maid. Her former employers nonetheless supported her in establishing a little street food business within the slum they live in. She spent around 800 Taka for the equipment and for the ingredients she needs to prepare and sell the popular snack jhal muri. Now, she completely depends on her own business, since she cannot rely on a regular subsidy or food from her husband (interview, 27.02.10). 7.2.4 Access to the Arenas of Street Food Vending Whether a public place becomes an arena of street food vending not only depends on the consumers’ demand, but also on the local governance regimes and the individual vendor’s chances of appropriating that site. Simply put, street vendors can only sell at those sites, where they are allowed to be and where they can sell in security. In many cities, there are even explicit vending and no-vending zones for street traders, but this is not the case in Dhaka (cf. Dittrich 2008 on Hyderabad; Itikawa 2010 on Sao Paolo). Given a high competition over the use of public space and conflicting interests between vendors and more authoritative agents, all vendors have to take into account possible trade-offs with regard to the proximity to customers, the security of trading and the costs of access (Brown 2006c). The most central, most frequented and most profitable vending sites, e.g. bus stations in the city centre, are likely to be the most contested and most insecure arenas, as therein state agents seek to implement formal rules that prioritise other functions. By appropriating rather marginal, less valued and less frequented sites, e.g. a side street in an industrial area, vendors might elude conflicts with other agents and with the state for the price of having a less profitable business. However, even at those sites there might be barriers to access.

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Free Entry or Barriers to Access – Why Social Capital matters As they cannot rely on the state’s services and do not trust formal modes of regulation, people working in the informal economy and, in particular, street vendors depend on their own families and friends, on kinship relations and other personal networks for daily support, for help in times of crises, for credits and for market access (Bayat 1997; Brown 2006c). In Dhaka, street vendors need good network connections to get access to a vending site. Moreover, they have to invest actively in their social capital in order to appropriate a vending spot and to establish their social position in the local arenas of street food vending. According to the my survey, two third of all street vendors did have free access to their vending site. Among the mobile vendors, who do not have a permanent site, even 96 percent said so. Two out of three semi-mobile and four out of five semi-permanent vendors said they established their business without help of others. Less than half of the permanent (unconsolidated) vendors said they got access to their site without help. But one quarter of them had to draw on the support of political leaders and one fifth relied on the help of neighbours or other vendors to set up their shops. Forty two percent of all vendors said that they could choose the exact place where they pursue their business. Two-third of semi-permanent and half of the truly mobile hawkers said nobody told them were to sell (figure 7.2). Access to the Vending Site Who helped you to get access to this site?

Allocation of Vending Position Who allowed you to sell at your spot?

100%

100%

80%

80%

60%

60%

40%

40%

20%

20%

0%

Social Capital

0%

Linking: help from political leaders, mastaans, and other more powerful vendors* Bridging: help from neighbours and other vendors within the same status group Bonding: help from family and friends Nobody: help from nobody, just started vending without asking somebody

Fig. 7.2: Relevance of Social Capital for Vendor’s Access to Arenas Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Note: * The relations between more mobile and semi-permanent vendors to permanent shop owners were included in this category, as there is a power asymmetry between these groups.

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Many vendors, however, told me that it is not possible to open up a business anywhere. Social capital is a crucial determinant for the allocation of the exact vending spots in each arena. While family and close friends (bonding social capital) were not mentioned very often in this regard, good relations to neighbours and other street vendors (bridging social capital) helps to secure a vending spot, as half of the vendors said. In each of the groups, some vendors said, political leaders, mastaans and/or other more powerful vendors allocate the vending spots. The dependency on them, however, differs. While hardly any of the mobile and semipermanent vendors mentioned it, maintaining good relations to the local power brokers (linking social capital) seems to be pertinent to one quarter of the semimobile and the permanent vendors. Case Studies from Dhaka on Street Vendor’s Access to their Arena There are limitations to measuring people’s social capital through quantitative methods only (cf. Fine 2001; Bebbington 2004; Bohle 2005, 2007; Cleaver 2005). In-depth interviews and Venn diagrams, however, clearly show that street vendors’ access to the vending sites is granted or denied through personal relations. In some public spaces characterized by strong institutions, it is not possible to operate a street business without the adequate social capital. In the following, there will be given three examples of street vendors which illustrate the ease of entry or barriers to access a vending site, and how the vendors have adapted to the local modes of governance in order to secure their vending spot and thereby sustain their livelihoods. Ramid is a 26-year-old mobile vendor who sells tea, biscuits, cake and cigarettes by walking around on the street in front of the university hospital. He came to Dhaka at the age of 15, looking for a job. He was a newcomer at the vending site in front of DMCH since he started street vending only five months prior to the interview. Normally, he works in a large printing factory, earning 3000 Taka per month. He considers street vending as an easy part-time job that enables him to earn some extra-money (150 Taka per day) on the two days in the week when he is not working in the factory. Moreover, he enjoys spending his time on the street, talking to people. We asked him how he started his street business: “One day, I asked one vendor how they are doing this business. Then they told. After that, I got this idea that I can also start something like this as a side income. First time I went to Mr. Taijul’s shop [the owner of nearby food stall where several mobile tea vendors get hot tea in flasks in order to sell on the street] with one of the vendors. I told him that I will take tea for business from you. […] He answered, I don’t know you how should I trust you? Then he was asking for 500 Taka as a deposit. Otherwise, I will not give you the flask. After one day by giving him 500 Taka I started this business. If I have less pressure from factory work then I come here to sell tea.” (in-depth interview with Venn diagram, 11.04.09)

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The Politics of Street Food

The interview section shows the ease of entry to the arena of street vending for Ramid. He did not have personal contacts at the vending site and thus straightforwardly asked other tea vendors, who introduced him to their supplier of prepared tea. The only financial investments Ramid had to take were the deposit for renting the flask and the advance payments for tea, biscuits and cigarettes. When he was asked whether anybody could start selling in front of the hospital, he answered that there was “nobody to take permission. I just have to move around and sell. This is my business, nothing more.” However, he only has temporal access to this arena. Often has to leave a vending spot or cannot sell at all. He once said: “There is so many people who always create some problem: Police, Gateman of DMCH. Comparatively the gatemen disturb more. […] They don’t allow me to sit here. It is tough to sell without sitting somewhere.” And the more permanent vendors who sell tea and snacks from push-carts or tables also drive the mobile hawkers away. Referring to the tea vendor Salim, Ramid noted that “he does not allow any vendor who sells tea by carrying flask. […] Among all of the vendors he is most disturbing. He always tells that he is paying to sit here, so he has right.” Interestingly, he referred to one of the basic rules that regulate the street trade in that arena. As a mobile vendor, he does not have to pay Chanda, the informal security payments to local power brokers who in reverse grant or deny more permanent access to the vending site and who negotiate the modes of governance in effect with the patrolling policemen. The more permanent vendors have to pay in order to be allowed to stay. But in turn, they have an informal right to their vending site that the mobile vendors do not have (chapter 8.1.2). Compared to more permanent vendors, the mobile vendor Ramid is not well embedded in the local arena of street food vending. He has a small network of support and largely depends on one local food stall owner who prepares the tea that he is selling from flasks. From other food providers he buys biscuits, cigarettes and sweets. His most important customers are rickshaw pullers, and to a smaller extent visitors of the hospital and university students. While he is close to other mobile vendors, sees them as his friends and sometimes gets their help (bridging social capital), the more permanent vendors are rather a threat to him as they do not want him selling close to their shops (not bridging social capital). He could name some important political actors at the site, who have the power to evict vendors from the street, such as the hospital director, the security guards or policemen. But he did not maintain personal relations with them, or bribe them via other middlemen (not linking social capital). He did not know who was allocating vending spots to the vendors. This shows that he largely has free access to the arena (see figure 7.3, colour pages) . The Venn Diagramm with Ramid and interviews at other sites furthermore showed that the mobile vendors cannot change or challenge the local rules of the game, because they are less well connected to other more powerful agents – they have less bridging and linking social capital (figure 7.3). Moreover, among all the vendors the mobile ones are in a marginal social position, they are less respected and seen by others as poor and disadvantaged – having only little symbolic capital (chapter 7.5). The situation for mobile vendors at other sites – no matter whether

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they are traffic hubs like the ferry terminal or public outdoor spaces like the streets in Islambagh – is similar. Like Ramid, they occupy vending spots only temporally. Therefore, they have no other option, but to except the dominant mode of governance and adapt their behaviour accordingly. In general, mobile vendors pay less or no Chanda in order to be allowed to pursue their business (chapter 8.2.3, table 8.3). Yet, due to their flexibility, they can access different vending sites and also evade conflicts with other vendors or the state and still sustain their livelihoods – although with less economic success. In contrast, permanent, semi-permanent and semi-mobile vendors encroach on space more durably and therefore need some ‘tenure security’. They know who is responsible for the allocation of vending spots, and what rules one has to follow in the local arena. Salim and Shazia sell tea, biscuits, bread rolls, bananas and cigarettes from a push-cart in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. Sixteen years ago, Salim and his father started to sell goods near DMCH. For ten years now, every day he comes to the same vending spot under a large tree near the central gate – a comparatively good place that is reserved for established vendors and impossible to get for a newcomer. He got access to this arena through his uncle, who was employed in the hospital; another uncle is an ambulance driver. Almost all of the vendors selling in front of DMCH have relatives working inside the hospital. A few have a job at the hospital themselves and street vending only serves as a side business. Many vendors came from the district Comilla (Map 7.1). According to Salim, these factors are important for the allocation of street vending spots there: “Medical staff’s relatives have the first priority. Do you know where my hometown is? Our hometown is Comilla. Inside the medical, people from Comilla have huge power” (interview, 05.03.10). Salim has good personal relations to the hospital’s power brokers who regulate the local street trade: He is very close to a political leader from the BNP party, who occasionally helps him out with some money and gives him good advice. He personally knows two leaders of the workers union, who are among the most powerful people at the site – in particular since the Awami League came to power again (see figure 7.4, colour pages). Salim said that he is protected by these ‘guardians’. On the one hand, they provide tenure security. If he had to leave for a few months, he could come back to the same spot as everybody would know him and respects his rights at the site. On the other hand, they pass on the bribes that are collected from the vendors by a linesman. Due to chanda payments (Salim pays 10 Taka per day), the police ‘normally’ tolerate the hawkers who are selling in front of DMCH. The Venn diagram of Salim and Shazia shows that they are well embedded in the local arena. As their family (including his brother and each of their parents) lives in two rooms in Old Dhaka, they pool resources and support one another in every possible way (bonding social capital). He maintains good relations to the food suppliers and has many friends among the street vendors at the site (bridging social capital). With regard to his access to the vending site, his good relations to political power brokers are particularly important (linking social capital or political capital). Although he has a comparatively good standing at the site (symbolic

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capital) and is well informed about the local rules of the game and changes in ‘street politics’ (informational capital), he is still highly sensitive to evictions. Every day, the hospital’s security guards drive the vendors selling right in front of DMCH away by command of the hospital’s director and the ward master (chapter 8.2.2). On an irregular basis, the police evict all vendors from the street (chapter 8.3). While good network connections are important for coping with these livelihood shocks, they cannot guarantee an adequate income from street vending – Salim and Shazia earn between 150 and 300 Taka per day, which is below the site’s average of 330 Taka – nor can they substantially reduce vendors’ vulnerability to evictions (interviews between 30.10.07 and 05.03.10). The next case study shows that it is sometimes easier for vendors to appropriate private spaces then enter the ‘battle’ over good vending spots in public space. Tasneem is selling rice cakes beside the much-frequented embankment road in the densely populated quarter Islambagh. She earns around 100 Taka per day. Her small permanent shop only consists of a very small wooden table, a bucket of water and three clay stoves. It does not even take up one square meter and is located right in front of one of the local plastic processing factories – on private property. She started the little pitha business with money from her husband, who also had the initial idea that she should leave her job at the plastic recycling factory and enter in the street food business. He told her “you can’t take care of the kid [when you work in the factory] and on the other hand there is no way without working […]. Do one thing, start a pitha business. Then maybe we can survive” (interview, 13.02.09). As she needed a place to sell, she asked the owner of the factory, in which she had worked, whether she could sell on his property, and he agreed. While conducting a Venn Diagram with her, I asked whether there are any persons partly responsible for the success of her business. She replied: “There is a house owner who is helping me to stay here. […] He is a powerful man here. We know each other, because I had worked for him [in his factory]. This two storied building and this place where I am doing business is occupied by him. It is in front of his factory. […] There is another person. He has the business of raw material [plastic trader]. He knows me as a neighbour of this area and helped me for my pitha business. [...] Several times, people tried to force me to close my shop or to change places. Then he negotiated with the people and helped me. For me, he is the best in Islambagh. […] These two persons help me most of the time. The rest always try to evict me from this place. I know very well about them. I can’t tell about others, because others do not help me.” (in-depth interview with Venn diagram, 03.03.09).

The owner of the plastic factory allows her to sell in front of his factory, which underlines his general support. In return, she sometimes cooks for his family members and helps them by working at their home, too. Besides him, a neighbour, also involved in the plastic recycling industry, gives her good advice and protects her against the claims of other people by whom she feels threatened. Sometimes, he also lends her money. Both men are her local guardians, without whom she could not secure the access to her vending spot (red stars in figure 7.5, colour pages). Her good relation to them (linking social capital) is then a crucial liveli-

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hood asset. Other interviews showed that all female vendors need male guardians at a site, whether it is their husband or other influential men who help them to secure the vending spot and protect them against sexual and verbal harassment. Patterns of Access to the Local Arenas of Street Food Vending A distinct pattern of the access to the arenas of street food vending can be delineated from these case studies (and from further examples outlined below). First, it is the particular type of public space that matters for the vendors’ encroachments. If the respective space is privately owned, yet publicly accessible, the vendors have to get the permission of the house or factory owner, for instance. In turn, they are largely protected against interventions by the state.130 If vendors sell in an institutionalised public space under the formal control of a public body, such as the hospital authorities in case of the DMCH or the BIWTA in case of the Sadarghat Ferry Terminal, the vendors depend on the laxness or rigour of security guards and on the informal modes of regulation at the site tied to the power brokers in that respective organisation. Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) is responsible for all public outdoor space within its area. As the DCC seems to be overstrained with its tasks and is highly politicised too (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004), they are incapable of putting into effect the formal rules. Vendors’ access to streets or parks then solely depends on informal permissions granted or denied by the political leaders and mastaans who control the respective area. Second, it is the vending style and thus the temporality and spatiality of the vendors’ daily practices that defines the appropriation of public space. There are not different rules for mobile and more permanent vendors. In contrast, the more space vendors want to occupy and the more permanent their appropriation is, the more they have to adhere to the largely informal local modes of governance. As a consequence, they need to enter social relations and become embedded in the arena, they have to achieve a specific standing and they have to maintain close ties to those powerful agents that shape the local rules. Their social capital is then the third key factor for vendors’ access to the arenas of street food vending. Third, the vendors’ economic capital does matter. Although comparatively low, they have to be able to initially invest into equipment and food, which already excludes some of the most vulnerable people from entering street food vending. The particular style of vending is then not only a material practices in the sense of spatial appropriation, but also a social practice that relates the vendors’ social position in the arena.

130 A few days after a tea and snacks vendor had built a tin-shed shack in front of another factory in Islambagh, a police officer told him to move its shop as it would be too close to a junction and thereby obscures traffic. The vendor replied that his shop is on the factory’s land and that he had an agreement with the owner, who wants cheap biscuits and tea for his workers. Then the policeman could not do or say anything against him (interview with Alami, 01.03.2009).

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The Politics of Street Food

Type

Examples

Ownership

Rules of access for more permanent vendors

Rules of access for mobile vendors

Controls and sanctions by

Private spaces

space inside or right in front of a building, but accessible for the public

private (house, factory owner, etc.)

- permission by the owner - pay rent to owner or do other favours

- depends on time of occupation - depends on owner’s presence

- owner himself - employees or security guards - police interferes only if owner demands it

Publicly accessible buildings

inside a shopping mall, a train station, a school

private, communal or public (stateowned)

- permission by owner - all permanent vendors are usually not allowed

- mobile vendors not allowed, but ... - depends on time of occupation and on rigour of guards

- managers, employees or security guards - police interferes if owner demands it

Institutionalised public spaces

university campus, hospital grounds (DMCH), ferry terminal (BIWTA)

private, communal or public

- formally not allowed - informal permission by political leaders - payment of an informal daily ‘rent’ (chanda) - history at site and good personal relations to leaders necessary to obtain a profitable spot - easier access for relatives of people who work in the organisation (e.g. DMCH) - same rules for mobile vendors, but no or smaller ‘rents’ - mobile vendors cannot sit right in front of more permanent shops

- respective organisation’s labour unions (political leaders) - security guards - police interferes if owner demands it or occasionally on own initiative - other vendors

Public outdoor spaces

streets, roadsides, squares, public parks

communal (DCC) or public

- formally not allowed, but formal law largely irrelevant in practice - access for vendors restricted by informal permissions of political leaders and mastaans - payment of an informal daily ‘rent’ (chanda) - same rules for mobile vendors - mobile vendors cannot sit right in front of more permanent shops

- police, RAB or other state forces interfere irregular and on own initiative - linesmen and mastaans - other vendors

(ownership often unknown to users)

Tab. 7.8: Types of Public Space and Street Food Vendors Access to them Data source: interviews with street vendors and ‘regulators’ of public space in Dhaka (2007-2010)

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7.3 WORKING AS A STREET FOOD VENDOR IN DHAKA In the cities of the Global South, people’s work force is their most important asset and thus the fundament of their livelihood (cf. Moser 1998; Meikle 2002). Moreover, the given case studies show that the urban poor do often rely on the access to urban public space for their livelihood security (cf. Brown 2006b; Hackenbroch et al. 2009). The same holds true for the street food vendors of Dhaka. In 1972, the International Labour Organisation introduced the concept of the ‘informal sector’ in an employment study in Kenya in order to describe labour relations beyond the control and recognition of the state. Among the defining characteristics of the informal sector were: ease of entry; reliance on indigenous resources; family ownership of enterprises; small size and scale of operation; low, but labourintensive productivity; self-employment; skills acquired outside the formal school system; and unregulated and competitive markets (cf. ILO 1972; Hart 1987). The importance of the ‘ease of entry’ has been shown in the previous sections. In the following, I describe the labour conditions in Dhaka’s street food economy and thereby draw on some of these ‘classical’ categories of the informal economy. Furthermore, I demonstrate the close interconnections between the formal and the informal segments of Dhaka’s fields of food. My key argument here is that the vendors’ access to opportunities, their working conditions, their market position and thereby also their business success, depends to a large degree on their access to vending sites and thus on their social, economic and indeed spatial capital. The vending style thereby largely reflects their social position and thus the distinctions inside the field of street vending. 7.3.1 Self-Owned Family Businesses Most street vending units are small in terms of volume of sales and number of people involved. The vast majority of the street vendors (94%) own vending units themselves or these belong to family members or friends, who also help with small loans that are needed for investments. Most vendors operate their business alone (69%). The more permanent and bigger a street food shop is the more people are employed. The type of food that is sold matters in this regard, too. Half of all unconsolidated street shops have workers and those that sell full dishes have 2.5 employees, on average. One street restaurant opposite the university hospital employs even twelve people (see case study 8.5). Among those street vendors who regularly do get help, one third said that their helpers were friends; one quarter said that the involved people were just workers; and 44 percent said that family members worked for or with them (table 7.9).

226 Vending Styles

The Politics of Street Food share of vendors owning vending unit themself

share of vendors with employees

share with family members as employees

share of vendors whose wife helps with food preparation

Permanent

100 %

77 %

63 %

15 %

1.3

14.2

2.5

Permanent

88 %

48 %

33 %

16 %

0.9

15.2

2.2

93 %

47 %

71 %

-

0.5

14.6

2.1

95 % 100 % 95 %

28 % 8% 36 %

36 % 49 %

21 % 9%

0.4 0.1 0.5

14.7 12.6 14.3

2.7 2.8 2.5

94 %

31 %

44 %

8%

0.4

14.3

2.5

consolidated

unconsolidated

Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total Mean Average for street vendors

number hours of free of em- work days ployees per day per month

Tab. 7.9: Business Characteristics of Street Food Shops Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

The street food items are either prepared directly on the street (13% of the interviewed vendors said so), made by the vendors and their families themselves at home (12%), or produced by bakeries or food-processing factories and then distributed to and sold by the vendors (75%), for instance bread rolls or biscuits as well as fully-packaged snacks or sweets. Most of the street vendors, nonetheless, have to do some preparations like buying ingredients from the markets or cooking food at home. Three quarter of these vendors stated they would prepare everything themselves, while nine percent said that their wife, daughter or mother help them with the processing or cooking of food (table 7.9). Many women thereby contribute ‘invisibly’ to the street food trade (Tinker 1997: 15) and thus to their family’s income. Three brief examples help to illustrate the involvement of women in the predominantly male street food business in Dhaka. Md. Awal is selling fuchka and chatpotti from a push-cart near the entrance to Dhaka Medical College. He usually goes to a large vegetable market in the morning to shop for the ingredients. In the afternoon, his wife and daughter help him at home with the preparation of potatoes and chickpeas (chana, is the base of both snacks) and the cutting of spices. In the evening hours he then pushes his cart to the vending site, where his son sometimes helps him. On site, he is only heating the potatoes and the chana and adds the spices before serving it to customers. If business goes well, he serves up to 200 people in five hours and earns 200 to 300 Taka (interview, 18.10.07). Only few male vendors actually pursue their business together with their wife on site. Salim and Shazia often work together at their push-cart shop on the road in front of the university hospital. While he is preparing the tea, she arranges the goods or prepares paan-shupari; both hand biscuits, cakes, bananas, or cigarette to their customers. Except when it is raining heavily, they pursue their business eve-

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ry day from seven in the morning until ten at night; it is thus necessary to take some shifts. When Salim is shopping for food in the morning, when he is eating lunch at home or has other things to do, Shazia sits at the shop alone. Meanwhile, problems can arise as some customers are teasing and harassing her. But both do not dare to say anything, because they fear that they lose customers otherwise. When they can pursue their business undisturbed by evictions, they make a profit of 150 to 300 Taka per day (interview, 10.02.09). Nearby, Kamal is living with his mother Anwara and his sister Mina on the street; they just sleep under a tree. Together, they try to sustain their livelihood through a semi-permanent shop, which they open from six in the morning until late at night: they sell small rice cakes to rickshaw pullers, taxicab drivers and university students. His sister is usually helping Kamal with food shopping and some general preparations, while his mother grinds the rice flour for the vapa pithas, prepares the dough for chithoy pitha and makes the vorta, a thick spicy sauce that goes with chithoy pitha. When they sell both popular snacks, each of them sits at one stove. When Kamal is not there, his mother serves one type of pithas alone. Normally, they earn around 200 Taka per day. But during winter, when there is a very high demand for pithas, they can make a profit of 400 Taka (interviews, 04.11.07; 19.02.09; see case study 8.4). The examples of these three semi-permanent vendors also show that street food vending is a full time job. Street vendors work 12 to 15 hours a day; the mobile vendors, who have to stand and walk around all day, work shorter than the permanent shop keepers. Considering the time needed for food shopping and preparation, there is not much spare time left. Moreover, on only two or three days in a month they do not work at all (table 7.9). 7.3.2 Connecting the Informal and the Formal Food Economy Street food vendors play an important role in the food distribution system of the megacity of Dhaka as they – among other agents in the field of food provision – directly connect food wholesale and retail traders as well as food processing companies with the megaurban consumers. While the field of food exchange, distribution and retail has both formal and informal elements (cf. Keck et al. 2008; Keck 2012; Keck et al. 2012), the field of street food is organised completely informally. The latter thus constitutes an important junction between formal and informal segments of the urban economy, which are self-evidently intrinsically linked (cf. Lam 1982; Drakakis-Smith 1991; Gertel 1995; Chen 2005; Brown 2006b). Exchanges between Street Food Vendors and Food Distributors Street food vendors spend 95 percent of their business expenditure on ingredients and use 58 percent of their private expenditure for their families’ food consumption. Most of the money generated through street food vending thus circulates

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The Politics of Street Food

within Dhaka’s fields of food. Wholesalers, retailers and street food vendors exchange food items, money and information: more than half of all street food vendors buy the ingredients that they require for preparing snacks directly from wholesale traders, whereas nine percent shop for their raw products at retail markets and eight percent at local retail shops. Twenty-eight percent of the vendors have their products delivered to them by traders, bakeries or food companies. Bread rolls and biscuits, soft drinks and cigarettes, i.e. products that do not require further preparation by the street vendors before selling, are distributed to the vendors. This is linked to the style of vending. Half of the permanent shops get most of their goods through delivery services, whereas the share for semi-permanent and semi-mobile vendors is 40 and 21 percent, respectively. As truly mobile vendors move around with their products, they cannot easily make use of such delivery services, and therefore shop for their ingredients and products at wholesale markets (75%), katcha bazaars (12.5%), or retail shops (12.5%). Where do you buy most of your products / ingredients?

How do you pay most of your products / ingredients?

Wholesale Market

28%

9%

8%

in cash

Katcha Bazar

55%

8%

1%

on credit

Retail shops

91%

Delivered by traders / companies

Fig.7.6: Sources of Products and Ingredients used by Vendors

don't know

Figure 7.7: Payment Modes for the Exchange of Food Products

Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey (n=120)

Street vendors often frequent Dhaka’s large wholesale markets. For instance, 95 percent of fruit vendors get their fruits from wholesale markets, and 63 percent of them shop themselves at Badamtoli in Old Dhaka, the city’s most important market for fresh fruits (see map 7.2, colour pages; orange dots close to the Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal). Moving through Dhaka is costly in terms of time and money. With 40 Taka per day, the transport costs of those vendors, who travel to wholesale markets themselves to buy food is double the amount of those that largely buy ingredients from kitchen markets or retail shops. Among all street food vendors, the fruit vendors spend most for transport with 56 Taka per day. But even for them, transport costs only constitute two percent of total business expenditure.

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Social Relations between Street Vendors and Traders The nature and quality of exchange relations between street vendors and wholesale or retail traders, shop owners and delivery companies differ substantially. For 91 percent of the vendors buying ingredients is a normal economic transaction that does not involve personal relations to other traders. They pay in cash when buying their goods (see figure 7.7). One female vendor of rice dishes in front of the Sadar Ghat’s Ferry Terminal remarked that she goes to the kitchen market close to her home to shop for most of the food she requires. Although she is a regular customer there and knows all the traders, her relations to different traders differ. With fresh fish and vegetable traders, she negotiates the prices after having examined the products’ quality closely and pays in cash (interview, 02.03.09). Other hawkers report similar purchasing patterns: fresh products such as fish, vegetables or fruits are usually bought at the same market, but from different traders. Discounts, commission sales or credits are rare in these business relations. In contrast, non-perishable ingredients, such as oil, pulses or rice, are often bought from the same shops. Over the course of many years, a relation of mutual understanding and trust between traders and street vendors can emerge. Credits are given or the vendors get discounts or a better price as they buy larger quantities than private customers. The snack vendor Kamal always buys the rice flour he needs to make pithas (small rice cakes) as well as salt, spices and Ghur (sugarcane) from two shops at a nearby market. He considers these two traders as good friends. He can get credits from both of them. One is even supporting him with large loans of up to 20,000 Taka, which he can pay back within three months: “Sometimes in money crisis he gives me the pitha items on credit. […] All the time I buy from him. Therefore he knows me very well and doesn’t feel to hesitate to give me the items on credit” (interview, 19.02.09). Similarly, Tasneem, also a pitha vendor, always buys her rice flour from a local rice shop in the settlement where she lives and does her business. The shop keeper is very important for her livelihood: “Sometimes he sells without money, and then I can pay later. Sometimes I pay instantly. […] He gives some discount to regular customers. For the local people who are not regular customers he takes five Taka per kg [of rice flour]. From me he only takes 1.5 Taka” (interview, 03.03.09; see figure 7.5). With regard to the delivery companies, commission sales are quiet common: Eight percent of street food vendors get (some of) their goods through delivery in the morning on credit, and in the evening the respective payments are collected (see figure 7.7). One vendor at a little street restaurant opposite Dhaka Medical College Hospital explained: “Three different wholesalers come every day around 10am and provide most of the ingredients for our daily business, for example meat, oil, onions, rice, etc. They are not paid in the morning, but in the evening – usually around 10pm. Then we also say how much we need for the next day” (interview with Anisur, 22.10.07). But such a ‘full order and service delivery’ is rare. The most common delivery goods are bakery products, such as bread rolls and biscuits that are delivered directly from some bakeries, bananas that are sold from push-cart traders to street shops, and kerosene that is delivered by special rick-

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shaws with a kerosene tank. Normally, no loans are given to the street vendors if they purchase these products; they have to pay in the evening for what they received in the morning. Only in exceptional cases, for instance if a police raid happened during the day and one could not make substantial business, it is possible to pay the ‘money collectors’ on the next day (interview with Tazul, 04.11.07). Nonetheless, the street vendors value these services as they receive goods in advance and it saves them time and transport costs. Often they also return the favour by offering a free snack or cup of tea to the delivery man (interview with Salim and Shazia, 07.09.08; see also figure 7.4). As the previous elaborations showed, through their purchase, preparation and sale of food items, street food vendors are functionally integrated in the economic supply chain of food. Moreover, through their close social relations to traders, which sometimes seems to rely on mutual dependency, the street vendors are also well embedded in the social field of food exchange, distribution and retail. The street vendors’ economic capital matters in the food-system interactions as well as their social capital. Through their networks they get access to credit and can thereby continue their food services in the long run. 7.3.3 Working in a Competitive Market The market for street food is highly competitive as there are at least 95,000 street food vendors in the megacity of Dhaka, who try to sustain their livelihood in that way. Each vendor has to find his or her economic niche in this field by offering a specific product that addresses a particular clientele, by appropriating a vending site where the demand is not yet met, or by focussing on a certain time of the day. Another option is to compete with already established vendors at a site and offer products for which there is always a demand, e.g. tea and snacks. The consumer structure of street food vendors does not necessarily depend on the vending style, but on the food that they offer and on their vending site. All interviewed vendors at Saidabad Bus Station and 70 percent of those at Sadarghat Ferry Terminal said that they would sell their food and beverages to travelers. One third of the vendors selling in the business quarter Gulshan predominantly serve office workers, but half of them said they also sell to travelers. The vendors on the road in front of the university hospital sell to students (25%) and rickshaw pullers (10%), but mainly to travelers (65%), because people from all over the city and even from rural areas come to the DMCH; they require prepared food from the street as it is readily available there. Overall, travelers and commuters account for two third and three quarter of the customers of those street shops that sell full meals and fruits, respectively. In Islambagh, where the plastic recycling industry is located, almost half of the street food consumers are day labourers or factory workers; the other half where local people. In the slum Bishil 70 percent of the customers are from the neighbourhood; among them many school children. Most of the customers that come to the permanent shops are slum dwellers too. Two third of the semi-permanent and semi-mobile vendors’ customers are travelers,

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but only few local people are among them. Mobile vendors cater for the needs of different consumer groups, but travellers, day labourers and people from the neighbourhood are well represented (table 7.10). Vending Styles

Rick- day labour- office shaw ers / factory workers pullers workers

students / local school people children living here

travellers

number of customers per day

Permanent

0%

31%

0%

0%

62%

8%

81

Permanent

0%

12%

4%

8%

40%

36%

80

7%

0%

13%

7%

0%

67%

106

5% 0% 2.5%

12% 21% 14%

9% 4% 7%

5% 13% 7.5%

0% 25% 20%

67% 38% 48%

84 74 84

consolidated

unconsolidated

Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total/ Mean

Tab. 7.10: Consumer Structure of Street Food Shops Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

A Male Rice Dish Vendor

A Female Rice Dish Vendor

A male street food vendor is sitting on a rickshaw van and sells required street food to rickshaw pullers on Dhaka University Campus near Polashi. He sells rice for 6 Taka per plate with dhal (5 Tk), and curries with fish (15 Tk), egg (12 Tk) or vegetable curry (8 Tk). The food is prepared at his home. He works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m, serves 250 to 300 customers, and earns up to 250 Taka per day. He pays 10 to 20 Taka per day to the police to be allowed to stay (interview, 01.09.08).

A female street food vendor is squatting on the ground. She sells even cheaper rice dishes (rice 5 Tk per plate, fish curry 10 Tk, vegetable curry 5 Tk) to rickshaw pullers and day labourers. She prepares the food at her home. She works from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and serves only 25 to 30 people. Her profit is only 30 to 50 Tk per day. She did not mention any Chanda payments (interview, 01.09.08).

Pict. 7.3: Specialised Street Food Services for Rickshaw Pullers

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The Politics of Street Food

Rickshaw pullers and other mobile workers rely particularly on readily available and not costly street food (chapter 6.3.2). For some street vendors like Nasreen the growing demand for required street food is the only source of their livelihood. All over the city, in particular around noon and in the early evening hours, one can see street vendors, who sell rice dishes to rickshaw pullers – usually in a more quiet side street, where the rickshaw puller can park and rest a few minutes, rather than at busy thoroughfares or the normally attractive vending hot spots. The vendors prepare the rice, fish or vegetable curry and dhal at their homes, and then bring the food to the site in big pots. They sit there for a couple of hours until the bowls are finished. Those vendors who sell from push-carts or rickshaws can sell a greater variety of products and attract more customers. Poorer vendors – in particular women – most often sell the rice dish from the ground and make less profit; but from them the meal is even cheaper. 7.3.4 Street Food Vendors’ Business Expenditures and Incomes In Dhaka, street food vendors earn around 284 Bangladeshi Taka (profit; ~ 2.70 Euros) per day on average. However, the level of income varies substantially depending on the food products sold, the vending site, which is closely related to the number of customers, the vending style, the hours and days worked, and the time of the year. Food hawkers spend 95 percent of their expenditure on buying ingredients – 1995 out of 2113 Taka per day, on average. The costs for kerosene, which they need for cooking or making tea and which is usually delivered to their vending site, and transport amount to two and one percent of their total expenditure, respectively. As only one third of the interviewed street vendors employ one or more helpers, labour costs make up only three percent of total business expenditure (see tables 7.11 to 7.13, figures 7.8 and 7.9 (colour pages) and figure 7.10). The survey found that the permanent vendors, who sell from consolidated shops, are clearly better-off than the other street vendors. On average, they have 81 customers per day, which is just around the total average, but the value of their vending equipment, their business expenditure and their volume of sales is far above the levels of the other street vendors. With an average of 781 Taka per day (or a monthly net-income of 24,000 Taka; ~ 230 Euros), they earn more than double of the average street vendors. One can clearly state these permanent vendors are least vulnerable and occupy the best positions in the field of street food. The permanent vendors, who sell food and beverages from unconsolidated shacks or maintain ‘open air restaurants’, are the most affluent among the street food vendors. The value of their equipment and their expenditure – of which most is spent on ingredients – are well above the average for all street vendors, while the business volume and their profits are near the average as they earn 300 Taka per day. Two third of them are tea and snack vendors and, in turn, half of tea vendors sell from unconsolidated structures and can thus pursue their business under comparatively tenure-secure conditions.

233

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability Vending Styles

Permanent consolidated Permanent unconsolidated Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total/Mean Total / Mean street vendors Male (n=101) Female (n=6)

Value of business share of business equipment expenditure expenditure for … BDT per day employees food BDT

business volume per day BDT

business profit per day BDT

17184

2483

3%

87 %

3446

781

9000

2378

6%

87 %

2668

300

7033

1924

1%

87 %

2393

291

7284 2040

2673 753

1.5 % 0%

92 % 92 %

3237 994

309 220

7634

2113

2.5 %

90 %

2587

338

6473

2068

2.4 %

90 %

2483

284

6692 2800

2123 1150

2.5 % 0%

90 % 90 %

2545 1433

287 233

Tab. 7.11: Profitability of all Street Food Shops Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Notes: Other expenditures are not listed here, but see figure 7.9

The levels of expenditures and incomes within the groups of the semi-permanent and the semi-mobile vendors vary considerably. Both groups have to invest at least 7000 Taka for their equipment; losing a push-cart, tables, stoves or goods is thus a severe livelihood risk for them. The semi-mobile vendors have particularly high expenditures, because many of them sell fruits (56%) and other highly valuable, but perishable food items that account for more than 90 percent of their business expenditure. One male fruit vendor had an exceptionally high business profit of up to 1200 Taka, while one female snack vendor only earned 50 Taka per day. Semi-mobile vendors’ average profit of 309 Taka per day is higher than the total average of all food hawkers (the median value is 250 Taka). The higher sales and incomes of more permanent vendors prove the crucial importance of ‘tenure security’ for street vendors. If one only looks at the basic economic indicators, it shows that the continuum of vending types is also a continuum of impoverishment. Among all vendors, the mobile vendors have the lowest economic capital as their equipment and products have the lowest value. They are the least successful with regard to the number of customers (74 per day) and the lowest business volume and profit; only 220 Taka per day, which is three quarter of a street vendors’ average profit. Overall, the street food vendors’ monthly earnings are higher than the income from other informal or formal employment that is typical for people in such a socio-economic position, like a rickshaw puller, a construction worker, a cleaner at a hospital or untrained employees in Dhaka’s garments industry (see Table 7.14 in the annex; Salway et al., 2003; Islam 2005; World Bank 2007; Siddiqui et al.

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The Politics of Street Food

2010). Although there are many customers and good business prospects at some vending sites, and some vendors have very high profits, street food vendors are particularly vulnerable to disruptions of their trade, for instance due to personal illness or evictions (chapter 8). As they are self-employed in the informal economy, street vendors are not eligible to social security systems or other state benefits. The insecurity or unreliability of daily income is thus among the vendors most crucial problems. Case Studies from Dhaka on the broad Spectrum of Business Models and Incomes The following case studies show that the income that can be achieved from street food vending varies according to the access to the vending site, the business model, the products sold and the employment relations. Moreover, the irregularity of earnings is addressed. More permanent street shops that sell full dishes or fruits are the most profitable businesses. For 30 years, Mohammed Faruque has been running a highly profitable street restaurant under a large tree opposite the university hospital. He is a well-known and respected person at the site and maintains close relations to the important power brokers from the DMCH. The street restaurant is open 24 hours. They serve ruti, eggs and vegetables for breakfast (for 10 to 20 Taka) and rice dishes with vegetable, meat or fish curries for lunch and dinner (for 15 to 40 Taka). Food is prepared in a separate kitchen in a house not far from the site, then brought to the site and heated on a large stove or sold cold. For the customers they have set up just a few tables and benches to sit on; large plastic sheets provide shade and some shelter from rain. Overall, a dozen people are employed for fixed monthly wages: one manager is responsible for shopping and running the affairs (6000 Taka), one cook is employed in the external kitchen (6600 Taka), one man is preparing rutis on site (5000 Taka), and several boys who serve the customers, help with preparations and clean the dishes (3000 to 4500 Taka). One woman is also employed as a helping hand in the kitchen, but she earns least (2100 Taka). When business is undisturbed, they serve food to around 400 customers – mainly hospital staff, visitors, and rickshaw pullers – and thereby earn around 15,000 Taka (~ 150 EUR) per day. Md. Fulmia own profit varies according to their turnover. Normally it is around 750 Taka per day. Food ingredients are by far the largest element of business expenditure, while the employees’ wages make up around 12 percent and the bribes to local power brokers (around 350 Taka per day) three percent. If they cannot pursue their business for several days, for instance due to police raids, he not only worries about himself, but also about his employees that he continues to support despite the difficulties (several interviews between 22.10.07 and 17.02.09; see case study 8.5). Ahmed Hilam has a small permanent shop made of wood and tin next to the embankment road in Islambagh. Six years ago, he invested 6,000 Taka to establish it in front of a plastic processing factory, but when the local community park was established he shifted it to the other side of the road, at the small park’s en-

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

235

trance. He got access to his vending spot with the help of a local political leader and the manager of the community park, to whom he pays 500 Taka per month as rent and electricity bill. He offers this kind of shops’ normal repertoire of sweet tea (3 Taka per cup), biscuits (1 Taka per piece), cake (6 Taka) and bread rolls (4 Taka), cigarettes (1 Taka) and paan-shupari (2 Taka). He has 150 to 200 customers per day; most of them are labourers from the nearby plastic factories coming in their breaks, people from the neighbourhood visiting the park and rickshaw pullers taking a rest. On average, he earns 150 to 200 Taka per day. His business improved with the establishment of the community park, but due to the rapid price hike of food in 2008 (see Zingel et al. 2011) his profits decreased substantially. He argued that poor labourers simply could not afford buying supplement snacks in such critical times. His dependence on his largest group of customers also became apparent during the economic crises in early 2009, when one third of the plastic factories nearby were closed temporarily and many of their labourers went back to their home villages.131 As fewer customers were there, Abdul’s profit reduced by half within three months. Shahajan Islam is a 46 years old fruit vendor, who offers apples (imported from China or South Africa), grapes (from Australia or Pakistan), oranges and mangos. In the early morning he buys the fruits from the wholesale market in Badamtali in Old Dhaka (see map 6.1) and then sells them from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. in front of the University Hospital as it is common practice that visitors bring fruits to the hospital’s patients. For 25 years, Shahajan used to have a small permanent fruit shop inside the hospitals premises, but like all other illegal structures it was demolished a few months after the Caretaker Government came to power (see case study 8.1). Since then he is selling from a rickshaw van that he only moves at night or if he is forced to leave his vending spot on the side of the street throughout the day (chapter 8.1). His business success depends on the season, on the number of hospital visitors and on the frequency of disruptions by security guards or the police. Normally, he has 20 to 80 customers per day. Accordingly, his daily profits varied in between 200 and 400 Taka. In July and August, when the mangos are ripe, he can even earn up to 600 Taka (interviews, 18.10.07, 21.08.08, 15.02.09). Other fruit vendors who offer fruits at the Ferry Terminal also noted the importance of seasonal changes for their business. In general, fresh fruits can be considered as comparatively expensive pleasure street food. Selling whole fruits is more profitable (370 Taka per day), than chopped fruits (242 Taka) or only bananas (175 Taka), which can be considered as required fruits for the poor. 131 The global economic crises clearly shows in the plummeting commodity prices, including industrial raw materials in the first quarter of 2009 (see www.indexmundi.com/commodities, accessed, 17.03.2012). Worldwide the demand for all kinds of consumer products decreased, therefore the demand for plastic decreased too and raw plastic (just as oil) became cheaper. When raw plastic is cheaper, Dhaka’s plastic recycling industry is also affected as their profit margin shrinks and they cannot reduce their costs of production even further. Therefore, production stopped temporarily and many workers were released; the factories and plastic trades kept their plastic on stock, and only continued when the prices for plastic went up again. In Dhaka most plastic recycling factories took up their full production again in March 2009.

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Hafiza is a 39 year old street vendor, who already sold different products. Ten years ago, after her husband had left her, she first started a small business of plastic jugs, pots and plates on the footpath in front of the university hospital. When the competition increased as other vendors entered the plastics trade, she changed to boiled eggs. She sold the eggs from afternoon until midnight, and thereby earned around 180 Taka per day. Throughout the office hours she would not work, because security guards regularly drive the vendors away and she could not move quickly with the hot water and the heavy eggs. When disruptions became more frequent, and her profit margin reduced further as the market prices for eggs and also for kerosene increased, she changed her products again. Only sitting on a stool, she offered cigarettes and paan-shupari (betel leaves and nuts), but her income decreased to 100 or 150 Taka per day, although she sold until late at night. As she became ill quite regularly and could not work at all for a whole week in each month, it was extremely difficult for her to sustain her living. She therefore depended on the support of her sister, with whom she lived (interviews, 29.12.07 and 31.08.08). With 244 Taka, on average, the cigarette and paan-shupari vendors earn only 80 percent of other street vendors’ average profit, and are thus amongst the most vulnerable agents in the field of street vending. 7.4 THE DIFFERENTIAL VULNERABILITY OF STREET FOOD VENDORS The previous section outlined in detail, how much street food vendors can earn and under which conditions they pursue their livelihoods. In the following, some results on the street food vendors’ poverty status, their living situation and their food (in)security are presented. 7.4.1 Income Poverty, Housing Conditions and Food Insecurity The vendors’ “baseline vulnerability” (Watts & Bohle 1993: 64) reflects their own business profit and, more generally, their families’ socio-economic position. In turn, marginalised people often do not have the economic capital to invest in larger street food shops and – even more important – they cannot obtain permanent access to the most profitable vending sites. According to our survey one quarter of the street food vendors in Dhaka do not rely solely on their income from street vending. It is normally the fathers, brothers or sons who bring extra-earnings into the household (74%), usually from manufacturing, trade or other informal activities. In few cases wives, daughters or mothers contribute to the family’s cash-income (17%), while sometimes the street food vendors themselves have second jobs that help them to sustain their lives. The vendors’ average income was 8,700 Taka per month (~ 84 EUR) while their expenditure stood at 5,500 Taka. 61 percent of them live below the (upper) poverty line of the megacity; 39 percent can be considered as extreme poor. While only five percent of the vendors could afford their own house, 79 percent rent a

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability

237

room, a flat or a small house, and 13 percent live in dormitories (in a so called ‘mess’ dozens of labourers share a room; their family cannot live with them). Two third of the street food vendors are living in slums, while 12 percent suffer from very poor housing conditions.132 With exception of those three mobile vendors who live on the street, all have permanent access to piped water (97%) and to electricity where they live (95%). Most have access to gas for cooking at home (85%) and to sanitation facilities, which are usually shared among several families (86%). Although their food services contribute crucially to the food security of the urban poor (chapter 6.3), the street food vendors themselves can become subject to hunger and undernourishment. Nineteen percent of all street vendors reported that their families do not enjoy a sufficient, healthy and balanced diet, and four percent often suffer from hunger (see tables 7.15 and 7.16). The vendors’ degree of impoverishment differs markedly. Female street food vendors have lower household incomes and expenditures than their male counterparts. Five out of the six interviewed female vendors were below the upper poverty line; and one third of them lived in bad housing conditions. Moreover, the women are highly vulnerable to food insecurity: compared to the men they spend a greater share of their money on food, and yet their diet is neither sufficient nor healthy. One woman said that she is even facing hunger on a daily basis (tables 7.15 and 7.16). The examples of the pitha vendor Tasneem, the jhal muri vendor Rena, the egg vendor Hafiza and a female rice dish vendor (picture 7.3) clearly show that female vendors are more vulnerable to poverty than men. Prevailing social norms restrict women’s access to more profitable vending sites and their opportunities for more secure and gainful employment outside of street vending. This reflects the difficult conditions for women in Dhaka’s labour market (cf. Dannecker 2002; Pryer 2003; Salway et al. 2003; Hackenbroch et al. 2009). If one only looks at the fundamental criteria of household income and expenditure as well as housing conditions and food security, it clearly shows that the continuum of vending styles is also a continuum of vulnerability (tables 7.15/7.16; figure 7.8/7.9 (colour pages), figures 7.11/7.12). The permanent vendors, who sell from consolidated shops, not only have the highest business profits, but their families are also better off than the street food vendors. Almost half of them have additional sources of income besides street food vending. As a consequence, they have by far the highest household income. They also spend almost twice as much per person as the mobile vendors – both total expenditures and expenses for food. The data further shows that only 15 percent of these permanent vendors are below the lower poverty line for Dhaka; two third of them cannot be considered as poor. 132 According to the CUS (2006: 14f) a slum is defined by poor housing conditions, high population density; poor services (e.g. water and sanitation); low economic-status; and a lack of security of tenure. In Dhaka one usually differentiates between pucca (solid cement buildings), semi-pucca (houses made of brick or cement walls, but with a tin sheet as a roof), kutcha (huts with tin sheets as roof, bamboo mats as walls, mud floors) and jhupri (shacks made of bamboo, straw-mats, with a plastic-roof, mud floors) structures. Those vendors who live in (semi-) pucca structures were not considered to live in slums. Bad housing conditions were defined here as living in kutcha or jhupri structure or even on the street.

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The Politics of Street Food

With 62 percent the share of those permanent vendors that are indebted is smaller than in the other groups; one third of them even manage to save some money for the future. All of them live in solid buildings (69% in pucca, 31% in semi-pucca structures), which is a further indicator for their relative wealth. They are the most food secure group as they spend most for their families’ food consumption in absolute terms and can also afford to buy ‘good’ food, i.e. higher quality rice, more meat and fish. One third of them noted that their diet is sufficient and healthy. Yet, more than half said although their diet is sufficient, it could be better. The permanent vendors, who sell food and beverages from unconsolidated shacks or maintain ‘open air restaurants’, are the most affluent among the street food vendors as most of the wealth indicators show. Nonetheless, as only one quarter has additional sources of income besides street food vending, their level of household income remains below the total average. Overall, half of the permanent food vendors live below the upper poverty line of the megacity of Dhaka, while one third can be considered as extremely poor. The vast majority in this group said that they are indebted, only few manage to save some money occasionally. Still, only eight percent suffer from poor housing conditions, while the majority lives in pucca and semi-pucca houses. Among the food vendors, they spend most money on their own food consumption and thus have the best food security status. One quarter of semi-permanent vendors and two third of the semi-mobile vendors have additional sources of income, so their household income rises above the average of all street vendors. Nonetheless, 60 percent of all semi-permanent and even two third of all semi-mobile vendors live below the upper poverty line. Clear differences can be seen between their indebtedness. While four out of five semipermanent vendors have debts and none could save any money, ‘only’ three quarter of the semi-mobile vendors owe others some money and 11 percent remarked that they manage to save some. The housing situation and the food security status of those vendors with push-carts and rickshaws, who change their vending spot more often, are better than for the semi-permanent vendors, who have their fixed spot, but only remove their vending unit at night. The differences between these groups cannot be fully explained by looking at the food items they sell and the respective profits they can achieve, either (see tables 7.3 and 7.12). Truly mobile vendors are the poorest agents in the local arenas of street food vending. Only one fifth of them have additional sources of income and as they have the lowest profits from street vending, their households are also the income poorest (2500 Taka per per month; compared to a total average of 3600 Taka). As a consequence, 92 percent of them are indebted; they also have the lowest expenditure levels. Moreover, they face the worst housing conditions: 21 percent live in mass accommodations, 21 percent in slums under very bad housing conditions or even on the street (8%). One quarter of the mobile vendors do not have access to sanitation. Two third of Dhaka’s mobile street food vendors live below the upper poverty line, while more than half even live in extreme poverty. They are also the most food insecure group as they spend most of their total budget on food (61%), and most of the money they spend for food goes for purchasing rice (42%) – both are important indicators of food insecurity (Zingel et al. 2011).

239

Inside the Field: Styles of Vending, Social Positions and Vulnerability Income

Vending Styles Permanent consolidated

Permanent

unconsolidated

Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total mean Average for street vendors Male Female

vendors with other income sources

Expenditure

Debts

between lower and upper poverty line1

We We living in have can bad condebts save ditions³ money

expenditure per person per month BDT²

Housing

HH income p. pers. p. month BDT

below lower poverty line1

46 %

6423

15 %

15 %

2660

62 % 31 %

0%

24 %

3389

36 %

16 %

1544

84 % 4 %

8%

27 %

4648

40 %

20 %

1348

80 % 0 %

13 %

33 % 21 % 29 %

4032 2497 3927

33 % 54 % 37 %

33 % 13 % 22 %

1385 1294 1533

75 % 11 % 92 % 4 % 79 % 9 %

5% 29 % 11 %

27 %

3624

39 %

22 %

1396

82 % 7 %

12 %

29 % 33 %

3638 3382

36 % 50 %

21 % 33 %

1589 1242

80 % 10 % 66 % 0 %

10 % 33 %

Tab. 7.13: Street Food Vendors’ Poverty Status Notes: 1The expenditure based poverty line (Cost of Basic Needs) for Dhaka SMA for 2005 (BBS 2007c) was recalculated for 2009 taking into account growing wages/expenditures (GoB 2010). The lower poverty line then stood at a household expenditure per person per month of 1142 BDT; the upper poverty line at 1442 BDT. ²The vendors’ monthly expenditure was calculated on the basis of the expenditures for food, clothes, transport, fuel, education, rent, and leisure activities. ³Bad housing conditions were defined as living in kutcha or jhupri structures or even on the street. Food Expenditure Vending Styles Permanent consolidated Permanent unconsolidated Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total mean Average for street vendors Male Female

p. pers. p.month BDT

Sufficient and healthy Diet

Hunger

share of Yes, we No, it Diet Diet Yes, few No, expend. for are well is not imgot times a never food fed good proved² worse week

1554

58 %

31 %

0%

69 %

0%

0%

46 %

907

59 %

12 %

0%

88 %

0%

0%

40 %

800

59 %

0%

0%

93 %

0%

0%

20 %

773 783 891

56 % 61 % 58 %

7% 8% 10 %

7% 17 % 6%

79 % 79 % 82 %

7% 12 % 5%

2% 13 % 3%

37 % 17 % 33 %

810

58 %

8%

7%

83 %

6%

4%

31 %

4% 17 %

3%

34 %

897

58 %

11 %

5%

83 %

761

61 %

0%

17 %

50 %

Tab. 7.14: Street Food Vendors’ Food Security Status Data source of both tables: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

17 %

0%

240

Permanent (consolidated) vendors (n=13)

The Politics of Street Food

Permanent (unconsolidated) street vendors (n=25)

Semi-permanent street vendors (n=15)

Pucca: solid cement building

Semi-mobile street vendors (n=43)

Mobile street vendors (n=24)

Fig. 7.10: Housing Conditions of Street Food Vendors

Fig. 7.11: Street Vendors’ Vulnerability to Food Insecurity

Semi-pucca: tin sheets, brick or cement walls Kutcha: tin sheets, bamboo, mud floor Jhupri: bamboo, straw- mats, plastic-roof, mudfloor living on the street

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Note to Fig. 7.11: The index of food insecurity is a composite index of the variables in table 7.14. The higher the score (max. 20), the more food insecure is a vendor. The index of economic capital is a composite index of a vendors’ business profit, his household income and expenditure, his housing situation and material possessions (tables 7.11 and 7.16). The higher the score (max. 100), the more economic capital a vendor and his family have. The scatter plot shows a clear negative linear relation between both indices (R-Square=0.23). The higher a vendor’s economic capital, the less likely it is that he is food insecure.

The large majority of mobile street food vendors said that their income and their diet had improved since they took up street food vending. However, 13 percent of them occasionally do not even earn the minimum amount that they would need for a meal and thereby have to go to bed hungry several times in a week. The scatterplot in figure 7.11 maps the relative positions of the interviewed vendors. It shows the distribution of the vendors’ economic capital and their food security status. It reveals the variations within each group that are hidden if the only the median or mean values are looked at. Nonetheless, the already sketched trends can be read from this graph, too. Vendors selling from permanent structures are among the richest and the most food secure vendors. Within the group of semi-permanent and semi-mobile vendors, whose tenure security is most doubtful and contested on a daily basis, there are the largest variations. Some male vendors earn more than 500 Taka by selling fruits in a semi-mobile manner, while some female pitha vendors earn only 100 Taka. Some mobile vendors manage quite decent incomes and fought their way out of extreme poverty, but the person with the least economic capital and the highest food insecurity was a mobile vendor. Having Social Capital pays off Vendors need good relations to their customers, to the other vendors at a site, to the local people and, in particular, to the respective power brokers in the arena, if they want to get permanent and/or regular access to their vending site as the examples of Tasneem, Salim and Ramid showed (chapter 7.2.4). Having social capital also pays off (see table 7.15 in the annex). Those vendors who did not get any help with access to the vending site (two third of all, and 96 percent of the mobile vendors), have by far the lowest business volume and profits and their households’ income is far below the total average, too. Without social capital vendors are more likely to live below the poverty line for Dhaka. In turn, all indicators show that the situation is better for those vendors whose access to the vending site was enabled through their personal networks. With the help of one’s own family, neighbours or other vendors, or local political leaders, street food vendors are better able to get permanent or at least regular access to public space, which makes investments in one’s vending equipment worthwhile. The better connected vendors also achieve a higher business turnover and profit, and can thereby scramble out of poverty as the majority of the permanent shop keepers did. Interestingly, some of the indicators point to the fact that those vendors, who rely on the ambiv-

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alent support of local political leaders (who extract chanda in return for their help) are worse off than the vendors who can draw on the support of family members, neighbours or other vendors. Either way, social capital is an important livelihood resource that can ‘make the difference’ in the social field of street food. 7.4.2 Drivers of Vulnerability Like other hard-working people in the informal economy, street food vendors live on a comparatively low income and cannot expect any social welfare benefits from the state. Their lives can generally be characterised by human insecurity and uncertainty. On a daily basis, they face numerous shocks and stresses that exacerbate their vulnerability (cf. Brown 2006c). Some risks are ubiquitous and a burden for all people working outdoors – and indeed for the whole population of Dhaka – such as the heat in summer, heavy rains during monsoon and other environmental stresses. Like rickshaw pulling or waste picking, the street trade is a day-to-day business and the vendors are highly sensitive to economic stresses such as unexpected variations in the number of customers, the lack of credit or a rapid increase of food prices. They also face injuries and ill-health and other more personal shocks that hinder them from pursuing their job, which results in a loss of income. It is, however, the street vendors’ high visibility in public space that exposes them to quite specific risks that are less relevant for other informal workers: Due to legal uncertainty and tenure insecurity they risk being evicted from their vending site by the police or other authoritative agents. State violence is thus the most severe and most far reaching livelihood threat for them (Etzold 2013b; chapter 8). In the following, some livelihood risks that were addressed by the vendors are presented. It is also shown what they do in order to live with these stresses.

Styles of Vending Permanent consolidated

Permanent unconsolidated

Share of vendors saying that these issues are ‘severe’/‘very severe’ for them Sum Flooding Lack Electricity Evictions Too Too mer during of cut / pow- by police much many heat monsoon credit er failure or securichanda vendors ty guards at site 85 %

54 %

0%

15 %

15 %

8%

15 %

96 %

36 %

0%

0%

24 %

20 %

24 %

13 %

0%

7%

47 %

0%

20 %

16 %

5%

0%

47 %

16 %

28 %

Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile

100 % 93 % 92 %

50 %

25 %

0%

25 %

8%

21 %

Average

93 %

35 %

6%

4%

32 %

11 %

22 %

Tab. 7.16: Livelihood Risks of Street Food Vendors Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

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Environmental Stresses Are Aggravating Street Vendors’ Livelihoods Most street vendors have to work in a very dirty and dusty environment; some work right above open sewage canals, others at sides of large and load roads, on which there is a lot of traffic and there is consequently high air and noise pollution. All street vendors suffer from heat stress in summer (see table 7.16). It is particularly harsh for more mobile street vendors, who have to walk around more than 12 hours a day, who carry or push their goods around and who do not have adequate sunshades. Selling on the street in the afternoon in April or May, when the temperature can exceed 40 degrees Celsius is a health burden for the vendors. If they cannot secure a vending spot in the shade they will also get fewer customers as these seek to avoid excessive heat, too. Moreover, when it is hot, the food that they sell becomes stale quickly, bananas turn brown and without cooling the beverages are to warm, too (e.g. interviews Salim, 10.02.09; Rena, 27.02.10). Heavy rainfall during the summer monsoon or the tropical cyclone period and subsequent flooding have been many mentioned by one third of the vendors as a severe livelihood issue. When it is raining, food offered outdoors simply does not attract many people. Due to their fixed vending site, the permanent vendors can protect their customers from heat or rainfall, e.g. by using umbrellas or attaching bamboo poles and plastic sheets to trees or fences. But the mobile vendors have to remain at home or close their shop and thereby face a loss of income. The female vendor Hafiza, who changed from selling egg to cigarettes, complained that if rain comes too suddenly and she cannot stow away her products quickly enough, whole packets of cigarettes become wet. What seems like a minor thing is a big problem for her as she loses half of her daily earnings (interview, 31.08.08). Seeking shelter under a tree after a heavy monsoon shower, Shazia, the wife of the semi-mobile tea vendor Salim, bemoaned her situation: “From the sun we get scorched, from the rain we get trenched. This is no life” (interview, 31.08.08). Although Tasneem’s permanent shop leans against a factory’s wall, she has no adequate roof above it and cannot achieve a good income during bad weather periods: “In the rainy season it’s really tough to continue business regularly because of rain water. If I can work one day then I have to stop for two days. Also water stagnation is a big problem for me. Suddenly it started to rain and I have to pack up my shop. I have to save my clay-made pots from water” (interview, 13.02.09). In Dhaka’s low-lying areas flooding and water logging are severe problems. When water is stagnating on the roads everybody has to wade through water that is highly polluted as it is mixed with sewage from settlements and industries (pictures 7.6). Permanent shops might be flooded as Salahuddin, who has a small shop in a slum close to the river Buriganga, reported. In 2008, water rose up to the knee-level and entered the room in which they live and their shop, too. Many slum dwellers face floods regularly; although it is unpleasant, they are able to cope with the situation quite well (cf. Braun & Aßheuer 2011). Salahuddin simply elevated their bed, all their belongings and the goods in his shop with the help of large tables. The biggest problem was then that he could not pursue his business for several weeks (interview 27.02.10).

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Pict. 7.4: Street Vendors face Heat in Summer, Rain and Water Logging during Monsoon Source: all pictures B. Etzold 2007 to 2010

Ahmed Hilam, tea vendor in Islambagh, often has to deal with a similar situation. When the embankment road next to the river stood under water for six weeks in autumn 2008 he also had to stop his business. Although his shop is located on ‘safe ground’, people did not come to the community park where his shop is, because they would have to walk through filthy water. He estimated that he lost around 10,000 Taka during that time. In order to sustain his family, he borrowed 6,000 Taka from a distant uncle (interview, 09.02.09). Personal Stress is Deepening Street Vendors’ Vulnerability Injuries or ill-health are severe livelihood problems for the urban poor in South Asia (cf. Sakdapolrak 2010; Krämer et al. 2011), and thus for Dhaka’s street vendors, too. The pitha vendor Kamal, for instance, becomes ill quite regularly as he not only works outdoors, but also lives on the street. During a period of cold and rainy weather in November 2007 – when the cyclone Sidr hit the country – he got high fever and could not work for several days. While his sister looked after him, his mother continued their small semi-permanent shop. They can maintain their regular food expenses only for three or four days without earnings, so they are forced to keep their shop running even when they cannot do it themselves. Occa-

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sionally, he thus employs friends to continue selling pithas. According to him, the “police is worse than rain”, because large eviction drives interrupt the street trade longer than short periods when it is raining or one is not capable of working (interview, 15.11.07; see case study 8.4). If close family members get sick the vendors are further strained by high costs for health services and medication. This is particularly severe, if the main ‘bread-winner’ loses his job due to ill-health or an accident, or dies suddenly. It is such personal shocks that drove some women, for instance Tasneem or Nasreen, into the street food business. And Rena started selling jhal muri, when her husband took a second wife, which worsened her situation and decreased her own food security (chapters 7.2.2 and 7.2.3). It shows that both entering and staying inside the field of street food are often driven by the sheer “force of necessity” (Bayat 1997: 10). Economic Factors Structure Street Vendors’ Vulnerability Low incomes are a constant stress factor affecting the lives of the urban poor. The previous chapters showed that the mobile vendors have lower business profits and overall household incomes; they are thus particularly vulnerable to poverty. For one quarter of them, a lack of credit is a severe problem that hinders them from getting out of poverty. Most (more permanent) vendors do have access to credits from family members, neighbours, retail shop owners or money lenders. Some vendors are also part of savings associations or can get microcredits from NGOs that they can utilize to buy equipment or to improve their business in other ways. Most vendors, however, do not use credits for investments; they rather ‘eat up’ the borrowed money as they have to meet their daily expenses in times of crises, for instance, when they cannot earn money after a police eviction (chapter 8.3). The seasonal changes of rural and urban livelihoods in Bangladesh (cf. Ahmed et al. 2012; Etzold et al. 2013) are affecting the vendors’ businesses and thus the level of their incomes. Salahuddin sells snacks to day labourers and other poor people living in the slum Bishil, who maintain close ties to their rural homes. In an interview in late February, he reported that at this time of the year “people [would] have less money in their hand. Now this is the month of Chaitra. During this time people can’t earn money from [their own] cultivation. So they have less money to spend. During the time of crop cultivation, [his own] situation will improve.” A fruit vendor at the Ferry Terminal also noted that his sales decrease during the annual Monga period,133 as the poor turn every penny and do not buy many fruits. In contrast, his business is booming at the end of Ramadan when thousands of people travel home to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with their family. Business is also better at the end of each month, when many working people have received their salary and travel home for a few days (interview, Imtiaz, 17.02.09). For some street vendors Ramadan is the most profitable time of the year. Most 133 October and November are months of acute food insecurity in rural areas. As there is no work in agriculture farmers and labourers have no (adequate) income (cf. Ahmed et al. 2012).

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people adhere to the Muslim norms and do not eat during the day. Nonetheless, those vendors who offer Iftari products that are eaten to break the fast, for instance pakora, piaju or fruits, can achieve substantial profits that exceed the normal earnings (interview, Md. Fulmia, 06.09.08). On the one hand, street vendors are well aware of the seasonal patterns in their trade and many can capitalize on the changing demands for seasonal products and adapt to periods of lower purchasing power. On the other hand, unexpected economic crises, some of which are global in origin and local in their effects, strain the vendors’ coping capacity. The livelihood of the tea vendor Ahmed Hilam, for instance, depends on the labourers in Lalbagh’s plastic recycling industry and is thus indirectly connected to global economic circuits (chapter 7.3.4). Coping with Economic Stress – Local Effects of the Global Food Price Crises Street food vendors were particularly susceptible to the global price hike of food in 2007 and 2008. Although their expenditures for buying ingredients and preparing food grew, the street vendors hesitated to pass on the costs to the consumers, fearing they would lose regular customers if they increase their prices. Many vendors who provide required food to the urban poor therefore sold smaller food portions for the same prices (interview, Nasreen, 02.03.09). Nonetheless, virtually all street food products became more expensive. Within two years the prices of many products even doubled: a bowl of rice with chicken curry was available on the street for 13 Taka in 2006 and did cost 35 Taka in 2008. While chitoy pitha was sold for only two Taka per piece in 2006, a rickshaw puller had to spend six Taka in 2008 for one of these small rice cakes (see table 6.10 in the annex). Several vendors thus noted a decrease in the number of customers they are serving and thus a reduction of their own income. At the height of the food price hike in August 2008, a fruit vendor reported that his own livelihood situation deteriorated markedly throughout the last six months, because the people would carefully prioritize their spending and cut expenses for supplement snacks: “People are reluctant to buy fruits now as they need to spend more money on essential food” (interview, Shahajan , 31.08.08). While they provide crucial food services for the city dwellers at a comparatively low price and thus contribute significantly to urban food security, the hawkers’ families own food security is at stake during times of crises, no matter whether this is the ill-health of an earning family member, a raid of the vending site by the police or a reduced purchasing power due to the food price crisis. Although the food security of 80 percent of the vendors improved since they started street vending (see table 7.14), every livelihood shock can have immediate effects on the vendors’ access to food, and thus push them into food insecurity. Two case studies (see colour pages) demonstrate that the vendor’s own food security is not only an indicator of their chronic poverty, but also reflects their coping capacity in times of crises. Like 85 percent of the slum dwellers that were interviewed in our Consumers’ survey, Tasneem and Salim both suffered from the

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radical increase in food prices. Yet, what are Tasneem and other slum dwellers doing if their income is not sufficient to cover their rising expenses for food? In such a crisis of purchasing power, three basic coping strategies can be distinguished (Etzold 2011b; Zingel et al. 2011). First, poor groups try to earn or borrow more money. Once in a while, 86 percent of the interviewees had borrowed money from shop owners or money lenders to pay for their food. Two third sold assets, such as jewellery, to buy food. Tasneem could avoid this; still, she had to work longer hours than before the crisis to earn a sufficient amount of money. Half of the slum dwellers followed the same strategy. Second, vulnerable households reduce their own food consumption. Accordingly, three quarter of the interviewees temporarily changed their eating habits, for instance, by abstaining from more expensive foodstuff like meat and fish as Salim did. At the time of the interview, the last time that Tasneem had meat was half a year ago at the Eid-ul-Fitr festival, when people celebrate the end of Ramadan. In two third of the families, the mother would eat less in support of her children. However, Tasneem told me that she would already do this to keep her son healthy and strong. More than half of the interviewees would eat smaller portions and just under a fifth would occasionally reduce the number of daily meals from three to one. As a result, 60 percent said that they would sometimes go to bed feeling hungry. Third, families draw on external help, if available. The direct help within the family is most important. Since most of the slum dwellers are migrants, and many still have close relations to their family in the rural areas, some of them may bring mainly rice and, every now and then, some meat from their relatives (11 percent said so). For Tasneem, family support was irrelevant. In contrast, she even had to take up additional credits to pay for her husband’s medication, limiting her food budget further. A low coping capacity, like both cases show, is thus a central characteristic for high vulnerability (cf. Adger 2006; Bohle 2007a; Zingel et al. 2011). Political Factors are the most Fundamental Drivers of Street Vendors’ Vulnerability Environmental, personal, economic and security risks, such as petty crime and theft, contribute to street food vendors’ high vulnerability to poverty. More social and indeed political factors, however, drive it. Although there is a common identity and also solidarity among those street vendors who know another for long time and who are bound together through space, very high competition sometimes leads to conflicts in an arena. The conflicts normally revolve around land ‘ownership’ and the access to the most profitable vending spots at a site. While personal relations and informal modes of governance contribute to solving these conflicts, the line blurs between patron-client relations between powerful agents and the street food vendors and outright exploitation. 11 percent of all vendors mentioned that the extortion of security payments (chanda) poses a severe problem for them. Others just take these as normal business expenditure or ‘rent’ for their vending

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spot. For one third of the vendors, constant harassment by policemen and the evictions from their vending site is the most significant livelihood stress (chapter 8). The driving force of vendors’ vulnerability might differ in individual cases. The loss of fixed assets and the inability to work at all, and thus lost income and foregone earning opportunities, are always the most significant economic consequences of insecure vending conditions. Social and emotional outcomes should also not be underestimated. Many vendors are very exhausted after a long day standing in the sun, for instance. Others are stressed as they have to be alert all the time so they can react quickly to police raids. And many feel deprived and humiliated as they have to live up with harassment and defamation. Vendors’ individual experiences shape their coping und adaptation strategies to livelihood stresses and thus their further trajectories of vulnerability. Moreover, their habitus, which is reflected in their styles of vending, structures how they perceive their situation – whether they are living in human security or in insecurity. 7.5 SOCIAL RECOGNITION INSIDE THE FIELD OF STREET FOOD In Bangladesh, hierarchies are very important in general. The positions in the society are distributed according to people’s wealth and their social status – both are closely linked to their families’ origin and their land ownership as well as their profession and political affiliation. Compared to other people living in Dhaka’s slums, street vendors occupy a slightly better social position as their comparatively higher income suggests (see table 7.12 in the annex). One quarter of all interviewed street food vendors judged that they would be better-off than other people in their neighbourhood; half said that they would be in a similar position; while another quarter said that their own situation would be worse than others. Most of them attributed their respective position to their own level of income and to the kind of house they lived in. The distinctions between the different street food vendors, which relate to their style of vending and thus to their access to public space, show clearly in this regard, too. While three quarter of those vendors, who sell full dishes, snacks or beverages from consolidated (pucca) shops, stated that they are better-off than other people living in their neighbourhood, one quarter of the semimobile vendors and only four percent of the iterant hawkers said so. In turn, one third in both of the latter groups said that their living situation is worse than their neighbours (see figure 7.14a; the continuum of vulnerability to poor housing also shows in table 7.13 and figure 7.10). The vendors are well aware of large differences between them in terms of economic success, prestige and recognition by others as well as own livelihood security. More than half of the semi-permanent vendors and even 92 percent of the mobile hawkers said that they are in a worse situation than those vendors who have a permanent shop at their vending site (see figure 7.14b).

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a) Do you think that you are better-off than other people at the place where you live?

100% 80% 60%

No, worse No, same

40% 20% 0% b) Do you think that you are better-off than other permanent vendors selling here?

100% 80% 60% 40%

No, worse No, same

20% 0% c) Do you think that you are better-off than other semi-permanent/semi-mobile vendors selling here?

100% 80% 60% 40%

No, worse No, same

20% 0% d) Do you think that you are better-off than other mobile vendors selling here?

100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

Fig. 7.14: Street Vendors’ Judgement of their own Social Position Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

No, worse No, same Yes, better

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The Politics of Street Food

most affluent and most recognised more affluent, but less recognised

less affluent and least recognised

less affluent, but more recognised

Fig. 7.15: Distinctions in the Social Field of Street Food Data Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Note: The index of economic capital is a composite index of a vendors’ business profit, his household’s income and expenditure, his housing situation and material possessions (tables 7.11, 7.16). The higher the score (max. 100), the more economic capital a vendor has. The index of (selfevaluated) symbolic capital is based on the vendors’ own evaluation of their relative social position (see figure 7.15). There is a positive linear relation between both indices (R-Square=0.554).

The reasons why permanent vendors would be better off largely revolve around their higher economic capital: they would have a higher income, more goods in their shop, which is also larger, and more customers. Their security of tenure was mentioned as an important reason, too. The push-cart vendor Abdur commented that the permanent shop keepers have more money to invest and as they just sit in their shop, “they have a relaxed life” (interview, 17.02.09). The permanent food vendors, those who sell from unconsolidated (kutcha) shacks and in particular those who have consolidated shops, then have more symbolic capital. They are recognised as more influential and more affluent and thus occupy the best positions in the field of street food (in the top right corner of figure 7.15). The permanent vendors know that they are better-off in economic terms and that having a fixed spot for vending also brings some prestige amongst the vendors. The vast majority of the permanent shop keepers (84% of pucca and 60% of kutcha vendors) accordingly noted that they are better off than the vendors who

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have to walk around all day (see figure 7.14d). Compared to them they would have a shop full of goods, a better income, and a durable vending spot. Even half of the (semi-) mobile push-cart vendors said that they are in a comparatively privileged and more secure situation than the “poor egg or pitha vendors”, as Abdur put it. Salim and Abdur both argued that “we [the push-cart vendors selling in front of DMCH] are better off compared to the mobile vendors. We do not have to move around” (interview, 05.03.10). In turn, the mobile hawkers see themselves in an inferior position. The mobile tea vendor Ramid, for instance, replied when asked how he would judge his own importance at the site: “I think myself very small. Among 100 people, 95 percent is bigger than me. […] I don’t have any power to say anything against them” [the more permanent vendors in front of DMCH] (interview, 11.04.09; see figure 7.3). And indeed, the survey data shows that the mobile vendors have the lowest economic capital, in terms of business profits and household incomes, expenditures and material possessions, the least rights at their sites and a low social prestige (Accordingly, most of the mobile vendors are in the lower-left corner in figure 7.15). The scatterplot diagram shows the relative distribution of wealth and prestige inside the field of street food in Dhaka. Economic and symbolic capital are positively related: the higher a vendor’s economic capital, the higher is his prestige. But economic success alone is not equal with a secure vending position. As shown in previous sections, good social relations to powerful persons are maybe even more important for a permanent access to the arena. The push-cart tea vendor Abdur stated that it would be good for him that he has a powerful uncle, who works at the university hospital and who could say ‘don’t do anything against my nephew’. Therefore his situation would be better than of many other people selling in front of DMCH (interview, 17.02.09). Salim, in turn, regularly referred to his origin as reason for his good standing and his secure vending spot at the same site: “I know, everyone [among the vendors] respects me. I am from Comilla, everyone knows it” (interview, 07.09.08). 7.6 INTERIM CONCLUSION: SECURING POSITIONS IN FIELDS AND ARENAS Mapping the positions of vendors within the social field of street food has been the key objective of chapter seven. Other studies suggest that the volume of economic capital largely determines a family’s social position in Dhaka (cf. Kumar Das 2003; Pryer 2003; World Bank 2007; Siddiqui et al. 2010). In turn, food security can be regarded as one of the most significant indicators for chronic poverty and vulnerability (cf. Watts & Bohle 1993; Maxwell 1995; Zingel et al. 2011). The evidence presented clearly demonstrates that the differences in the vendors’ expenditures and incomes as well as their respective food security status, and more generally speaking their total economic capital, can largely be assigned to the different styles of vending, and thus to the distinct social practices of appropriating public space.

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“Space matters” (Massey 2006: 89) for the street food vendors in a dialectical sense: Vendors can only gain access to, appropriate and thereby socially construct a vending site, if they have the sufficient economic capital for investments in equipment and social relations (i.e. bribes). If they have social capital, family networks, good relations to other vendors and/or the necessary connections to local power brokers they are able to establish more permanent claims on their ‘own’ vending spot. In turn, through the spatial practice of street food vending most vendors manage to generate an adequate income and accumulate economic capital, and eventually also more social and symbolic capital. Those vendors who have permanently appropriated their vending spot (they have more spatial capital) are better-off; they have better network relations; they have more prestige; and thus occupy more central social positions. In contrast, the mobile vendors are the most vulnerable agents in economic terms; they are not well embedded in local networks; they are least recognised; and thus pushed to rather marginal positions inside the field of street food. For the street food vendors in Dhaka, Pierre Bourdieu’s (1989; 2005a) assumption that the material space that is occupied by an agent and his own “sense of place” are good indicators of an agent’s position in social space, seems to hold true. Moreover, my findings clearly underscore the importance of a permanent and secure access to public space for the livelihoods of the urban poor (cf. Bayat 1997; Brown 2006b; Hackenbroch et al. 2009).

8 CONTESTED STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE: STREET POLITICS AND EVICTIONS Street food vendors deliver needed services to the city dwellers, and their trade provides crucial livelihood opportunities for the urban poor. Yet, the field of street food is neither formally recognised by the state, nor adequately fostered by NGOs or (inter)national poverty alleviation programmes. Despite deemed as illegal, the street vendors’ appropriation of public space have been tolerated by the Bangladeshi state and the city authorities for decades. Owing to shifting public discourses around hygiene, public security, corruption and an appropriate use of public space, the street food business is now increasingly impeded (see chapter 5.3). The logic behind these ‘clean-up drives’ against hawkers clearly showed during the reign of the military-backed Caretaker Government (January 2007 to December 2008). State representatives use street vendors as scapegoats for more general urban governance problems and seem to give credence to the belief that the authority of the state can be easily demonstrated by evicting them. According to my survey, 28 percent of the vendors are often affected by police evictions and thus immediately experience the criminalisation of the street food trade. This situation is not unique to Bangladesh. In other countries, contestations between street vendors and the state are frequent and often violent, too. As a consequence, police raids of street vending sites, both sporadic clearances and mass evictions, are among hawkers’ most crucial livelihood threats (see Brown 2006b for cases from Dar es Salaam, Kumasi and Kathmandu; Dittrich 2008 for Hyderabad, GarciaRincon 2007 for Caracas; Donovan 2008 for Bogotá; Anjaria 2010 for Mumbai). In this final empirical chapter the contestations over street food governance are explicitly lined out. Four research questions are addressed. I first sketch the largely informal modes of street food governance (chapter 8.1). The daily encounters between hawkers and state agents and ordinary evictions of vending sites are delineated (chapter 8.2). The social consequences of extra-ordinary police raids against hawkers are explained in line with vulnerability thinking. Owing to the distinctions in the field, I demonstrate that the street vendors’ are differentially exposed and sensitive to evictions, and that their adaptive capacity nonetheless enables (most of) them to sustain their livelihoods (chapter 8.3). The chapter closes with thoughts on the political logics of eviction drives and the ‘dance of command and control’ that structure the arenas of street food (chapter 8.4). Key Question: How is power distributed inside the fields and arenas of street food? 1.

How are street vending sites, and thus public space, in Dhaka governed?

2.

What is the relation between street food vendors and state agents?

3. 4.

How vulnerable are street vendors to state violence, and how do they cope with evictions? What are the macro- and micro-political logics behind eviction drives?

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8.1 STREET POLITICS: MODES OF GOVERNANCE IN ARENAS OF STREET VENDING In its 1972 report on the informal economy in Nairobi, the ILO (1972: 4) noted that “informal-sector activities are largely ignored, rarely supported, often regulated and sometimes actively discouraged by the Government.” The same holds true for the street trade in Dhaka today. Although a set of enforceable legal rules on street food vending exists in Bangladesh (chapter 5.3.2), these are largely irrelevant in the reality and only put into practice erratically as the chapters on the eviction of street vendors will show. Nonetheless, the informal economy is not “unregulated”, as some scholars have commented (cf. Castells & Portes 1989: 13). The everyday practices of the urban poor might lie outside legal norms, but they are nonetheless governed through extra-legal systems of rights, social values, taboos, personal agreements, and other forms of informal institutions (de Soto 1992; North 1992; Etzold et al. 2009). In Dhaka, the access to the local arenas of street vending is highly regulated and largely depends on the vendors’ personal network relations (chapter 7.2.4). The use of public space is governed by authoritative agents who – according to their own position vis-à-vis the field of power – draw upon a continuum of social and political institutions, from formal to informal ones (see chapter 3.2.3 and table 8.2). 8.1.1 Formal Registration, Licenses and Political Representation Some formal regulators have reiterated the importance of trade licences also for street vendors (interview, Ward Commissioner, 06.01.08). But in reality, it is de facto impossible to obtain a license for street food vending from the municipal authority (as required by the DCC Ordinance from 1983), a registration card or other forms of formal permits. While none of the mobile vendors or unconsolidated street shop owners had a vending license, only one third of those shop owners selling from pucca structures had one (table 8.1). These were not issued by the DCC, but by local business committees. As virtually none is registered, all street food vendors encroach on public space and pursue their business illegally.134 Some street vendors had heard rumours that the opportunity to obtain a vending license would be launched soon, as political parties and hawkers associations had discussed it. But no hawker actually knew how to get one and what would be needed to be eligible for an issuance. Some hawkers mentioned that if the opportunity would exist, they would seek to obtain a license and also pay for it accordingly. They hoped that their business would be more secure then. They would just show the license in case of any kind of problems and then they would no longer 134 The study undertaken by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB 2010: 22, 65) reveals a similar picture. Although 95% of the 300 interviewed street vendors said that having a license would be necessary or helpful, only two actually had some kind of license, in these cases also not issued by the DCC.

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be subject to harassment and eviction.135 A police officer, however, noted there has never been the plan to give out licenses to street vendors; the existing laws remained the same (interview, 02.01.08). Vending Styles

Share of vendors with … official license, registration membership in a or permit hawkers’ association

Permanent consolidated Permanent unconsolidated Semi-permanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Total Average Average for street vendors

31%

8%

0%

8%

0% 0% 0% 3%

0% 0% 0% 2.5 %

0%

2%

Tab. 8.1: Formal Regulation and Political Representation Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

Sign at the entrance to the Dhaka University Campus forbidding the access to the campus for pushcarts that many street vendors use for sale.

Street food vendor selling chatpotti and fuchka from a push-cart in front of a female student’s dormitory right on the university campus.

Pict. 8.1: Formal Regulation of Street Food Vending on the Campus of Dhaka University Source: B. Etzold, November 2007

135 Interviews with street vendors at DMCH/Shaheed Minar (Abdur, Einal and Nazrul Islam (07.02.09), Anisur (14.02.09) and Shahajan (15.02.09)), in Islambagh (Ahmed Hilam, 09.02.09) and Sadar Ghat (Imtiaz, 17.02.09).

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In Dhaka, many hawkers of clothes and consumer goods are organized in associations like the Bangladesh Sammilito Hawkers Parishad. But only two percent of the interviewed street food vendors – all of them were permanent – were members in such an association (table 8.1). More were members of local savings and microcredit groups, which do not represent them politically. In contrast to India, where advocacy coalitions influenced the state’s policy on street vending (cf. Bandyopadhyay 2009b; Bhowmik 2010a; te Lintelo 2010), in Bangladesh the street food vendors do not have a recognized political voice that could lobby their interests and press for institutional reforms from which they might benefit. The mere existence of formal regulations and the “everyday life of the law” (Anjaria 2010) are, however, two different things. Due to overlapping jurisdiction it is often not clear, who is responsible for the implementation of the law and how it is actually enforced. Another question is where restrictive rules are put into practice, and where not. Adequate answers to these questions depend on the place of sale, and thus on the governing logic in each arena of street food vending (see table 8.2). If hawkers sell on the street, in parks or on a public square, all of which are under the formal control of the Dhaka City Corporation, then it is the responsibility of the police to control the street and prevent them from blocking footpaths, for instance. The DCC itself would only check the consolidated and formally registered bather hotels occasionally (according to the DCC’s chief urban planner, 07.01.08). If hawkers sell food in institutionalised public spaces, for instance on the Dhaka University Campus, at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital or inside the BIWTA Ferry Terminal, then the respective organisations are responsible for the hawkers. Accordingly, the university, the hospital and the BIWTA authorities have written operational directives banning or permitting the sale of food, they put up signs at their entrance (picture 8.1) or give out oral orders to security guards to prevent street vendors from entering the area under their control. If street vendors sell on private spaces, they need the consent of the respective land owners. One shop owner, who sells tea and snacks vendor from a small hut in the slum Bishil, even presented a written document, by which the land owner of the respective plot allows him to sell on his land (interview with Salahuddin, 27.02.2010). In each of these arenas, rigour enforcement of formal rules or tolerance of vending practices depend on the interests of the respective implementing agents, their attitudes towards street food vendors, their presence in the arena, and personal agreements between them and the hawkers.

Contested Street Food Governance: Street Politics and Evictions Degree of formality

high

mediumhigh

mixed

mediumlow

low

Continuum from formal to informal institutions

Implementing agents

257

Implementation in the arenas

Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Laws: Pure Food Ordinance; Dhaka Metropolitan Police Ordinance; Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance

- ‘right to a livelihood’ stands against multiple barriers, which hinder access to employment Dhaka City - little practical use of laws on SF vending Corporation, Police, RAB - disregard of street vending practices by DCC - tolerance of vending activities by the Police - erratic law-enforcement drives and evictions

Operational directives and orders

Public authorities, security guards

Negotiated operational rules  modes of governance in effect

- allocation of vending sites to vendors through personal contacts and family Political relations leaders, - hierarchical relations of dependency and criminal exploitation (chanda payments ) - differentiated ‘rights’ of vendors acsyndicates, cording to mobility and size of vending hawkers’ unit, personal ‘history’ in the arena and associations, social capital vendors - middlemen mediate conflicts with other agents and between vendors

Social norms and codes of conduct

Personal agreements

- signs, barriers, and other visual borders - individual efforts for law and order as well as hygienic standards - guards telling vendors’ to move away - more rigour enforcement in presence of key agents

Vendors, customers, suppliers, friends

- strong belief in social norms, such as respect for elder and longer established vendors - acceptance of other vendors’ ‘rights’ - respect and friendliness towards customers - reliability and credibility towards traders - purdah restricting women’s access to labour

family and friends

- personal relationships - mutual support in terms of advice, labour, credit

Tab. 8.2: Multiple Institutions in the Social Field of Street Food Notes: own draft based on interviews with street vendors and regulators, compare table 3.2 and Etzold et al. 2009.

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8.1.2 Informal Institutions regulating the Street Food Trade Informal institutions operate at different levels of social organisation, among family members and friends, within a peer group and within a first random group of people that is brought together in space, just as street vendors. In the following, the rules of the game inside the field of street food (see table 8.2) are explained from the perspective of the hawkers. As most research was conducted in front of the university hospital, this is the arena most examples are drawn from. Personal Agreements based on Trust At the most intimate level of the family and friends, personal agreements based on trust and social norms regulate the everyday practices of the street vendors. Sharing the work load within the family and pooling resources within the family is generally a vital element of the urban poor livelihoods (cf. Moser 1998). Most vendors mentioned that they can rely on their family members and many live together in a single small room with their parents and thereby seek to reduce the costs of living (e.g. Salim, see case study 7.1). Some vendors depend on senior family members, not only for access to their vending site, but also for help in times of crises as they lend money or give crucial advice (bonding social capital; see Salim’s and Tasneem’s cases in chapter 7.2.4). When they were asked which rules they would have to follow to sustain their lives, his family and patron-client relations first came to the mind of the pitha vendor Kamal: “If we want to maintain the business successfully then Contested Street Food Governance: Street Politics and Evictionsme, my mother and sister have to work hard. I also have to take help from other people like police and those who help to decide the vending place” (interview, 19.02.09). Social Norms and Codes of Conduct based on Reciprocity Basic social norms and codes of conduct that structure everyday life in Bangladesh self-evidently matter for street food vendors, too. The role of the Muslim norm Purdah for women’s access to and behaviour in public space, and thus their opportunities to work as a street vendor, has already been explained (chapter 7.2.3). Many hawkers said that they would generally believe that showing respect towards elder and more powerful people is highly important, and so is hospitality. The relation with customers is hierarchical in most – yet not in all – cases and the vendors depend on them for their income. The pitha vendor Tasneem therefore said: “I have to behave well with all the people. Otherwise people will not come to my shop.” Even if some men would harass her and show no respect, “I cannot say anything. I have to maintain my business here” (interview, 03.03.09). In general, the street vendors treat their customers with respect, and seek to provide good services to them – sometimes they even give discounts or small credit – to

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acquire regular customers. Similarly, many street vendors cultivate good relations to retail shop owners or food suppliers. Getting goods in the morning on credit and paying them in the evening is only possible, if the hawkers and traders know and trust each other (chapter 7.3.2). It is a question of honour, reliability and respect not to break the existing informal contracts between another. Within the peer group of street vendors, there are norms, customs and explicit codes of conduct, all of them are based on shared interests and social control. Two basic rules have to be acknowledged generally: New vendors have to respect and obey to the longer established vendors, and no vendor can start a business directly in front of somebody else’s shop. At every vending site, the vendors know each other, and each vendor has her/his own permanent vending spot, in case of the (semi-) permanent vendors, or at least regular access to the same vending area, in case of the semi-mobile vendors. Hawkers with good personal relations to locally powerful people and those who have been selling at the site for many years, can always refer to their established rights. If a new vendor enters the site to set up his business too close to an established shop, other vendors would immediately tell him that he had to go to a vacant spot. If the newcomer would ignore the rights of the others, an established vendor would approach the so called linesman, who is responsible for allocating the spots and who maintains close links to the local political leaders. The linesman would talk to the new vendor, negotiate a price for a spot elsewhere, or chase him away. At popular sites, where dozens of vendors already pursue their business, it is almost impossible for new vendors to get a good place for vending. Established vendors, too, cannot appropriate more space than they had before. Several vendors mentioned that they would have the money to invest in a bigger permanent shop or a push-cart, but could not do so because other vendors or the linesman interfered. Like new shop openings, such business expansions are watched carefully by the others, who care for their claims at the vending site and would always defend their market position. Despite occasional quarrels and a general competition over space and customers, at many vending sites the hawkers nonetheless support one another and share some sense of unity (bridging social capital). Salim, for instance, mentioned that “we have to build a strong community with other vendors so that everybody can do his business and we can help each other in difficult times” (interview, 12.09.2008). Modes of Governance in Effect As the previous section already showed, street food vendors are not the only ones defining the operational rules inside their arena. Different players, each of them having specific ‘stakes in the game’, occupy different positions of power. Accordingly, some may shape the rules to their interests – they are then ‘regulators’ – while others may not. The local modes of governance put into effect at a site can be seen as a temporarily accepted result of negotiations between key agents in the arena and as an assemblage of formal and informal rules to which all agents align their practices in “silent compliance” or “doxic submission” (Bourdieu 1998:

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118). These rules of the game can be very local in scope. They are highly dynamic and can become subject to contestation (Etzold et al. 2009; Etzold et al. 2012). Generally speaking, in any arena of street vending in Dhaka, the vendors have to maintain good personal relations with local powerbrokers and political leaders in order to get durable access to a vending site and run the businesses successfully (linking social capital). “If there is trouble, you need to address the powerful men”, said Kamal (19.02.09), who sells in front of the DMCH. It is the local constellation of political agents and the symbolic value of the respective site as such that engender powerful people. In case of the hospital or the ferry terminal, the highly politicised local labour unions are very influential.136 The vendors have to keep contacts to the union leaders, who are members of the ruling party. At the hospital, a vendor mentioned that good relations to the secretary of the workers union are important, because “if he wants to, he can remove all of them from their vending spot” (see Figure 7.4). Due to the personalisation of Dhaka’s governance system, both national elections and military coups have distinct implications on the arenas of street food vending (chapter 5.3.1). If power is redistributed in the national field of power, the local balance of power changes, too. The people involved in the local party politics are being exchanged, for instance. The same agents that were powerlessness before as they belonged to the ‘wrong party’ can become powerful after their party won the election. Accordingly, some vendors’ fear harassment and evictions during a certain political era, and right after a political change their linking social capital to the right people grants them privileges such as a permanent access to the vending site. As the local power brokers shape the rules in the arena – they can tolerate the vendors or enforce evictions – most vendors try to stay well-informed about the very local party politics, which constitute a crucial part of “street politics” (Bayat 1997). At some sites the police are present and intervene regularly in the street trade, while at other places they hardly appear at all (chapters 8.2.1, 8.3.3). Most of the vendors know the police officers patrolling their street and sustain personal relations to them. Moreover, at many street food shops policemen are even regular customers. In institutionalised public spaces, the vendors have to deal regularly with security guards, gatemen or other personal of the respective organisation. Like the lower-ranking police officers, these agents are not close to the field of power and cannot set the effective modes of governance. They are not ‘regulators’, but rather ‘enforcers’ of rules. They can be the street vendors’ antagonists, if they drive them away. Or they are their allies by tolerating vending activities when their own superiors are not present or by giving them warnings about upcoming controls or raids. Accordingly, some hawkers at the hospital noted that one has to behave well with the DMCH staff and the gatemen. Occasionally secu-

136 In Bangladesh, formally employed labourers are organized in trade unions that are directly linked to the political parties (Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; IGS 2008). Hawkers’ associations are involved in party politics, too.

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rity guards get food or tea for free or at a reduced price.137 Salim said that the hospital’s “director tells us to leave this place. Then we survive here with negotiation with gatemen and guards. They help us in different ways. They alert us” (interview, 12.09.08), for instance by blowing a whistle in case the director comes out. The Chanda Payment System – An Effective Mode of Governance? Having good relations alone is not sufficient. In Dhaka, most wholesale traders, street vendors or slum dwellers are protected through personal relations, political affiliations and security payments to representatives of city authorities, service providers, politicians or policemen (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; World Bank 2007; IGS 2008; Hossain 2011; Keck 2012). Without this ambivalent protection, it is difficult – if not impossible – to do successful business or simply to organize everyday life. Extracting money, so called chanda payments, from hawkers is one facet of the informal operating rules in Dhaka’s arenas of street vending. Vending spots are allocated to individual vendors for a specific price – the most lucrative vending spots are more expensive. The street vendors pay the money to so called linesmen, who hand this money over to the local muscle men (mastaans), who are often part of the formal system of political parties or trade unions, or they submit it directly to the police (Siddiqui et al. 1990: 339; 2010: 255; World Bank 2007: 67ff). In return, the vendors can secure a permanent or regular access to the site, they get relevant information about police raids, and support once an eviction drive occurred (chapter 8.3.3). Even in the local newspapers it is explained how the chanda system works and why evictions by the police then fail: “A section of the law enforcers, local political leaders, DCC staff and organised criminals collect tolls from the illegal street vendors. […] Each street vendor had to pay a daily toll ranging from Tk 30 to Tk 200 to these elements and they would be driven out otherwise. […] Around 50 per cent of the tolls go to local political kingpins' pockets, 15 per cent to party activists, 15 per cent to police and the rest to the ‘linemen’- the ones employed to collect the tolls for their bosses. […] A DMP [Dhaka Metropolitan Police] deputy commissioner seeking anonymity told The Daily Star that police could not evict illegal street vendors due to political interference, particularly by the ruling party. ‘I had to abandon a hawker eviction drive at Farmgate halfway through due to pressure from BNP leaders’.”138

137 Numerous interviews with street vendors at DMCH, in Islambagh and in Sadar Ghat are the source of information presented in this section: Abdur (14.02.09), Salim (12.09.08), Einal (19.02.09), Mustak (11.04.09) and Anisur (15.02.09); Ahmed Hilam (09.02.09) and Taslima (03.03.09); and Feron (17.02.09). 138 ‘City walkways freed from hawkers´, The Daily Star, 19.01.2007. See also ‘ Hawker Eviction - Why drive fails again and again´, The Daily Star, 05.02.2007.

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Ample evidence shows that Dhaka’s governance architecture can be characterised through close relations and informal exchanges between bureaucrats from the Dhaka City Corporation, ward commissioners, local politicians, the police and mastaans – all agents who are close to the field of power. According to a journalist, the informal arrangements on street vending would be a proof of the “criminalization of politics” through corruption, which continued to exist throughout the reign of the Caretaker Government (CTG), although the drive against corruption was publicly declared (see chapter 8.3.2). “There were no major changes [in terms of the corrupt system]. The unholy collaboration is still working” (interview, 30.12.2007). One senior police officer told me in an interview: “There is no information on illegal activities such as illegal toll collections on DU campus”. A lower ranking sergeant, in turn, admitted that these payments would exist. However, the collection of illegal tolls would now (under the CTG) be strictly prohibited and the police would try everything they could to stop these payments (interviews on 31.12.07 and 02.01.08). According to our own survey (here, only 29 percent of the vendors admitted these payments), the vendors spent almost 100 Taka per day for chanda payments, which is almost five percent of their business expenditure or almost 30 percent of their business profit. The least successful mobile vendors pay less (42 Taka) than the semi-mobile (105 Taka) vendors. The semi-permanent vendors had to pay most (160 Taka or 8% of their business expenditure), even more than the permanent vendors (91 Taka) (Table 8.3). Forty percent of those vendors who pay chanda consider this practice as a severe problem – they felt harassed and exploited. For one third, in turn, these payments posed no problem. They saw them as normal business expenditure – like buying ingredients, they were buying their vending spot. Vending Styles

Permanent consolidated Permanent unconsolidated Semipermanent Semi-mobile Truly mobile Average

business expenditure per day BDT

business profit per day BDT

Share of vendors saying they have to pay chanda*

daily payment of chanda* BDT

chanda as share of business expenditure

chanda as share of business profit

2483

781

8%

100

4%

13 %

2378

300

32 %

91

4%

30 %

1924

291

27 %

160

8%

55 %

2673 753 2113

309 220 338

37 % 25 % 29 %

105 42 97

4% 6% 5%

34 % 19 % 29 %

Tab. 8.3: Security Payments to local Mastaans and the Police Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120) Note: *average amount spent by those respondents (n=35) who admitted to pay chanda.

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After having gained their trust in consecutive interviews, several street vendors on Dhaka University Campus told me more about chanda payments. The semimobile vendor Salim explained that the street vendors selling in front of the hospital have to do favours and maintain good relations with the local political leaders, and therefore also have to pay chanda to them via the linesmen. According to him, the amount one has to pay is determined by exact location, type, size and business success of a shop and the time span a vendor is already working at the site. About half of the money that the linesmen collect would go to the police. The mobile vendors do not have to pay as they do not have their own vending spot (interview, 12.09.08). When asked whether the police expect money from him, the mobile tea vendor Ramid replied: “No. They don’t take money from a small businessman like me. They take money from the bigger shops.” He did not even know the names of the linesmen collecting the money at the site (interview near DMCH, 11.04.09). Similarly, a man selling papur (some kind of fried bread) on the university campus told me that although the police would sometimes not allow him to sell at specific places, there would be no need for him to pay chanda, because he is moving around. A few meters away, a semi-mobile tea vendor with a pushcart reported that he would have to give 20 Taka per day to the police to be allowed to stay, but sometimes they would just come around to collect ‘their’ free cup of tea or a cigarette (both interviews at TSC, 01.11.07). Selling pithas from a small table near the Shaheed Minar, a semi-permanent vendor said that the police would come every day and demand money. Apparently, the amount has increased in line with changes in the overall governance architecture: during the BNP government he only had to pay 10 Taka per day, after the Caretaker Government took power in January 2007 it was 20 Taka, and after the riots on the university campus in August 2007 it further increased to 30 Taka. According to Kamal, this increase had two reasons: the price hike of food that also hit the policemen due to their low wages, and the increased risks of collecting chanda, because of the interim government’s campaign against corruption (interviews, 15.11.07, 06.09.08; case study 8.4). According to statements given during in-depth interviews, permanent, yet unconsolidated street food shops pay most. A manager of a street restaurant said that they would have to pay up to 450 Taka per day; it is more when they have a lot of customers, and less if they had bad business. During the interim government they paid even less then after the Awami League came to power (interviews, 17.11.07, 14.02.09; case study 8.5). The importance and extent of chanda payments differs between the different vending sites. In Islambagh, where the police are hardly present at all, none of the vendors in the survey said that he had to pay something. In in-depth interviews, a female pitha vendor and a male tea vendor both said that they would not have to pay money regularly. Both, however, referred to incidences during the reign of the Caretaker Government when they were evicted by the police and paid bribes to continue their business (interviews Abdul, 09.02.09; Tasneem, 13.02.09). The highest amounts have to be paid at the important city travel hubs. At Saidabad bus terminal, three quarter of all vendors that were interviewed for the survey reported that they pay chanda. The vendors doing their business at the Sadar Ghat Ferry

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Terminal pay most chanda, on average. According to a key informant, “officially” street vendors are not allowed to stay, but because of “political pressure” the vending activities are tolerated by the BIWTA authorities, which are responsible for managing the terminal. Members of the BIWTA lease out vending spots in the terminal building and on the jetty to a local labour union – it was not clear whether this is a formal or an informal deal. The political leaders from the union, in turn, collect money from all the hawkers who want to do business at the site. Feron, a vendor selling fruits to ferry passengers from a table on the jetty, said that although nobody would want to talk about it, he would know for sure that like him everybody has to pay (at least) 100 Taka per day to the money collectors from the labour union. Moreover, they additionally have to pay 10 Taka to the BIWTA staff for bringing a single basket of fruits on the jetty. Officers from a special anti-crime unit RAB once asked him whether the vendors on the site would have to pay chanda, but he said nothing because the feared he would lose his vending spot if he admitted it (interview, 22.02.2009). Street Politics Matter The outlined operating rules in the social field of street food are highly important for the semi-mobile, semi-permanent and permanent vendors relying on regular or durable access to public space. They are less significant for the more mobile vendors selling tea, biscuits, jhal muri or peanuts. While they do have to obey to the vendors’ reciprocal norms by keeping some distance from more permanent shops, most of them do not have to pay chanda as they do not seek to secure their own vending spot. In Islambagh, a local political leader reiterated that not the formal law matters, but people’s own informal rules. He, as an important power broker in the arena, would try to maintain discipline and the permanent shop keepers would have to take permission from him to do their business. But the mobile vendors would not ask for his approval of their activities: “They are mobile, so nobody can stress them” (interview, 03.03.2009). Although the mobile vendors’ flexibility helps them to evade conflicts and grants them more freedom from the local rules, they are less embedded in the arena and cannot influence the local street politics. Many vendors expressed feelings of powerlessness and even despair. The mobile tea vendor Ramid said that he would suffer from restrictions and harassment: “The only thing is, if anyone is torturing me, I can’t protest, because I have to continue business here” (11.04.09). Despite his good personal contacts to some of the local power brokers, the semi-mobile vendor Salim said it would be difficult for him to stand up for his own (informally acclaimed) rights. Because he depends on more powerful people for his continued access to the vending site, he would have to tolerate everything they do, even if somebody humiliates his wife in the case that she is running their shop alone (interview, 12.09.08). To conclude, for the street vendors, it does not really matter which formal laws and guidelines on street vending exist, but how rigorously official rules are actually implemented at their vending site, and how they are themselves posi-

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tioned in the very local power relations. While some more permanent vendors have a certain degree of influence on the modes of governance in effect – and thus shape street politics – and some also negotiate actively with the state (chapter 8.3.3; case study 8.2), most do not dare to resist more powerful agents and accept the rules of the game and their exploitation by the powerful. 8.2 ENCOUNTERS AND CONTESTATIONS WITH THE STATE The following sub-chapters describe the daily interactions between street vendors and state agents and distinct struggles over space in the arenas of street food vending. First hawkers’ everyday encounters with the police are looked at. Then, the interests, attitudes and practices of selected formal agents and the modes of governing the street in front of the university hospital are explained. It is shown that institutional dynamics result in distinct spatial patterns of the street food trade. 8.2.1 Everyday Encounters between Policemen and Hawkers In the arenas of street food vending, mass evictions remain exceptional encounters between hawkers and the state. Before turning to the vendors’ vulnerability to mass evictions, this section addresses the ordinary encounters between policemen and hawkers. Using examples from different sites, I show the interests, practices and daily interactions between both groups. It is important to bear in mind that owing to the persisting governance structures mistrust towards representatives of the state and even fear of them is widespread in Bangladesh (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; World Bank 2007; IGS 2008, 2009). The Bangladesh Governance Barometer found that more than 60 percent of urban citizens do generally not trust the police, and more than three quarter of all Bangladeshis deemed the police as highly or somewhat corrupt (IGS 2010a: 40ff). The Policemen’s Perspective In a bid to maintain peace and public order, policemen regularly walk the streets and control street food vending sites – not all over the city, but particularly politically significant arenas like Dhaka University Campus, crucial thoroughfares in the city like Farmgate, or important travel hubs like Saidabad Bus Terminal. According to a police officer, the police and the street vendors on the university campus would maintain quite good relations. Although selling prepared food on the street is “totally prohibited, because it is unhygienic”, the police would normally not arrest the vendors because “they are very poor people, who have no other choice than to do their business”. Moreover, they tolerate the vendors because students and the poor people like rickshaw pullers need cheap food. It is therefore “very awful to ban these vendors” (interview, 31.12.2007). When big

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festivals, like Victory Day (16th December) or Ekushey (International Mother Language Day, 21st February), are celebrated on the University Campus, the police also tolerates the great number of food vendors – officially they are still not allowed – as the many people who come to the campus just want to celebrate and enjoy themselves with some sweets and light snacks. Everyday tolerance of street vendors stands against occasional intervention: If a senior police officer in charge sees too many vendors at a spot, who might hinder traffic flows or cause “problems for the public”, or if they receive special orders from superiors, the police is compelled to act and removes all vendors from the respective sites (interview with a police officer, 02.01.2008). The policemen’s quotes show that the storylines of utility and demand as well as urban poverty and livelihoods, which speak for tolerance of the vendors’ practices, compete with the narratives of illegality, a functional city as well as food safety and public health, which call for stricter implementation of the law (see chapter 5.3.3). Moreover, state agents’ tolerance or rigour towards street food vending shows the ambivalence of “doing institutions” (Etzold et al. 2012): Social norms, such as the moral responsibility towards the urban poor (i.e. the normative pillar of institutions) might counteract the law (i.e. the regulative pillar of institutions). Being well aware of this contradiction, the agents close to the field of power can play with institutions and align their practices to their own interests (what is beneficial for them?) and their judgment of appropriate behaviour. As bricoleurs, policemen can ‘turn a blind eye’ by referring to the needs of consumers and the urban poor, or they can intervene and evict the street vendors by referring to the rule of law.

A policeman is taking some tea and snacks from a permanent street food shop.

A group of policemen have called a mobile tea vendors to their truck to sell them some hot cha.

An officer from RAB (Rapid Action Battalion, an anticrime unit) is talking to a fruit vendor.

Pict. 8.2: Everyday Encounters between Policemen and Street Food Vendors Source: B. Etzold, October 2007 to January 2008

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Without bribes, a lower ranking police constable only receives a regular salary of 5,000 Taka per month, which is significantly less than the 8,500 Taka, the street food vendors earn on average. Although they are representatives of the state, and thus possess ‘statist capital’, many policemen share the same life world with street vendors and some even live side-by-side in the same neighbourhoods – one might see this as a basis for a shared understanding and a similar habitus in private life (i.e. the cognitive pillar of institutions). Not seldom, one can see policemen sitting at small street shops, where they take their lunch or some snacks, drink a cup of tea or smoke a cigarette; they are gossiping and sometimes even joking with the hawkers. Anisur, a manager of a street food stall opposite the University Hospital, explained that policemen constitute about 15 percent of their customers. Everyday policemen take tea or food: ruti and egg for breakfast, rice meals with meat and vegetables for lunch and dinner. At night, their street restaurant is the only facility in the area where one can get hot food; policemen on duty then stop by, too (interview, 15.02.2009). While this vendor said that policemen always pay accurately, other street food vendors reported that they give out tea or snacks at lower costs or even for free as reward for their tolerance or even help. The Street Vendors’ Perspective The interests of the street food vendors are quite simple: They appropriate public space in order to sustain their livelihoods and make the best possible profit. In doing so, they provide services to their customers, among which are policemen who are patrolling the streets. The hawkers’ attitude towards the police depends on their previous experience, i.e. their trajectory, which is site specific. On the Dhaka University Campus, policemen are perceived by some of the street vendors as a constant threat or an inevitable evil as they harass and evict them. Other vendors see lower-ranking police officers as harmless and reliable customers or even as allies, who help them to secure their vending spot and are rewarded in return with some little bribe payments. When asked about major problems they are facing on a daily basis, the majority of vendors doing business near the university hospital and the Shaheed Minar replied that harassment by and evictions through the police are the most severe threats to their livelihood. Salim, for instance has been selling tea and snacks in front of the university hospital for more than 12 years. His semi-permanent shop has been destroyed several times during eviction drives and he has also been arrested a few times. Nonetheless, he said that it would be difficult for him to maintain his vending spot without the help of the policemen whom he pays regularly. The police is thus of great importance for his business success (interview, 07.09.2008, see figure 7.4). When asked about his relation to the police, Kamal, a snack vendor selling in front of DMCH’s northern gate, replied that he sees them as both “harm and welfare”:

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Similarly, Ramid, a mobile vendor selling tea and biscuits at the same site, reported that as a “small businessman” he does not have to give money to the police, because “they are not doing anything, neither good nor bad” (interview, 11.04.09; see figure 7.3). The street restaurant manager Anisur, in turn, emphasised the importance of maintaining good relations to policemen. On the one hand, he needs them as reliable customers. On the other hand, he depends on them as the key regulators in this arena. When asked what rules he would have to follow in order to do successful business in front of the university hospital, he replied: “If I want to maintain business, then I must obey to the police” (interview, 15.02.2009). In other arenas, however, the state represented by the police is less present. Policemen regularly control the Ferry Terminal at Sadar Ghat, but usually do not disturb the street trade. They only evict hawkers on special occasions. When asked whether his business is affected negatively by the police, Feron, a 30 year old vendor selling fruits on the jetty from a large table, replied: “The police don’t have influence on it [his business success]. When any high ranked officers or political leaders visit the place, at the time police come to clean the place” (interview, 22.02.09). In slums, state representatives are hardly present at all. In the Bishil Sarang Bari Bustee in Mirpur, none of the vendors I spoke to mentioned problems with the police. In the industrial quarter and slums settlement Islambagh, policemen show up rarely. Ahmed Hilam is selling tea and snacks from a self-made hut at the verge of the embankment road next to the community park. Although the police evicted him at the beginning of the Caretaker Government’s reign and he also had to pay bribes to them, at the time of the interview he did not have any complaints as the police did not interrupt his work (interview, 09.02.09). Similarly, Tasneem, a female vendor selling pitha in front of a plastic recycling factory, was asked about problems such as harassment or evictions with other actors: Afsal Hossain (interviewer/translator): Is the police any problem? Tasneem: No. Afsal: You told before that one day police came and misbehaved with you. Tasneem: That was so many days ago. Not recent. Afsal: What is the role of police on your business? Is it needed for you? Tasneem: I don't think so. Afsal: Do police come nowadays? Tasneem: Since one year they are not coming. (interview, 03.03.09; the police is not included in her Venn Diagramm; figure 7.5)

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Nonetheless, all over the city there are visible tensions in the daily encounters of poor city dwellers with the state. One can witness traffic-policemen hitting rickshaw pullers brutally with bamboo sticks, if they do not stop to a given signal. Likewise, security guards in front of the university hospital hit street vendors to chase them away. At Chawk Bazar, a traditional market place in the heart of Old Dhaka, I conducted an interview with Md. Alauddin, who was selling boiled eggs from a basket, when a police officer came by. He shouted at the vendor that he should not sell already peeled eggs as this would be unhygienic and forced him to throw all peeled eggs into the garbage. The vendor was clearly frightened (interview, 13.11.07). In another occasion, a jeep with uniformed and armed members of RAB (Rapid Action Battalion, the Government’s special anti-crime and anticorruption unit) stopped right in front of the rickshaw of the fruit vendor Shahajan Islam while we were talking. One officer bought some malta (an orange-like fruit) and shouted angrily because he believed he got bad quality. Shahajan was extremely polite to the RAB-officer and gave him another one for free. When the RAB had left, the visible tension eased immediately. Shahajan admitted that he felt afraid and then started to complain about RAB and the police in general, who “push the poor people around”, chase him away and, even worse, his customers, too (interview, 18.10.2007). These examples illustrate the tensions in the interactions between agents close and distant to the field of power. On the one hand, encounters with representatives of the state are normal and some hawkers even maintain very friendly social relations with policemen (case study 8.2). The police, in turn, usually tolerates the street food trade benevolently. On the other hand, street vendors do have a lot of respect towards state agents. Many hawkers are intimidated by a policeman’s presence and fear state agents’ violent outbursts, which can come at any time as the vendors have experienced in the past. State agents can always refer to the law, to hygienic standards or social norms in order to justify restrictive actions. In this regard the vendors seem to be helpless because they know their own inferior position vis-à-vis the state, and even worse they seem to accept it in “doxic submission” (Bourdieu 1998: 118). The social field of street food is not only characterised by very asymmetric power relations, but also by the unpredictable, if not to say ‘erratic’, practices of state agents, who sometimes and at some places tolerate street food vending and at other times and places evict the hawkers in concerted actions. It is this uncertainty in the calculation of the other’s action that drives the human insecurity of many street food vendors in Dhaka. 8.2.2 Daily Contestations, Encroachments and Evictions From the perspective of the urban poor, the state is not only represented by police officers, but also by public administration officials both at national and municipal level, by politicians such as members of the parliaments or local Ward Commissioners, and by other public employees (cf. Corbridge et al. 2005; Zimmer 2009; Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012). These state agents possess ‘statist capital’, upon

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which they can draw to generate personal economic and symbolic profits (cf. Bourdieu 2006; chapter 3.2.2). In Dhaka, the high-ranking representatives of public bodies such as the City Corporation have accumulated enormous wealth and power (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; IGS 2009), while even the lower-ranking public employees such as the security guards of the university hospital can benefit from their position of power. The following case study from Dhaka Medical College Hospital unveils the local power constellation, shows how hawkers struggle over the access to public space in order to secure their livelihoods, and how shifting modes of governing space result in a distinct rhythm of street food vending.139 Power Constellation in the Local Arena Dhaka’s Medical College Hospital (DMCH) is located in between the Campus of Dhaka University and Old Dhaka’s Bakshibazar area (map 4.1). It was established in 1946 during British colonial rule. Today, it is one of the largest public hospitals in Bangladesh: around 3,500 people are working there (around 2,500 are medical staff), more than 1000 medical students are being educated, more than 3,000 patients are being treated, and several thousand people come every day to visit their relatives.140 The DMCH director, the political leaders of the hospital’s workers union, the ward master and the security guards are the most important agents interfering with the vending activities inside and in front of the hospital. Similar to the leading positions in other public organisations, the directors of DMCH are traditionally members of the ruling party or belong to the military. Accordingly, a director normally holds his position during the reign of the ruling parties and is replaced when a new government comes to power (see annex 6).141 In July 2007, the military-backed Caretaker Government (2007-08) installed an army general as hospital director in its bid to maintain law and order, to fight corruption and to clear public space (see chapter 8.3.2). Soon after having taken on the position, the DMCH director showed that he was a tough advocate for public order and food safety and one of the most powerful players in the arena. He ordered the destruction of the kutcha staff quarters, a slum for the hospitals 4th class workers, and all unconsolidated shops inside the hospital’s premises (see case study 8.1). He personally goes to the hospital canteen and visits the authorised bather hotel in front of the hospital to control the hygienic standards.

139 This case study has been used or referred to in several publications (Keck et al. 2008: 35f (in German); Etzold et al. 2009: 16-20; Etzold 2011a: 208-211 (in German); Etzold et al. 2012). 140 According to information given by the hospital director (interview, 03.01.08) and internet sources: www.banglapedia.org/httpdocs/HT/D_0163.HTM (12.04.12). 141 After the Awami League won the national elections in December 2008, a new director should have been assigned in February 2009. Due to political turmoil and civil unrest in late February 2009, when there was a mutiny at the Dhaka headquarters of the Bangladesh Rifles – the border security troops – these plans where postponed. A new director with political affiliation to the Awami League was then installed in June 2009.

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The unauthorised street restaurants on the side-strip on the other side of the road and the dozens of mobile hawkers on the pavement and street in front of the hospital are a great nuisance to the hospital director: “These businesses must stop! […] Under no circumstances it is acceptable to have food stalls there, because the environment there is not suitable. […] Food is essential for life, but is dangerous if prepared in unsafe and unhygienic environment. […] We cannot allow people to consume unsafe food, because of the possible spread of diseases and because it then becomes a public health burden. The capacities of the DMCH cannot be stretched even further with food-sick people. […] We are dedicated to the development of this country, so it is highly important to have good practices in food handling. […] Unsafe food cannot be allowed in this age of civilization, therefore we should try to eradicate this kind of profession [street vendors] in Dhaka. […] My predecessor was less strict to the [street] vendors, but I have the opportunity and the commitment to do something against them.” (interview, DMCH’s director, 03.01.08)

The quotes show that the discursive storylines of food safety and hygiene as well modernity and development (chapter 5.3.3) are employed by the director to legitimise his actions against street food vendors. He instructed the hospital’s security guards to drive all the street vendors from the space under his control, i.e. the hospitals premises, its four entrance areas and the footpath right in front of it.142 But as the DCC is responsible for the street itself, and the opposite side of the road, where many unconsolidated food shops are, is within the administrative area of Dhaka University, the hospital director’s direct regulatory power stops at the street. However, with a phone call to the university’s authorities or to the local police station he regularly requests these actors to exercise their formal control more strictly and evict all the hawkers along the street. According to the director, it would be unfortunate that these other state agents would only support his efforts in theory, but too seldom in practice. His own power and determination to do something against unsafe street food and disorderly behaviour have far-reaching consequences for the street vendors in the arena, and for the informal modes of governing the street trade, too. The Informal Modes of Governing the Street Trade at DMCH As outlined, informal regulatory institutions, such as chanda payments to political leaders and the police, exist parallel to formal institutions. According to information given by several vendors, the street trade in front of the university hospital is under the informal political control of two major groups, who extract around 300,000 Taka (~ 2,900 EUR) per month from around 100 street food vendors, 142 In April 2009, his successor even called for a special law and order unit, the Ansers (Bangladesh’s Civil Service), to back-up the hospitals’ security guards. These 36 men were more strict and brutal in their drives against the vendors than the security guards, who were embedded in the local ‘street politics´.

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who sell around the hospital.143 A part of this money goes to some police officers, and the other half (or even two thirds) goes into the pockets of the local political leaders, which are in case of DMCH strongly organised in the hospital workers’ union. During the reign of the Caretaker Government, the BNP party was in control of the area and a lineman collected the money and most of the payments were administered by a BNP leader, who was the driver of the hospital director and himself one of the richest and most powerful people in the arena. In line with the national elections the people changed, but the system remained the same. One mastaan collected the money from the street vendors and the secretary of the hospital’s workers union received it. The political leaders from the Awami League replaced the BNP goons as most important local power brokers (interviews, Shahajan , 15.02.09; Salim 07.09.08, 10.02.09; Anisur, 14.02.09). For the involved people, the collected amount seems to be quite a convincing argument to let the street vendors maintain their businesses at the site, despite other formal directives. The street vendors’ business success, in turn, depends to a large degree on their embeddedness in informal networks: Who they know and the quality of their social relations to key players in the arena opens them access to (or excludes them from) the most popular street food vending sites near the hospital’s main entrance. The space in front of the emergency gate is the best food vending spot in the area, as all deliveries and most of the visitors of DMCH pass this gate. Other potential customers like rickshaw pullers, taxi and CNG drivers crowd near the gate, too. As the business is best there, most street vendors want to sell close to this ‘hot spot’. According to Abdur, who sells tea and snacks from a push-cart in front of the mosque (see map 8.1), new vendors do not stand a chance to open up a business there. Only the established street vendors, who have been selling there for years and who have close ties to powerful people, can pursue their business there. But they also have to pay more chanda than those at less profitable sites. Every vending spot is informally allocated to one of the vendors by the linesmen. Therefore, one cannot choose one’s own spot and “one cannot just go and sell anywhere” (interview, 04.11.07). Securing access to a good vending spot through informal channels is thus the key to a vendor’s business success, and losing it, one of the greatest risks. Playing with Formal Rules – The Governance Modes in Effect The case study of street food vendors at Dhaka University highlights a situation where regulative rules exist, although they have not been internalised by all actors yet. For many, the logic of a strict prohibition of street food vending is not plausible. Many follow formal rules only if state representatives are present and use coercive means to enforce them. Moreover, besides being part of the state apparatus, many state agents are also involved in the very local “politics of the street” 143 Own estimate on the basis of street vendors statements regarding the level of chanda payments.

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(Bayat 1997) and seek to derive some benefits from their position of power. As formal requirements of their roles nonetheless exist, the social practices of these bricoleurs are often marked by their ability and desire to ‘play with formal rules’ (see chapter 3.2.3). The everyday practices of the university hospital’s security guards illustrate this process of institutional bricolage: The main duty of the guards is to ensure the security in the hospital premises, to check the entrance of patients, their relatives and medical clerks, and to keep the entry gates of the hospital clear of street vendors. An interview with one of the gatemen revealed that although he always tries to do his duties attentively, he feels that sometimes he has to handle the street vendors flexibly. He is fulfilling his duties more thoroughly during the daytime when his superiors, the ward master and in particular the director, are present. In the evening, in contrast, when his superiors have left the scene, he asserts that the vendors do not create any problems and largely tolerates their vending activities right at the hospital’s main gate. He legitimises his own deviant behaviour from his formal role by referring to the street vendors as poor city dwellers who need to manage their lives somehow. Whenever he can, he therefore ‘turns a blind eye’ to the street vendors (interview, 10.06.09). One can interpret the security guard’s occasional ignorance of formal rules as rent seeking behaviour, because many of the security guards sometimes get free tea, snacks or cigarettes from the vendors (but they do not benefit from chanda payments). Social norms and a general feeling of generosity towards the poor seem to be important for him, too (normative pillar of institutions, see chapter 2.3.5; storyline of poverty and livelihoods, see chapter 5.3.3). One can also read it as solidarity, because he, being at the lower end of the hierarchy of public employees, naturally chats with the street vendors and they largely share the same life world; it is therefore easy for him to imagine their precarious situation (cognitive pillar of institutions, see chapter 2.3.5). Overall, it shows that one can only understand the different spatial and temporal patterns of street vending in front of the hospital in particular, and the use of public space in Dhaka in general, if one looks at the real effects of institutions, and not their mere existence, and at the ways in which authoritative agents are playing with formal and informal rules as bricoleurs. Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending in front of DMCH In their distinct temporality, street food vendors’ spatial practices reflect the power relations inside the arena at several analytical levels. Around 95,000 people sell food illegally in the city’s public space, because they can neither get access to formal employment, nor do they have the capital to rent or construct permanent consolidated food shops, for which one can obtain a formal vending license from the city authorities. At the vending site, only those vendors with good social relations and more economic capital can establish permanent shops, from which higher profits can be generated. While the mobile vendors are poorer than the others, their flexibility can be regarded as an important adaptation strategy against evic-

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tions. The number of mobile vendors thus reflects the politics inside the arenas of street vending. Map 8.1 (see colour pages) shows the street food vendors’ position in the physical space in front of the university hospital. On the one hand, the mobility patterns of the vendors are a result of the shifting food demand at different times of the day. On the other hand, they are determined by the prevalent rules of access to and use of public space: formal and informal institutions are in place simultaneously, but in effect alternately. Knowing the customers’ needs and the very local political situation very well, the street vendors align their actions to the modes of governance that shift in the course of the day. In the early morning hours (around 7 a.m.) the street food trade in front of DMCH is not yet formally controlled by the hospital authorities, it is rather regulated through informal institutions. Around 44 street vendors, who are organized in loose horizontal networks, sell on both sides of the road close to the emergency gate, which is the most profitable vending spot in the area, due to the large number of people passing through. The major street food consumers are hospital staff, patients and their visitors, as well as rickshaw-pullers and taxi drivers, who wait for clients. The mobile vendors (green) are dispersed along the hospital side of the road, they sell tea from flasks or cigarettes and paan-shupari. The semi-mobile traders’ (orange) small tables or push-carts are positioned near the main gate on both sides of the road. They serve tea and snacks like pithas or boiled eggs for breakfast; some also sell fruits that visitors like to bring the patients as presents. From semi-permanent food stalls (red) tea and full meals are sold on a side-strip of the road opposite the main gate. Customers take rutis with fried egg or some rice and vegetables as breakfast. These shops are situated on public land. Yet, the vendors are always ready to dismantle the shops if a police raid is about to take place. Only one permanent food stall (grey) sells full meals and drinks at the site during the day, another consolidated shop offers bottled drinks and fully-packaged snacks and sweets. During the office hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) the number of street vendors has increased slightly to 50. The semi-mobile vendors have shifted their position away from the main gate; they now sit or stand near the mosque, under some large trees on the DMCH-side, or at the other side of the road. One of the pictures shows a security guard, who told the fruit vendors to move their push-carts so that the space near the emergency entrance remains free during the day, which is the order of the hospital director (formal mode of governance; pictures 8.3). The mobile vendors, who sell small snacks from bowls or tea from flasks, do not have to fear the security guards due to their flexibility. They are allowed to stand close to the main gate and thus fill the gap left behind by the semi-mobile vendors. The vendors at the other roadside and on the edge-space also do not have to fear the guards, who can only regulate the space right in front of the hospital. At noon, there is a high demand for street food as many people do not take their lunch from or at home, but authorised restaurants and canteens are too expensive and there is only one nearby. The hospital canteen only caters for its staff and patients.

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Dhaka Medical College Hospital is one of Bangladesh’s largest public hospitals.

The left side of the road is controlled by DMCH, the right side by the DCC.

The emergency gate is kept clear during the day, but mobile vendors can sell their goods.

A gateman orders semi-mobile vendors to move their carts away from the gate.

Around noon, semi-mobile vendors sell eggs, carrots and fruits 20m away from DMCH.

Opposite of DMCH, customers can buy ruti or rice dishes from (semi-) permanent shops.

Pict. 8.3: Street Food Vending in front of the University Hospital Source: B. Etzold, 2007 and 2008

In the evening (8 p.m.), a return to a mode of informal regulation can be witnessed. The hospital’s security guards tolerate the street vendors now, because their own superiors are absent. The semi-mobile vendors can therefore gather at their spots right at the gate, which they usually occupy every day and for which they pay for, accordingly. As the mobile vendors are in an inferior social position, they have to leave the vending spots of the vendors with more permanent rights at the site. Their number therefore decreases. Overall, there is high demand for food during dinner time. Fifty-five street food vendors now run their business undisturbed and make most of their daily profit.

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This example shows that the street food trade at this particular site in Dhaka is regulated by shifts in demand for food and by altering modes of regulation as the rigour with which formal rules are implemented changes throughout the day. Thus, formal and informal institutions are in place simultaneously, but are in effect alternately. This rhythm of ordinary evictions by state agents, here the hospital’s director is the most important formal regulator and the security guards are the enforcers, could be witnessed almost every day at the same time throughout the reign of the Caretaker Government. Accordingly, the street food vendors, who are the less powerful agents in that arena, aligned their actions in a flexible manner in order to continue their business and secure their livelihoods. Occasionally this normal rhythm of the street trade in front of DMCH was broken through sudden police raids that took many street vendors by surprise. The hawkers’ vulnerability to these mass evictions will be elaborated in detail in the following chapter. 8.3 STREET VENDORS’ VULNERABILITY TO POLICE EVICTIONS In the following, Dhaka’s more recent history of evictions is first sketched (chapter 8.3.1), before emphasis is given to the eviction drives against hawkers during the reign of the Caretaker Government – as I did most of my empirical research during this time (chapters 8.3.2). Through a vulnerability lens, it is then demonstrated that although all street food vendors are exposed to evictions, their sensitivity to evictions differs according to the site of their business and their mobility styles. Consequently, they cope with and adapt to evictions in different, often very creative ways (chapter 8.3.3). Throughout the chapter, frequent reference is made to some vendors selling on the Dhaka University Campus. Their encounters with the state, their vulnerability to evictions and their agency are described in different case studies (chapter 8.3.4). This chapter demonstrates that the state and the particular governance architecture of the field of power fundamentally shape the conditions of street vending, and thus structure the livelihoods of street food vendors. 8.3.1 A History of Violence: Evictions against Slums and Hawkers More than two third of the street food vendors live in slums. They face the risk of losing their home in slum eviction drives and are susceptible to losing their livelihood during police raids of their vending sites. Dhaka’s street vendors are thus ‘double exposed’ to state violence and in particular vulnerable to evictions, whose more recent history is sketched in the following. In South Asia, about 40 percent of the urban inhabitants live in slums under the conditions of vulnerability and uncertainty, and many have to live with the constant threat of evictions (cf. Bohle & Sakdapolrak 2008). In Dhaka, more than one third of the city’s population lives in one of the 5,000 slum clusters (CUS 2006). Slum dwellers not only face crime and ‘ordinary’ violence, but also the structural violence of denied basic needs and violations of their civil and property

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rights. Besides a precarious economic situation, the primary sources of insecurity of Dhaka’s urban poor is the insecurity of tenure, which varies significantly according to ownership and value of the land they live on and the local politics of power (IGS 2008). Evictions and destructions of slum settlements are a recurring theme in Dhaka’s history. Between 1989 and 1998 over 100,000 people were displaced by the government as their slum settlements in Dhaka were destroyed. In 1999, the government launched the Ghore Fera (Back to Home) Programme and wanted to encourage slum dwellers to return to their home village by providing micro-credits. While the programme was not very successful, another 100,000 people were evicted from Dhaka’s slums in the following two years (COHRE & ACHR 2001; Rahman 2001; CUP 2006). A survey from 2003 found that 65 percent of the slum dwellers fear the everyday risk of evictions. In recent years, slums were mainly cleared to make place for high-rise housing developments and infrastructure projects, to reclaim encroached rivers and lakes, or due to city ‘beautification’ (Hackenbroch et al. 2008). In 2007, more than 60,000 slum dwellers were displaced, and in early 2012 the eviction of Karail, with 100,000 inhabitants one of South Asia’s largest slums, was ordered and partly implemented as 2,000 huts were bulldozed (Hossain & Hackenbroch 2012). Eviction drives against hawkers are regularly enforced in Bangladesh, too, in particular in times of political insecurity, when the government is facing a crisis of legitimacy. Towards the end of the military rule of General Ershad (1982-1990), several eviction drives were launched against bather hotels and street food vendors that encroached on the streets near the ferry terminal Sadarghat and (temporarily) reduced the amount of people selling food there (interview with a boat manager, BIWTA ferry terminal, 17.02.2009). Two street food vendors remembered that in 1996 the Dhaka City Corporation destroyed all permanent vending units that were installed opposite the Dhaka Medical College Hospital in the city centre and evicted mobile street vendors, too. These drives were launched shortly after the Awami League came into power. The newly elected government (19962001) obviously wanted to set an example for a more clean and orderly city. As a consequence, in the following three years, the businesses could not reconvene at that site – one mobile vendor even went back to his home village to work as a day labourer for five years – and only started again after the government had lost some rigour (interviews with Salim, 07.09.2008, and Anisur, 29.10.2007). During the early years of the BNP government (2001-2006), the number of slum clearance drives and eviction campaigns against encroachers of streets reached a preliminary peak. Dozens of illegally built slum settlements, kitchen markets, and bather hotels and hundreds of street food stalls were destroyed in all parts of the city. The slum dwellers, who had lost their homes, possessions and livelihoods, complained that they were not being informed about the upcoming eviction – although it is explicitly formulated in a by-law that the authorities have to give notice at least seven days before an eviction is about to take place.144 144 Rahman (2001), CUP (2006), Articles in The Daily Star (22./30.10.2003; 20.04., 19.07., 14.09.&03.11.2004)

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Prior to the 13th Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in November 2005, many slums were demolished in Dhaka and fences were built along major roads so that the delegates would not see those slums that remained. Moreover, 200,000 hawkers were driven from their vending sites. While state representatives used narratives of city beautification and security concerns to justify the evictions, NGO representatives and experts plead to invest in “alternative arrangements for the vendors as thousands of families depend on them for livelihood”.145 It was also mentioned that vested interests, influential politicians and also a lack of rigour by the police would work against the sincere efforts of the city administration to “keep the footpaths free”. As expected, few days after the summit, the encroachment of public spaces in the city resumed and the street business boomed again. In August 2006, the DCC authorities and the police met fierce resistance by more than hundred street vendors, when they tried to evict them from their vending sites in front of the popular New Market area. In the following violent riots more than 50 people got injured, cars, rickshaws and push-carts got destroyed. The hawkers claimed that the police damaged goods worth 300,000 Euro.146 But the extent of evictions and violent contestations in these previous years was minor compared to the eviction drives under the reign of the Caretaker Government, during which ten thousand street vendors (temporarily) lost their livelihoods. 8.3.2 Eviction Drives during the Caretaker Government’s Reign On January 18th 2007, only eight days after the Caretaker Government came to power with the help of the military, the interim regime started mass eviction drives against street vendors in Dhaka and other cities. All over the country eight million hawkers temporarily lost their livelihood, which affected 70 to 80 million people who depend on them, as a representative from a hawkers association claimed.147 These figures seem to be exaggerated, but in the same article a journalist estimated that in Dhaka alone “life for 100,000 hawkers […] turned into a hellish nightmare”. In order to exemplify the contested nature of street food governance, the following section gives a chronology of the events in 2007. I look at the interplay of the state’s actions and reactions to them by street vendors and the public, and address the consequences of the interim government’s failed rehabilitation strategy.

145 ‘Pedestrians get back footpaths for a change, DCC fears pavement grabbing again after summit´, The Daily Star, 11.11.2005. 146 ‘50 injured as hawkers clash with police´, The Daily Star, 03.08.2006. 147 ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, Ahmede Hossain, The Daily Star, 01.02.2007.

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Setting an Example: The ‘Clean-Up Campaign’ in early 2007 In Bangladesh, parliamentary elections were scheduled for 22nd of January 2007. The bitterly contested run-up to the elections once more demonstrated the deep rift between the nation’s two major political parties, the Awami League and the BNP, and the dysfunction of ‘the winner takes it all’-governance system that had developed historically (see table 8.4 in the annex for a brief overview of the most important macro-political changes in Bangladesh’s field of power). In a bid to clamp down on pre-election violence, Bangladesh’s Army declared the State of Emergency on 11th of January 2007, postponed the elections until order would be restored and installed a so called Caretaker Government (CTG) with Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former World Bank official, as head of the interim government (cf. International Crisis Group 2008: 5ff; IGS 2009: 5). Besides the anti-corruption drive against politicians and prominent businessmen, the eviction of hawkers and the demolition of illegal structures were among the first measures by the CTG. On January 17, hawkers were given a warning to leave their vending sites and not to occupy the city’s footpaths any longer. The next day, the ‘clean-up campaign’ was jointly enforced by the Police, the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which is the Government’s special anti-crime and anti-terrorism unit, the Army, the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) and RAJUK, the megacity’s urban planning agency. All over Dhaka, street vendors were driven away from their vending sites, and those who did not follow the orders by RAB or the police were arrested on the spot. Unconsolidated shops made of tin-sheets, bamboo-poles or wood were destroyed with bulldozers. Eviction drives against hawkers were carried out in other cities, too, but were not that comprehensive. All types of street vendors, whatever their product for sale or their mobility type, were affected by the campaign. Importantly, unlike the occasional clearance drives of the past, the authorities showed more rigidity and endurance this time by continuously controlling the streets. Soon, the hawkers realised that they could not resume their businesses quickly. Moreover, the state’s eviction drive was extended: unconsolidated kitchen markets and unauthorised extensions of authorised markets were demolished (Keck 2012); illegally built houses encroaching on public parks and river banks were pulled down; and more than 60,000 people were displaced as their slums were destroyed throughout 2007 (interview, M.Q.Khan, CUP, 02.01.2008).148 What was the interim government’s objective behind these drives? Officials from the city planning agency RAJUK commented the demolition of katcha bazars: “We knocked down the market as it was illegal” and “the eviction drive was carried out to ensure handover of plots to the allottees”, i.e. their legal owners.149 148 Summary of articles in the The Daily Star: ‘City walkways freed from hawkers´, 19.01.2007; ‘City clean-up continues´, 22.01.07; ‘Clean-up Drive - Railway land freed from grabbers´, 23.01.07; ‘Slum evictions slammed´, 26.01.07; ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, 01.02.07; ‘More illegal structures demolished´ and ‘Eviction is not enough´, 07.02.07; ‘Homeless and miserable Slum evictions have displaced thousands of families´, 18.02.07. 149 ‘Clean-up Drive´, 23.01.07; ‘Rajuk demolishes 200 structures in Purbachol´, The Daily Star, 03.04.2007.

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A police officer responsible for maintaining public order on Dhaka University Campus justified regular eviction drives by referring to the existing national laws and DCC orders and underscored that street food vending is “totally prohibited, because it is unhygienic” (interview, 31.12.2007). Backed up by these narratives of food safety and a functional city, the story line of illegality enables the state to evict the illegal, and thus illicit, encroachers on public space and to demolish their structures whenever it is deemed necessary. The ‘clean-up campaign’ against hawkers, unauthorised markets and slum settlements was carried out to visibly demonstrate the Caretaker Government’s willingness to re-establish the rule of law and their power to restore the public order. Reactions to Evictions: Voices of Hawkers, Citizens, Lobby Groups and the Media Throughout the eviction drive, the double exposure of street vendors to state violence showed quiet clearly. As hawkers depend on public space as a livelihood resource (cf. Brown 2006d), being displaced from their vending site is an immediate threat to their livelihood, and indeed to their food security: “I have no savings, since my income was very low. How will I provide food for my family of four now?” was the reply of an evicted garment’s hawker to a journalist’s inquiry.150 Some citizens sympathize with the street vendors. Not only out of pity, but also because they are used to buying cheap and readily available products on the street. The story line of utility is replicated by a schoolteacher who said that hawkers “sell it cheap, and I do not have the time to go into one of these malls and wait in the queue, to buy, say, one kilogram of aubergine; I used to stop by near one of those pushcarts on my way home”.151 Other people, in turn, applauded the drive against encroachers and reiterated the story line of a functional city: “Usually I was compelled to walk through the main road risking being run over by speeding vehicles as street vendors kept footpaths occupied. I am really happy to see that the footpath is clear”, said a resident of an often congested part of the city.152 Immediately after the beginning of the eviction campaign, political lobby groups raised their voice, too. Their reactions can be subsumed under the story lines on poverty, livelihoods and fundamental rights. A hawkers’ association requested the Caretaker Government to stop the eviction drives immediately as the street vendors do not have alternative sources of income and urged the state to rehabilitate the affected street vendors and stop their suffering.153 Different NGOs and the communist party demanded compensation, new housing and better livelihood opportunities for evicted slum dwellers and street vendors. They referred to a recent High Court verdict that emphasises slum dwellers’ ‘right to shelter’, and to the Constitution of Bangladesh, which states that every citizen has a ‘right to 150 151 152 153

‘City walkways freed from hawkers´, The Daily Star, 19.01.2007. ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, The Daily Star, 01.02.2007. ‘City walkways freed from hawkers´, The Daily Star, 19.01.2007. ‘Clean-up Drive´, 23.01.07; ‘Street vendors appeal for rehabilitation´, Daily Star, 14.03.07.

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livelihood’ (chapter 5.3.2). They expressed their concern that under the State of Emergency, which was declared by the interim government, citizen rights would be ignored, if not to say blatantly violated.154 By the same token, a journalist argued that although hawkers that block the footpaths surely are an eyesore, they would need alternatives if they were not allowed to sell in public space.155 What Next? The Government’s Plans for Rehabilitation and Compensation Towards the end of February 2007, due to rising public pressure, the interim government announced plans for the rehabilitation of the evicted hawkers and proposed the introduction of 11 hawkers markets. The idea was that the City Corporation sets up markets at selected sites, where street vendors would be temporarily allowed to sell their goods on Fridays – they were thus called holiday or weekend markets.156 From March 2007 onwards, these hawkers markets were successively implemented, but in June already, the success story that was supposed to demonstrate the Government’s good will already faded. Compared to the absolute number of approximately 100,000 displaced vendors, setting up 11 markets can be regarded as futile effort that is inadequate to tackle the plight of all the vendors. Hence, struggles between vendors over the limited available space were witnessed. Hawkers came at night and slept on the street to secure a vending place for the next day. Moreover, allegations came up that the allocation of the vending spots, which the DCC and the DMP left to middlemen and mastaans is just another story of corruption and mismanagement. Allegedly, the informal ‘entry fee’ for a spot on a holiday market did cost up to 200,000 Taka (around 2,000 EUR), which is far beyond the means of most street vendors. Those vendors, who did get access to vending sites, were not satisfied either. Opening street markets for a limited time at specially designated places, but only allowing a limited range of products, such as garments, seemed to work against the natural logic of street vending. Hawkers need flexibility and freedom in order to serve the needs of consumers, who want to shop in-between by walking-by. As a result, not enough customers frequented the holiday markets, the hawkers’ incomes thus reduced substantially, and many markets already closed in late 2007. In August 2008, only two of the proposed 11 markets were still open. As a logical consequence, as soon as the police reduced their presence at the vending sites – and due to the informal arrangements that allowed the policemen to turn a blind eye (chapter 8.1.2) – the hawkers reclaimed ‘their’ street, first carefully and temporarily, and later permanently as nothing had happened.157 154 ‘Make alternative shelters for slum dwellers, hawkers before eviction´, The Daily Star, 25.01.2007; Slum evictions slammed, The Daily Star, 26.01.07; ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, The Daily Star, 01.02.2007. 155 ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, Ahmede Hossain, The Daily Star, 01.02.2007. 156 One could possible compare them with the idea of the ‘flea markets´ in Europe or the US. 157 Summary on the basis of articles in “The Daily Star”: ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, 01.02.2007; ‘Hawkers go berserk as pickup kills 2 colleagues´, 23.06.07; ‘Evicted hawkers

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The Politics of Street Food

Social Consequences of the Evictions and of Unsuccessful Rehabilitation Absolute poverty increased in Dhaka throughout the reign of the interim governments as “unemployment rose, prices of food skyrocketed and [the] government evicted a large number of poor people from the slums and roadside shops without providing them with any alternatives” (Siddiqui et al. 2010: 359). The Caretaker Government’s plans for rehabilitation of evicted hawkers were inadequate in terms of the small number of proposed markets, badly implemented in terms of the allocation of vending spots, and worked against the informal “politics of the street” (Bayat 1997). The idea of the holiday markets was thereby bound to fail. As a consequence, the street vendors reconvened vending and appropriated the footpaths, streets and public places again as soon as it was possible. Still, the eviction drives contributed significantly to a severe entitlement crisis that jeopardised the hawker’s food security. Most vendors did not find alternative employment and those who resumed vending at their old sites suffered from a substantially decreased income. Both groups had to draw on or use up their savings. At the same time the price hike of consumer goods led to an increase of the food expenditure that hit the urban poor particularly hard (cf. Zingel et al. 2011). Trying to cope with their situation in the absence of alternative livelihoods, some street vendors allegedly turned to petty crime. In May 2007, the police reported a surge of the crime rate in Dhaka, in general, and a rapid increase in the number of arrests of former street vendors, in particular. One police officer announced that the “recent eviction of street vendors from sidewalks is one of the probable reasons why the crime rate shows a rising trend”.158 In June 2007, many hawkers expressed their frustration in a protest that culminated in a violent clash with the police at a crucial thoroughfare, which brought the city traffic to a temporary standstill.159 Reportedly, street vendors were also heavily involved in the protests and mass violence in August 2007 that started on Dhaka University Campus after a minor incident between students and the military. Violence spread across the country and led to a week-long curfew in Dhaka.160 On the campus, food vending was banned for several months. After the eviction drives in January 2007, a journalist commented that street vending was a necessary and vibrant, yet sometimes noisy and unpleasant, part of Bangladesh’s culture. Therefore, a “cosmetic move” to clean public space from vendors would be futile: “There is no point in just telling the hawkers that enough is enough, now just leave. […] showing them the door, without rehabilitating

find govt alternatives not enough´, 24.06.07; ‘Plight of hawkers´, 24.06.07; ‘Dealing in Death. Thousands of street-vendors in the country are facing a bleak future, 29.07.07; ‘Holiday markets occupying more footpaths, 10.08. 2008. 158 ‘Petty crimes mark sharp rise in city´, The Daily Star, 06.05.07. 159 ‘Hawkers go berserk as pickup kills 2 colleagues´, The Daily Star, 23.06.07. 160 The violent clashes and the curfew made the headlines of the Daily Star for 2 weeks. See the news archive from 21.08.2007 and the following days. See also Markus Keck’s brief summary of the conflict: www.suedasien.info/nachrichten/2077 (last access, 02.03.2012).

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them, may cost the country's social harmony dearly.”161 Looking back, the violent clashes in June and August 2007 seem to validate this statement. A young vendor, who is selling tea and snacks on the university campus (the heart of political life in Bangladesh), pointed out that the vendors’ livelihoods are closely connected to national politics: “Whenever the situation at the university is critical, it is also a problem for the vendors” (interview, Sorhab, 04.11.07). By the same token, a representative of a hawkers association remarked: “The [evicted] vendors are victims of the recent restoration process in the country.”162 Indeed, it seems like the hawkers who have always been distant from the field of power were merely the scapegoats in a larger political game that was played by the Caretaker Government in a bid to demonstrate the restored power of the state and its determination to re-establish the rule of law. 8.3.3 Street Food Vendors’ Vulnerability to Police Evictions Being evicted is a severe livelihood threat for hawkers. One third of the street food vendors interviewed in our survey said that evictions by the police, security guards or other authorities are among the major problems at their vending site (see table 8.5). They feel degraded by state agents who harass them and despise the daily confrontations with security guards or police officers patrolling the streets. They fear major eviction drives, during which their vending unit might be destroyed, equipment might be confiscated, food might be spoiled, and they might be beaten or even arrested. Most significant, however, is the loss of income that they incur during a longer vending ban. Thirteen percent of the interviewed street food vendors said that they were directly affected by eviction drives during the reign of the Caretaker Government as they lost goods and/or equipment in raids. The vendors selling in front of the university hospital reported that 15 to 20 major eviction drives were carried out at their site in these two years (table 8.8). Although raids became less frequent and comprehensive after the takeover of the Awami League government, in November 2009 still 28 percent of vendors complained that they were regularly confronted by raids (see table 8.5): four percent said they face evictions daily, 14 and 10 percent said this happens a few times a week or a few times a month, respectively. Street vendors are evicted when the police get orders from the government or the Dhaka City Corporation, as sketched above, or whenever it is deemed necessary by high-ranked police officials. Usually, a local police station’s officer in charge then sends a police truck to the respective vending sites and lower-ranking policemen then carry out the raid.163 The extent of physical violence that is used 161 Ahmede Hossain, ‘Facing an Uncertain Future´, The Daily Star, 01.02.2007. 162 ‘Street vendors appeal for rehabilitation´, The Daily Star, 14.03.07. 163 A tea vendor explained the police’s command chain, while he was pursuing his business although a police truck was standing right in front of him. According to him there are two different kinds of police trucks. One truck is from the Superintendent (S.I.), the 3rd officer in

284

The Politics of Street Food

by the police depends on the cooperation of the vendors as a police sergeant explained: If they quickly leave the vending sites, the vendors would not have to fear anything. If they hesitate, policemen would confiscate vending equipment such as benches, tables, and stoves, and take them to the police station. But if the vendors resist, the policemen would have to resort to violence, and sometimes also arrest some vendors (interview with a police sergeant, 31.12.2007). A commander of the special force Ansers, who are deployed by the government in times of political crises to ensure security and maintain discipline, admitted that in case a street vendor starts arguing and does not want to leave the site, they ‘need to’ slap him in the face and sometimes ‘have to’ use their fighting bats. “I want to set an example for the others by beating one”, he justified his strategy. This would be effective as the vendors get frightened and then “automatically” leave the place (interview with an Anser commander, 10.06.2009). More than half of the interviewed vendors stated that they would not be subject to evictions, at present. Most hawkers, however, have experienced police evictions and witnessed sudden outbursts of violence in the past (see table 8.9 in the annex). As the street vendors are aware of their inferior position, they try to avoid confrontations with state agents. If a police raid is carried out at their vending site, they try to react quickly and seek to reduce their own damage or loss. In the following, I probe further into the street vendors’ exposure and their sensitivity to evictions, by looking at the different vending sites and the various mobility types. On this basis, I outline the vendors’ coping strategies and show that the local informal modes of governance are crucial aspects of the vendors’ adaptive capacity against the constant threat of evictions. Exposure to Evictions – a Question of the Vending Site (the Arena) An arena is a spatial representation of a social field, in which different agents, such as policemen and street vendors, interact, negotiate and compete over the access to crucial resources, their own position, and the profits that can be generated at place (chapter 2.4). Dhaka’s street vending sites are good examples of arenas as it is the contest over the physical space as such that fundamentally shapes their practical logic. According to its position in the city, its socio-economic environment and its unique local history, each of the different arenas of street vending has its specific value. Accordingly, each site is contested to a different extent. Hawkers at their vending sites are thus differently exposed to evictions.

command at a police station. They would tolerate street vending at this site. Such a ‘S.I. truck´ was nearby. But there is also a truck from the Police Superintendent (P.I.), the 2nd officer in command at the local station. Policemen from this ‘P.I. truck´ are sent out to push away hawkers. As both look almost the same, the vendors have to recognize quickly which one it is, when a police truck comes around (interview with a street vendor 04.11.2007).

285

Contested Street Food Governance: Street Politics and Evictions Vending Sites

Bishil Slum Islambagh Slum near University Hospital in Elite quarter (Gulshan) Ferry Terminal Bus Terminal Total average

share of vendors who … perceived lost goods are regu- perceive CTG’s during larly afevictions evictions CTG fected by as severe as severe* evictions** ***

loss due to evictions (BDT, last month)

average No of days without work after evictions

share of vendors once arrested in evictions

20 %

10 %

30 %

20 %

65

0.2

0%

10 %

5%

15 %

10 %

107

0.2

0%

30 %

35 %

30 %

35 %

613

3.9

15 %

0%

10 %

20 %

75 %

0

2.2

0%

0%

5%

40 %

25 %

0

2.2

5%

15 %

15 %

30 %

40 %

137

3.3

0%

13 %

13 %

28 %

34 %

157

1.8

3%

Tab. 8.5: Exposure of Street Food Vendors to Police Evictions Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120, Oct./Nov. 2009) Note: *police raids during reign of Caretaker Government perceived as ‘very severe’ or ‘severe’, other options were ‘not that severe’ and ‘no problem’; ** vendors affected by evictions a few times a month, a few times a week or daily (at time of the survey); ***evictions, in general, perceived as ‘very severe’ or ‘severe’.

In contrast to other sites that are at the centre of public interests, street vending in slums is not that much subject to interventions by the state. There, the vendors are well integrated in the slum economy and in the local politics of power. The policemen, in turn, are hardly interested in fulfilling their duties in slums, or are discouraged to do so by local musclemen. Although 30 percent of the street vendors selling inside the slum Bishil Sarang Bari Bustee in Mirpur or on the road in front of it said that they are regularly affected by evictions,164 the average losses that they are incurring are meagre. In Islambagh, only three vendors (15%) said they were facing evictions a few times a month, and only one had ever lost any equipment or had to close their shop for a day due to police raids. In both slums, street vending bans were very short, and none of the vendors had ever been arrested (see table 8.5). An interesting contrast is revealed when looking at evictions in the diplomat, business and the elites’ living quarter Gulshan. There, 85 percent of the 164 That 6 out of 20 street vendors in Bishil were regularly affected by police evictions was a surprise to me, because in the four qualitative interviews conducted there, none of the vendors mentioned evictions or problems with the police. This might be explained by the fact that I spoke to vendors selling inside the slum, while the vendors who said they were exposed to evictions were selling on the street just outside of the slum.

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The Politics of Street Food

interviewed vendors sell snacks and/or tea in a mobile manner. While three quarters of them perceive evictions from their vending site as a severe livelihood threat, only 20 percent are actually affected by evictions regularly. At Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal 40 percent are occasionally evicted, but the majority does not perceive this as a major livelihood threat. The fruit vendor Imtiaz reported that they are usually not disturbed in their business. Only once a week or so, in case a “VIP” like a politician or a representative of the government is coming to the terminal to travel by boat, the police tell them to leave the jetty. Then the vendors shift their goods onto small boats attached to the jetty and stop business for two or three hours, or sometimes the whole day. Although the evictions are annoying “the situation is not awful for us”, he said (interview, 17.02.2009). Not all the vendors, however, see it that way. Nishat, a woman selling refilled water bottles to travellers only a few meters away, mentioned that she cannot work regularly because of police evictions and that other vendors have complained about it, too. She would understand that selling here is not good for “discipline”, but “what else can I do to survive”, Nishat said (interview, 02.03.09). In general, however, the ferry travellers’ very high demand for food, in particular fruits, snacks and beverages, cannot be met by the few permanent restaurants and shops in the terminal. This justifies the continuous presence of street food vendors and is the key argument against their permanent eviction. The same holds true for the other investigated traffic hub. There are three bus terminals for country-wide travel in Dhaka. On the one hand, travellers need snacks and beverages for the time until departure or for the journey. On the other hand, the City Corporation and the police have an interest in keeping these traffic hubs functional and occasionally evict hawkers in order to clear space for busses and passengers. At Saidabad Bus Terminal, almost one third of the vendors said they were regularly evicted and 15 percent had goods or equipment confiscated during the rule of the Caretaker Government. As street vending is banned for three days on average after a raid, they incur quite significant losses. There, 40 percent thus perceive evictions as a severe livelihood risk (see table 8.5). The most contested arena, in which also most interactions between street food vendors and the state take place, is the university campus and in particular the road in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH). Due to the political importance of Dhaka University, the symbolic significance of the Central Shaheed Minar, an important national monument nearby, and the active engagement of the hospital director in drives against crime, indiscipline and for food safety, the vendors there are frequently subject to evictions and harassment by the police (30%). During the reign of the Caretaker Government, 15 to 20 major raids were conducted by the police on that street alone. In these two years, one third of the street food vendors experienced destruction of their boxes or tables, and confiscation of push carts or stoves; 15 percent of the vendors were even arrested. After each raid, the vendors were without work for four days, on average. The comprehensive raids at the beginning of the CTG led to a months-long vending ban, while at other times they could resume their business quickly. The incurred loss was the highest among all study sites: 613 Taka is about 6 percent of the local street vendors’

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Contested Street Food Governance: Street Politics and Evictions

monthly business profit. Due to the high frequency and unpredictability of raids, more than one third of the vendors in this arena perceive evictions as a severe livelihood threat (table 9.2). The vendors’ vulnerability to state violence is elaborated in more detail with several case studies from this site in chapter 8.3.4. Sensitivity to Evictions – a Matter of the Vending Style (the Spatial Practices) In the previous section, I conceptualised the street food vendors’ exposure to evictions as a characteristic of the respective vending site. The relative position of the vendors’ arena in the city was thus decisive. The vendors’ sensitivity, in turn, depends on the specific characteristics of a distinct group and thus on the relative social positions of the vendors. Observations, in-depth interviews and the analysis of the Street Food Vendors’ Survey show that the susceptibility to evictions is neither directly related to the vendors’ economic capital, nor to the type of food that they are selling, nor to the sex of vendor. The vendors’ sensitivity to evictions largely depends on the vendors’ distinct practices of appropriating public space, i.e. their vending style, and on the social relations in the arena. The street vending styles differ substantially according to their permanence or persistence and the exact area that is being taken up by the vendors – according to Bourdieu (2005: 18) both temporality and spatiality are important indicators of agents’ social position. In this sense, the different vendors occupy distinct positions in the social field of street food and in their respective arenas. Through their distinct spatial practices, the vendors challenge formal modes of governance to a different degree, and in turn the state – if its agents have ‘stakes’ in the arena at all – sees the different vendors as a threat and is inclined to evict them, or not. Vending Styles

share of vendors who … perceived lost are reguCTG’s goods larly afevictions during fected by as severe* CTG evictions**

loss due to perceive evictions evictions (BDT, last as severe month) ***

average No. of days without work after evictions

share of vendors once arrested in evictions

23 %

0%

31 %

15 %

0

0.2

0%

4%

4%

16 %

24 %

11

0.3

4%

Semipermanent

27 %

27 %

33 %

47 %

350

4.4

0%

Semi-mobile

9%

Permanent consolidated

Permanent

unconsolidated

14 %

28 %

47 %

222

2.8

5%

Truly mobile 13 %

21 %

38 %

25 %

147

0.8

4%

Average

13 % 28 %

34 %

157

1.8

3%

13 %

Tab. 8.6: Sensitivity to Police Evictions Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120, Oct./Nov. 2009)

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The Politics of Street Food

The mobile vendors move around and occupy different vending sites for a short period of time only. They are easy to chase away, pose no big threat to the state’s bid to regulate public space, and are perceived as poor; they are therefore largely tolerated by the police. Although 38 percent of the mobile vendors say they are often evicted and 21 percent have lost goods during raids, only one quarter of them see expulsions as a big risk (table 8.6). Their flexibility is their greatest advantage and reduces their sensitivity to evictions. In contrast, more permanent vendors challenge the state’s authority through comprehensive and continuous appropriation of space. Except during major drives in which permanent shops and whole slums are bulldozed (chapter 8.3.2, case studies 8.1/8.4), it seems like the police normally spares this group – maybe because the demolition of permanent shops is in turn capital-intensive. Only a minority of permanent shop keepers see evictions as a severe threat. In case there was an eviction at their vending site, they have hardly lost any goods or equipment or incurred financial losses in evictions, and the time they had to close their shops was minimal (Table 8.5). The group that is most likely to become the target of eviction drives and who, in turn, perceive evictions as a severe livelihood risk consists of semi-permanent vendors. They set up their shop for the day – always at the same site – but cannot move their equipment and goods quickly, if they need to. One third of them are often affected and 27 percent have lost goods or equipment in eviction drives during the reign of the Caretaker Government. Interestingly, the evictions did not cause too much financial damage in absolute terms – an average loss of 350 Taka is equivalent to only 4 percent of their monthly business profit. Their real costs, however, might be higher, if the 4 days after an eviction during which they cannot work are taken into account. 20 percent of vendors in this group are women, because on the one hand, they do not have the capital for bigger and more permanent shops, and on the other hand the movement is restricted through social norms (purdah). According to a journalist, women were also most affected by the eviction drives through the Caretaker Government, because it would be more difficult for them to switch into another job, whereas men could find alternative employment in the informal economy, for instance as day labourers, more easily. Almost half of the interviewed semi-mobile food vendors also stated that eviction drives pose a severe problem to them, but due to their better flexibility – they can move quicker as they sell less goods and have lighter push-carts – less are actually affected by evictions (Table 8.5). This aspect points to the significance of adopting adequate coping strategies against evictions, which will be outlined in the following section.

Contested Street Food Governance: Street Politics and Evictions

289

Coping with Evictions – the Importance of Flexibility to Reduce Loss Police raids pose a livelihood challenge to all street vendors who encounter them and force them to cope with the state’s efforts to re-claim the streets. The vendors use different coping strategies in order to reduce business loss, to overcome critical times of lower or no income, and to continue vending again as soon as possible. The main reason why mobile vendors are not affected by evictions to the same extent as more permanent vendors is their greater flexibility. They walk or cycle around and sell a fairly limited number of goods from a basket, a tray, or tea from a flask – some follow a regular route, others just stroll around. They spend less time at a particular site and are, in general, less embedded and less dependent on the local politics in their arena (see Venn Diagramm with Ramid, figure 7.3). Two jhal muri vendors, who walk around Dhaka University Campus, reported that whenever they have arguments with more permanent vendors, when the University’s security guards harass them, or when they notice a coming police raid, they quickly move on to another spot and continue vending there. Thereby they largely circumvent trouble and still make a profit of up to 200 Taka per day (interview, 18.10.2007). Two third of all the mobile vendors in our survey pursue this coping strategy against being evicted. 22 percent said they would simply hide their equipment and food nearby the place where they were selling, and 11 percent would stay at the site (table 8.7). This aspect points to another advantage of a small vending unit and a flexible business style: Even if the more permanent vendors are evicted, the mobile vendors are often allowed to stay as they occupy less space. This is often the case on the street right in front of the university hospital. The mobile vendors stand or walk around the main gate, where most of the customers are, while the vendors with pushcarts, tables or boxes are not allowed by the security guards during the office hours (see map 8.1). In principle, the semi-mobile and semi-permanent food hawkers follow the same strategy. They move their push-carts and rickshaws away from the ‘hotspots’ of evictions towards safer areas. 43 percent of semi-mobile and 63 percent of semi-permanent vendors said so. Md. Awal, a 70 year old man, who was selling fuchka and chatpotti in front of DMCH in the evening hours, said that although he paid 30 Taka per day to the police, there would be a constant threat of police raids at the site, which made him nervous and discontent. He complained that he could not even put down a few plastic chairs in front of his push-cart, so that his customers could sit and enjoy their food. Instead, he was keeping the chairs on the roof of his cart, in order to being able to move more quickly: “I always have to be ready to move at any time due to the police”, he said (interview, 17.11.07).

290 Vending Styles

The Politics of Street Food What do you normally do in case of a coming police raid? I move away quickly

I hide equipment and food nearby

Nothing, I stay and wait what happens

I close my shop

I give money to the police

Number of vendors having experienced evictions

Permanent consolidated

0%

0%

0%

100 %

0%

3

Permanent unconsolidated

14 %

0%

57 %

14 %

14 %

7

Semipermanent

63 %

13 %

25 %

0%

0%

8

Semi-mobile

43 %

24 %

29 %

0%

5%

21

Truly Mobile 67 %

22 %

11 %

0%

0%

9

Total / Average

17 %

27 %

8%

4%

48

44 %

Tab. 8.7: Immediate Coping Reactions to a Police Raid Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120; valid=48; 41% of the vendors answered this question as they had experience with police evictions)

The semi-permanent vendors with heavy push-carts or bigger tables set up their equipment in the morning at ‘their’ vending spot and dismantle everything at night. Throughout the day they usually do not move around as this is only possible with a considerable effort. In case of a police raid, some are not quick enough to move their whole vending unit. They therefore hide equipment and food nearby, for instance by putting everything behind a wall (picture 8.4) or even by pulling goods up into the trees, and then go into safe distance themselves. Many vendors, however, do nothing and just see what happens (see table 8.7). There is not much that permanent vendors can do to avoid evictions. Those who have built little shacks out of bamboo, wood, tin-sheets or plastic, either just wait and carefully observe what is happening (57%), or simply close their shop and move away themselves (14%). In the survey, only one permanent vendor admitted that he bribes the police so that they are not destroying his shop (table 8.7). Own in-depth interviews revealed, however, that giving bakshish (an irregular ‘donation’) to state agents can be regarded as a common coping strategy, while giving chanda (a more regular payments of security money) is a long-term adaptation strategy or a normal part of the informal governance of public space. Abdur, a semi-permanent vendor selling tea near the hospitals’ main entrance, for instance, told us that when a policeman approaches him in such a raid, he would first try to make him feel pity by saying that he is just a poor man. Then he would request him friendly to not to destroy his cart, take away his goods, or even arrest him. If this strategy fails, he would offer some money. Giving 200 to 300 Taka, which is equivalent to his daily profit, would normally be sufficient to stop the policeman (interview, 7.02.09, see case study 8.6). While it is an open secret

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that this works under normal circumstance, sometimes attempts to bribe the police are rejected. In April 2009, the hospital’s director employed a special security force, the Ansers, to evict the vendors from the area. When some Ansers-officers approached the street vendor Salim he tried to give them 700 Taka, but they did not take it. Instead, they beat him brutally with combat sticks and confiscated his pushcart (interview, 16.04.2009). The vendors often do not know, whether policemen or security guards play by the informal rules (accepting bribes and being tolerant) or by the formal rules (rejecting bribes and evicting vendors) during their street controls. This seems to depend on the presence of higher-ranking officers, i.e. agents even closer to the field of power, in the arena. For the hawkers, it is thus often difficult to judge what the appropriate coping strategy in case of a police raid is. The erratic, though not irrational, behaviour of state agents deepens the vulnerability of street vendors. Coping with the Effects of Evictions – Economic and Social Capital Do Matter After a police raid took place, the vendors are usually forced to stop their business for some time. Then, most of the vendors do not stay at home, but come to the site frequently and talk to each other until they hear others saying that it would be safe to resume vending. If the police destroyed or confiscated their equipment, hawkers draw on their own savings or borrow money from relatives or close friends to repurchase necessary equipment and food (see table 8.8). Vending Styles

Permanent Consolidated

In the past, what did you do to deal with losses from police evictions? I drew on my savings to come I stopped vending for Number of back and continue vending. some time. response 0%

100 %

2

Permanent unconsolidated Semi-permanent Semi-mobile Truly Mobile

0%

100 %

5

17 % 6% 11 %

83 % 94 % 89 %

6 18 9

Total

7.5 %

92.5 %

40

Tab. 8.8: Coping with the Effects of Evictions Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120; valid n=40 for this question) Note: The options ‘I borrowed money from relatives, friends or money lenders’ and ‘I work more thereafter to make up for the loss’ were not chosen by the respondents.

During a police raid at his vending site on the university campus, one tea vendor had lost his kerosene stoves and tea kettles. At the local police station he demanded his equipment back, but was told that this was not possible. He then borrowed

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4,000 Taka from friends and from two customers to buy the same equipment. I also bought a wooden box, in which he placed the stoves, so that they are easier to carry when he has to flee again. He mentioned that he would only invest in a larger shop once he knows through his personal contacts to the police that no further actions are planned against the vendors so that they can work undisturbed and under fairly safe conditions (interview, N. Hussain, 30.10.07; see case study 8.2). In general, the vendors’ economic capital is crucial for a quick recovery from evictions. If their own savings are insufficient to cover up for the loss, most vendors first ask their family and close friends for money, in case they have to make investments or re-establish their business. Some do get loans from their food suppliers, when they repurchase food items and cannot pay immediately after a raid (chapter 7.3.2). Many vendors are part of saving groups and deposit a small amount each week, but only nine percent of the interviews vendors in our survey said that they could regularly save some money, upon which they could draw in times of crisis or when they want to finance investments. In Bangladesh, women have a privileged access to micro-credits. Some female vendors take small credits from NGOs regularly. One male vendor reported that he requested his wife to borrow money through an organisation, which he, in turn, used for his small food shop. Only one of all vendors I spoke to mentioned that he could get credit for investments from a formal bank; and only from a bank in his home village where he is well known. Generally, the vendors try to avoid taking larger loans from informal money lenders, as they fear the exorbitant credit rates.165 Although organising money for (re-)investments in the street trade is time consuming, getting credit is generally not a major problem. In our survey, only six percent of the street vendors, but 25 percent of the more impoverished mobile vendors, said a lack of credit is a severe livelihood risk for them (see table 7.16). Repayment of the credit, in turn, can be difficult for two reasons. First, many vendors ‘eat up’ loans with their daily living expenses. Rena, for instance, an elder women selling jhal muri inside a slum in Mirpur, took 12,000 Taka from an NGO that supports female entrepreneurs and had to repay 350 Taka each week over the course of 46 weeks (16,100 Taka in total). As she spent about 9,000 Taka for house rent, food and her children’s school fees, there was hardly anything left for investments in her business. When she could not pay back the money, her women’s savings group had to cover up for her share (interview with Rena, 27.02.09). The other major reason why vendors refrain from taking a loan is the insecurity of the street food trade. Abdul Hossain, a tea vendor selling opposite DMCH, said that he usually does not borrow money, neither from family, friends, NGOs, nor money lenders: “I want to buy some more equipment, but I can’t because I have no money. By taking loan I can buy those things. But if these equipments are confiscated by the police then what will I do? Then it will be difficult for me to repay” (interview, 06.09.08). Regularly affected by police raids, Salim reported that he previously had borrowed some money to pay for his family’s costs of living, 165 Summarized from interviews with N. Hussain, 06.09.08; Kamal, 19.02.09 (both DMCH); A. Hilam, 13.02.09 (Islambagh); Salahuddin, 27.02.2010; Rena 27.02.09 (both Bishil Slum).

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but under the conditions of consecutive police evictions with a much reduced income, it was tough for him to pay it back. Ten month later he further noted that taking up a credit to increase his business, for instance with more products on his push-cart and a bench for customers to sit on, would not make sense as then he would not be able to flee quickly from the police. He said that “better security should be ensured. If I can manage a shop for permanent business, then I may take a loan from bank or micro-credit” (interviews, 30.10.07, 31.08.08). The vendors’ arguments above show that even if their business is running again after a raid, many vendors need weeks or months to recover from the effects of a single eviction drive. Paying back loans substantially reduces the amount of money they can spend on their own food and other basic needs. 80 percent of the interviewed street vendors said that they have some little debts (77%) or are heavily indebted (3%). Every further police raid thus gets them deeper into debt, aggravating their already vulnerable situation. Adapting to Evictions – Becoming Resilient through Bribes and Close Ties? For street food vendors, besides saving money for times of crises and changing to a more flexible style of vending (see case studies 8.2 and 8.5), investing in linking social capital is one of the most crucial adaptive strategies to evictions. As outlined in chapter 8.1.2 above the chanda payment system is a crucial aspect of the informal governance of the arenas of street food vending. But what do vendors get in return for paying an informal rent for their spot? Is paying chanda a good business investment that makes them less vulnerable to evictions? There are five reasons why investing in linking social capital pays off for the vendors. First, through the payments a vendor can secure his ‘own’ spot at a vending site, since for street vendors, the access to public space is never for free. If a new vendor wants to establish a business at a site, he has to talk with the other vendors and with the local power brokers. I asked Kamal who was deciding the exact spot a vendor can use. “Those who want to take a vending place take help from the line man. […] Vendor always tries to manage the busiest site [to make most profit], but lineman decides where he can sit” (interview, 19.02.09). In return for their regular payments, the mastaans do allow the vendors to sell at the site at all and secure them their preferred vending spot. According to Salim, once you have established your position and have good relations to the powerful people at a place, a vendor has a more or less permanent claim to his specific vending spot. If he would have to go away for two or three months, he would be able to go back to the very same vending spot, because everybody would respect his claim and the linesman would defend it (interview, 12.09.08). Second, since a part of the security payments goes to the police, the street vendors are protected against regular police raids. According to the street restaurant manager Anisur, during the rule of a political government, e.g. under BNPrule from 2001 to 2006, there were no problems with the police when vendors paid chanda regularly. But once they had not paid, policemen came around to

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destroy their shops. The situation was more complicated during the interim government. Although the vendors did continue to pay, the police executed regular controls and evictions, because the lower-ranking policemen would have to follow the orders of top police officers more strictly. After a political government came to power again, the police disturbed the vendors less, because a local linesman from the Awami League interfered (interview, 14.02.09). This shows once more that policemen are bricoleurs, whose freedom of action (playing by or with formal rules) changes according to the dominant political regimes (see chapter 3.2.3). Third, it is part of the informal deal between vendors and the police that vendors get information for their money. Often lower-ranking police officers walk the streets and warn the vendors about upcoming raids: “Move away, move away, brother!” The actual eviction drive is then only executed when a police truck with a higher-ranking police sergeant, who is eager to see results, shows up (case study 8.2). Similarly, the hospital’s guards blow a whistle to warn the vendors, if the director is coming outside to control the street. The few seconds they gain through an early warning, help the vendors to move away quickly or hide their equipment, and thereby reduce their own loss. Sometimes, however, raids are carried out so rapidly that there is no time for a warning (case study 8.5). Fourth, the linesmen who collect chanda also serve as middlemen in negotiations with the state. After an eviction drive took place, some vendors approach policemen and request their vending equipment back or ask when they will be able to continue their business (case studies 8.2 and 8.5). After a more comprehensive raid, well-established street vendors, linesmen and political leaders sometimes come together in the local police station to negotiate the duration of a vending ban, the return of the confiscated equipment, or the release of arrested vendors. In early November 2007, for instance, such a meeting took place at Shabagh Police Station: Vendors selling on Dhaka University Campus requested both an end of the vending ban that had been in effect after the student riots began in August of the same year, and permanent allowance to do their business in front of DMCH. The result was that street food vendors should get authorization from the City Corporation first, which they failed to get (interviews with a police officer, 02.01.08, and Commissioner of Ward 56, 06.01.08; see case study 8.5). Fifth, if vendors get arrested during a drive, the linesmen come to the police station and ‘bail them out’. Right after the ‘clean-up campaign’, the Caretaker Government often arrested vendors on the university campus, who continued their business despite the vending ban. Salim reported: “Sometimes they [the police] arrest vendors. At the beginning of caretaker government, they arrested me one time. Then, a lineman went there and gave them 250 taka. I was in their [police] car. After getting money, they released me” (interview, 10.02.09). Whether the vendors get help immediately from the linesmen or not, the police would usually not keep the vendors in custody for more than one day, because otherwise a case has to be filed against them in court, which will result in a formal fine of 300 Taka. The arrested vendors can avoid this course of action – or rather speed it up – by informally paying the same money to the police straight away. If the vendors

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cannot pay this money, they would have to stay in jail for up to one week and are released thereafter (interview, Tanvir, 30.10.07). The evidence shows that vendors’ personal relations to people close to the field of power serve as ‘informal insurance’ against evictions by the police and as protection of their spatial claims in conflicts with other vendors at the site. In general, many vendors show a lot of respect for the local informal power brokers, because they maintain close links to state agents, help them in negotiations, and generally have “oral power” (interview, Anisur, 15.02.09), which they lack themselves. Vendors in a more marginal social position seem to fear them and hence avoid personal contact. Either way, since the relations in the arenas of street vending are depending on specific key persons, and the vendors’ social capital to them, personal rotations at positions of power (e.g. through changes in the government) can have significant consequences for the hawkers. A vendor, who has been selling tea and snacks at the entrance to the Suhrawardy Uddyan park on the university campus for five years, reported that he would have to pay 40 Taka per day as chanda to the police via a senior vendor. He noted that a change in leadership at the local police station will automatically lead to evictions of all the street vendors on the university campus. Only after negotiations between the new police officer in command, senior vendors, linesmen and political leaders took place and a new agreement on the level of bribe payments had been settled, the vendors could continue with their business (interview with Md. Rahman at TSC, 01.11.07). Figure 8.3 summarises the possible consequences of a police raid as well as the vendors’ coping and adaptation strategies. For street food vendors, police raids represent extreme stressful, threatening and intimidating situations, which may reduce the vendors’ economic capital. In order to cope with such shocks and to sustain their livelihoods in the longer run, the vendors need a quick reaction, flexibility and mobility, good negotiation skills, some savings and, maybe most important, social capital. Yet, often they have to reinvest substantial amounts of financial capital to replace destroyed or confiscated equipment. Moreover, they have to bridge longer times of income shortages or live with no profits from street vending for days or weeks. If there is a rapid succession of eviction drives, the situation can become harsh, in particular for semi-mobile and semi-permanent vendors, who repeatedly loose stoves, kettles or other equipment that they cannot repurchase immediately from their own savings. In these critical times, the hawkers are in dire need of support and crucially rely on their position in social networks. Access to these, in turn, opens up or excludes them from particular coping options. The nature of networks differs according to the power differentials between agents (chapter 2.4). Bonding social capital is based on trust, solidarity, kinship and emotional ties between horizontally-aligned agents. After an eviction occurred, the street food vendors first draw on their own savings and the resources of their family, close friends and neighbours. If they have well-functioning close ties, they can open their shop again quickly without accumulating large debts. Bridging social capital is based on shared interests and on the day-to-day interactions in horizontal networks. Many hawkers at a vending site know each another very well and support

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each other, not only through exchanging information, but also through their savings’ associations. Linking social capital, in turn, denotes the vertical networks of agents in different positions of power (one might then also call it political capital). Having good social relations to middlemen and police officers can literally pay off. Street vendors who have a privileged access to information might get a warning before a raid happens, or after an eviction they might be able to continue vending quicker as others, or they adapt their vending style to reduce further loss in the future (case study 8.2). Vendors, who lost goods through confiscation or were arrested, draw on the help from middlemen to recover their goods or to become released from custody. Investing time and money in linking social capital is thus one of the most important adaptation strategies that vendors pursue in order to secure their vending spot against competitors, to enhance their coping capacity in times of crises and to become resilient to police evictions (see Keck & Etzold 2013 for a discussion of Dhaka’s food system actors’ coping, adaptive and transformative capacities and the social resilience that is being “refused” by the state). Consequences of a Police Raid

Immediate Reaction to a Raid

– – – – – – –

– – – – –

harassment destruction of vending unit confiscation of vending equipment spoilage of food physical violence / being beaten being arrested loss of income during vending ban

Evictions as a severe Livelihood Threat

Short-Term Coping to overcome Stress Living with Evictions – establish good social relations to mastaans and policemen – pay chanda to secure vending spot – stay well-informed about the very local political situation – save money for times of crisis – shift to a more flexible vending style – go to a different, less risky site – change employment permanently

Adaptation to secure Livelihood in the long Run

cover vending unit hide food and equipment quickly move away request policeman to be tolerant bribe policeman so that they do not confiscate goods – do nothing, wait and see – not sell goods temporarily Overcoming the Effects of Evictions – stop vending for some time – draw on savings or borrow money to sustain own living expenses – draw on savings or borrow money to re-establish street shop quickly – shift to mobile vending style – go to another vending site – if arrested, bribe police to be released from custody – negotiate with police to stop vending ban – temporarily seek other jobs

Fig. 8.2: Street Food Vendor’s Coping and Adaptation Strategies to Evictions Data source: own draft on the basis of semi-structured and in-depth interviews with street vendors (see also Fig. 1 in Keck & Etzold 2013 on “Social Resilience in Urban Food Systems”)

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8.3.4 Living with Evictions - Case Studies from Dhaka On the road in front of the university hospital up to one hundred street vendors sell rice dishes, snacks, tea and fruits. Throughout the reign of the Caretaker Government one could witness regular raids of the vending sites. Due to the political importance of Dhaka University, the symbolic significance of the Shaheed Minar , a national monument nearby, and the active fight initiated by the hospital director against street food vendors, this arena is particularly contested, as described in the following case studies. While many vendors have learned to live with the extreme stress of police raids at their vending sites, being evicted from their place of living is an additional heavy burden, as the destruction of the university hospital’s staff colony shows (case study 9.1). Sporadic clearances of vending sites and less frequent mass evictions differ in the extent or comprehensiveness of the raid. They thus pose different challenges to the vendors and require different coping strategies. On the university campus, ordinary raids seem to follow a distinct rhythm and the street vendors are usually well equipped to deal with the everyday encounters with the state (chapter 8.2.2. and case study 8.2). In contrast to these sporadic, but not very thorough drives to clear public space, more radical raids lead to the demolition of shops and longer disruptions of the street vendors’ businesses (case studies 8.3 to 8.6). In late January 2007, at the beginning of the interim government’s rule, the police carried out its ‘clean-up campaign’ on the campus as well. Thereafter, the street vendors selling in front of the hospital could not continue their business for one month. The police came to the site frequently. The hawkers did not get informal approval by their patrons, the local mastaans and political leaders, to return to vending. None of the vendors selling food on university grounds benefited from the government’s rehabilitation strategy as the holiday markets were planned for hawkers selling garments or handicraft only. While numerous major raids were carried through during the two years of the Caretaker Government’s reign, the situation of the vendors improved after the Awami League won the elections (see table 8.9 in annex for a chronology of evictions on the university campus). The old mode of informal street food governance was firm in place again as a political government was back in power and party politics mingled with street politics again. Nonetheless, frustration about regular confrontations with state agents remained as the quotes below shows: Afsal Hossain (translator): Please tell us something about the action of the police. How they behave nowadays? Last month, how many times they evict you? Salim: After coming of this [Awami League] government they are not so active. But in previous time, they always take away our product. They demolish our shop. Sometimes they arrest vendors. At the beginning of Caretaker Government they arrested me one time. […] AH: Can you remember that due to police you were not able to work whole day? Salim: It happened so many times, especially during Caretaker Government. To make this cart it takes four months. That time [after start of CTG] they didn’t allow me to work. […] This year I hope the situation can change because of government change. […] Now, police don’t disturb, but ward master and director create problems (interview, 10.02.2009).

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Case Study 8.1: Slum Evictions during the Caretaker Government About 2500 people were displaced in July 2007, when the hospital’s ‘Staff Colony´, a small slum cluster of tin-shed houses inside the hospital area, in which low-class hospital workers and their relatives lived, was bulldozed. The slum dwellers were evicted by order of the, at that time new, hospital director who wanted to set an example for discipline and orderliness by destroying all the illegal structures on the hospitals premises. Some street food vendors were among the displaced slum dwellers. Additionally permanent food stalls inside the hospitals premises were destroyed. Since coming to Dhaka, when he was a child, the street vendor Salim lived in the staff colony with his father, who worked in the hospital. He remembered that it was good to live there as the children could move around freely in the whole area. Later it was close to his street food shop that he established in front of the hospital when he was about 14 years old. The coming of the CTG meant extreme stress for him. He first lost his vending unit during a raid of the street and could not earn much from vending in the three months thereafter. Then his family was evicted from the slum and had to search for a new place. They found a room in Old Dhaka, but their living costs doubled with the move Alamin Hossain, in turn, had a permanent food shop inside the hospital grounds for 30 years. In a stable tin shed equipped with tables and chairs, and even a fridge, he sold tea, soft drinks and snacks to hospital staff, patients and visitors. His shop was destroyed in the ‘clean-up drive´ on the hospital grounds, but he could manage to rescue valuable equipment from the shop. He then established a new push-cart shop just outside of the hospital in a side street, from where he is selling snacks, tea and beverages. With 200 to 300 Taka per day, however, his profit reduced to 15% of what he earned before

Pict. 8.3: Demolished Slum Cluster inside the Area of the University Hospital Source: Interviews with a hospital worker, 10.12.07, and the street vendors Salim, 07.09.08, and Alamin Hossain, 11.12.07, picture December 2007

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Case Study 8.2: Playing Cat and Mouse – Rapid Reactions to Ordinary Police Raids Around 9 o’clock on a day in December 2007, a police truck stopped in front of the Central Shaheed Minar on the University Campus. Police officers walked to every vendor selling on the footpath and told them: “You know that you should not sell during office hours. If I see you again we will take all your stuff”. The vendors first just continued their business. According to Tazul Islam, who is selling tea on the footpath, the police often give warnings and then they do not come again. And sometimes they come without warning. Every vendor decides himself how big the risk of a raid is after such a warning and continues to sell or not. When another police truck approached the site, however, the vendors quickly moved their equipment and food behind a wall, now being afraid to lose everything. Around 10 a.m. the vendors were just standing or sitting around, while policemen were patrolling the street. One of the cha vendors went to a driver of one of the two police trucks, parked nearby. One could see the hawker and the state agent talking vividly. There seemed to be quite a good relation between them, maybe they were just chatting, maybe they were negotiating. Around 10:30 a policeman came around again and told them that they could safely run their business until 1 p.m. as currently there would be no order from the police officer in command responsible for the university campus to actually clear the place. So that time the police did not confiscate equipment of any of the vendors. By 10:45 a.m. all semi-permanent vendors brought back their equipment and goods that were hidden behind the wall and reopened their shops, and mobile vendors also returned within minutes. Within one and half hours all vendors had reclaimed their vending spots and business went back to normal as if nothing had happened. According to Nazrul Islam, a tea vendor who is selling at the site for 20 years, the problem with these regular interruptions of their businesses by the police could not be solved. Since the start of the Caretaker Government the situation would be particularly severe, and as long as the present police officer would be in command for this area, the street food vendors would have to suffer.

9:00 a.m.

9:30 a.m.

10:00 a.m.

10:30 a.m

Pict. 8.4: An Ordinary Police Raid of the Vending Site near Shaheed Minar Source: Own observations, pictures and interviews with two tea vendors at the site, 13.12.2007.

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Case Study 8.3: A Police Raid of Popular Vending Sites on the University Campus In the morning I left the University Guesthouse and went to the Shaheed Minar to get some tea. But the four to five tables from which some vendors usually sell Cha were not there. Instead, some people were sitting on the ground selling bananas and bread rolls from baskets. What had happened? The next day, I found out. Around 9 a.m. on that Monday, 29th October 2007, there was a major raid by the police against street vendors selling near Shaheed Minar and in front of the University Hospital (DMCH). Police trucks came and dozens of policemen evicted the vendors and confiscated the vending units of those, who were not quick enough to flee the scene or hide their equipment and products behind the fence. Permanent (unconsolidated) and semi-permanent street vendors were affected the most, in particular because they did not get a warning about the upcoming raids as some had gotten before. The vendors said that the police did not use physical violence during the raid. They told the vendors to move away, and since they had not left immediately but tried to sell again, they confiscated their vending units. The police did not take everything, but only the stoves and kettles. The police did not take the vendor’s money. The truly mobile vendors just left the scene rapidly and were able to continue their business immediately at a different site or an hour later at the same site. This clearly showed the advantage of mobile vending in terms of avoiding loss of assets and circumventing critical situations. None of the vendors tried to argue with the police as they were afraid of them. At this very day, I walked around the campus and saw policemen controlling the most important vending sites regularly. Some police trucks stayed at these sites all day. In the evening still, there was no vending from any permanent vending unit on the campus. But mobile vendors were working without being harassed by the police. On the next day, semi-mobile and semi-permanent vendors came back to their respective vending spot and resumed their business. Those vendors whose vending equipment, like their table, a stove and a water kettle, had been confiscated by the police nonetheless continued, but just sold bread rolls, cake and bananas and no hot tea. Those who were quick enough to move away their goods, continued with their daily routine, but were very alert and always “ready-to-move” in case another raid might come. All vendors that we spoke to on that day were very disappointed and disturbed by the situation. Some said they were really afraid, some said they were desperate and did not know how they will go on with earning their livelihoods. In the coming weeks four more major police raids of street food vending places were conducted on the university campus (see table 8.8 in the annex). Although the vendors seem to be disturbed by frequent evictions, some mentioned that the policemen are not the problem as they only follow orders from above. In contrast, as middlemen close to the police collect money (chanda) to bribe the police, the vendors usually get a warning when the next raid is going to take place. Close relations to the police thus enable them to do their business. The vendors thus blame other actors at their site for this situation. According to them, the directions to “clear” the streets come from the hospital director and the university’s Vice-Chancellor.

Source: Field notes from observations on 29./30.10.2007, interviews with vendors on 30.10.07 See Table 8.8 (in the annex) for an overview of eviction drives on the university campus.

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Case Study 8.4: Rice Cakes and Restrictions – Kamal’s Livelihood Struggle Kamal Huq is 25 years old. Together with his mother Anwara and his sister Mina, he runs two small food shops on the campus of Dhaka University. After the death of his father, Kamal took over his father’s street food shop at the age of 13 years. For 5 Taka a piece they are selling vapa and chitoy pitha, small rice cakes that can be served either sweet or savoury. This tasty snack is popular with students, hospital staff, and rickshaw pullers. Selling from early morning to late at night, Kamal can earn up to 500 Taka a day. Even though his family manages to make ends meet, Kamal stated that it was getting more and more difficult to secure their livelihood. Regularly, the police evict the street food vendors as the university and hospital administrations disapprove of their activities. They argue that food sold on the street is illegal, unhygienic and undesirable. Since the military-backed Caretaker Government has taken power in Bangladesh in January 2007, the police had been more rigorous against hawkers. In November 2007, the police confiscated his stove, his pots and a water drum four times within 10 days. He lost about 8,000 Taka. In order to continue with his business, he used up his complete savings, thus diminishing his meager resources even further. When his elder sister got married five years ago, he also had to take up a high loan from a money lender to pay the dowry. Since then his family has been living close to their vending site in a makeshift shelter made of plastic sheets and rags. Every further police raid gets him deeper into debt, thus aggravating his struggle for survival. But making ends meet is difficult enough even without these police interventions: extreme weather events such as heat waves in the early summer or heavy rain in the monsoon season can have serious health consequences. If Kamal falls ill, he cannot sell pithas and thus the only source of income for his family collapses. The rapid increase in food prices starting in 2007, in particular for rice and edible oil, became an additional burden. In early 2008, the price for rice of medium quality had almost doubled from 25 to 50 Taka per kg within a few months. Since then, Kamal’s family can hardly afford to buy vegetables, meat or fish for their meals. On some days, when they earn far too less, they hardly manage to cook one full meal per day. But while Kamal has to cope somehow with the increased food prices and with the weather conditions, he is not inactive when it comes to evictions by the police. Together with some other street vendors at his site he is in contact with an informant who warns the hawkers about upcoming police raids, of course only for a little tip. Furthermore, like other vendors, Kamal has become more flexible. Instead of using his large table, he takes only the necessary equipment to the site and sells from the ground. In case of the next police raid, he is now able to leave his vending site quickly and without any further losses.

Pict. 8.5: Kamal, his mother and his sister sell vapa pithas to rickshaw pullers and other customers near the University Hospital Source: Interviews with Kamal on 04.11., 15.11

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Case Study 8.5: Md. Fulmia’s high Adaptive Capacity to Police Raids For 30 years, Mohammad Faruque has been running a street restaurant at a popular vending site opposite the university hospital. They usually sell rice-dishes, tea and breakfast to visitors of the hospital, to its staff, to rickshaw pullers and even to policemen, and thereby make substantial profits. During the Caretaker Government’s clean-up campaign in January 2007, his permanent unconsolidated street restaurant was destroyed for the first time in ten years and they could not re-open their shop for six weeks. Thereafter their business was frequently interrupted for one day or two, but he incurred no major losses. But the drives against hawkers started again in October. In the late evening of 12 December 2007, two police trucks suddenly came to the site. This was the first time that a raid was conducted at night, so they were taken by surprise. Usually the street vendors can pursue their business unhindered when it’s dark. Normally, they also hear rumours about upcoming police raids or get direct warnings from middlemen to whom they pay around 450 Taka per day to bribe the local political leaders and the police. That night, however, the whole road was cleared from semimobile vendors and the more permanent food shops were demolished. The police confiscated everything valuable from the food stall: five stoves, all dishes, bowls, and water drums. The tables and benches were broken, and kerosene was poured over food items so that it became inedible. The total worth of lost and destroyed equipment was about 12,000 Taka.

22.10.2007

13.12.2007

13.12.2007

28.02.2010

Pict. 8.6: Md. Fulmia’s Street Food Restaurant and his permanent kitchen Source: Interviews with Md. Fulmia and Anisur on 29.10.2007, 12.12.07, 31.08.2008, 14.02.2009

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Case Study 8.5 (continued) As this food stall has a separate kitchen nearby where they usually prepare the meals and then bring them to the vending site, they planned to continue preparing food there and hoped that they could sell on the regular site in the evenings. They used the same coping strategy right after the last major raid, but then they only earned one third of their normal profit (5,000 Taka per day instead of 15,000 Taka). Md. Fulmia said that he was not sure how long he can afford to continue to work under such conditions. He planned to draw on his savings and borrow money if necessary to rebuild his stall quickly – what he did. Moreover, he was continuing to provide food and shelter for his staff of a dozen men although his street restaurant had to remain closed for two weeks. One day, he even went to the Dhaka city corporation, to discuss the vendors’ problems at the site. Unfortunately, they told him that they were not responsible and he should go to the police commissioner, instead. After having done this without any success, he had to acknowledge to himself that all his efforts were fruitless as nobody wanted to listen to a ‘small man´ like him. Throughout the reign of the Caretaker Government, Faruque’s shop was destroyed more than five times, but he was proud that he could always manage to repurchase necessary equipment, set everything up at their site and keep most of his staff. Still, he estimated that he lost around 75,000 Taka in these two years of repetitive evictions. In November 2008, Md. Fulmia died of a heart attack. The former shop manager Anisur, and later his son-in-law continued to run the shop. Since the Awami League won the election in December 2008, the street restaurant had never been destroyed again by the police. And in mid-2009 they built a durable roof with bamboo poles. Their business is booming as they have permanently secured their spot at the site and can continue without being disturbed by the state.

Case Study 8.6: Abdur’s Adaptative Capacity in the Context of Police Raids In 1995 Abdur came to Dhaka and started to sell tea and snacks on the road in front of the hospital. This was only possible because his uncle was a DMCH worker, with whom he lived in the ‘staff colony´ until it was destroyed (case study 8.1). Abdur always tried to improve his business and earn more money, but adapting to changing conditions seemed to become more difficult every year. When I first met him, he had a big table upon many goods were placed. He often started his shop only in the late afternoon – after the office hours – so that he would not be disturbed, neither by the hospitals security guards, nor by the police. But he still earned about 450 Taka per day. During a raid in November 2007, the police confiscated his table, bench, stove and kettles because he could not react quickly enough and he had not received any warning. He said that the police was a lot harsher during the reign of the Caretaker Government, then at any time before. Abdur blamed the hospital director for this. The director would not even listen when vendors came to talk to him, but instead called the police all the time.

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Case Study 8.6 (continued) Although Abdur knows some local police men well, this does not help him much. The police already arrested him six times: “only for doing my business” he said shaking his head. Each time he called the local linesman, to whom he pays 30 Taka per day as chanda, who then negotiated with the police for a few hours and he was released after paying 200 or 300 Taka. When I asked why he was not shifting to another, more secure vending site, he said that one could not just go anywhere and sale, because you semi-permanent style, 22.10.07 need to know the other vendors, the local political leaders, and the policemen. He only knows the people at the hospital, and said that his uncle is a powerful man at DMCH. Abdur believes that therefore his position at the site is better than of other vendors. That is also why he tries to stay at the site, and rather adapts his style of vending. After that raid in November he was just walking around with a flask of tea, some bananas and biscuits, but through selling in a mobile manner, he only earned around 150 Taka – one third of what he mobile vending style,04.11.07 earned before. This situation remained for a while and he struggled to sustain the costs of living for his mother, his wife and his three children with whom he lives in a slum nearby. It took him six month, until he got enough money together to buy a push-cart for 2000 Taka. Thereafter, he had better business again and earned around 400 Taka per day. His new flexibility is thus highly important. He sold near a petrol pump in the morning and then moved his cart to ‘his´ place in front of the hospital when it was safe to do business in the evening. Nonetheless, his overall livelihood situation semi-mobile vending style, 03.09.08 had not really improved in the last two years. He Pict. 8.7. Abdur’s Shifting Street was thus quite distressed and frustrated and spoke Food Vending Styles about ‘exit strategies´ from street vending. He wanted to get a permanent job at the hospital, but failed to get it despite hefty bribes. He also thought about leaving Dhaka for good: either emigrating to the Oman and working there as a labourer or even re-migrating back to his village. After years of eviction and insecure income, he just wanted to live again in dignity and self-determination – he was searching for human security. Source: Interviews 18.10., 04. and 20.11.07, 31.08. and 06.09.08, 07. and 17.02.09, 12.02.2010

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8.4 INTERIM CONCLUSION: THE DANCE OF COMMAND AND CONTROL 8.4.1 The Macro-political Logic of Evictions: Demonstrating Power The military-backed Caretaker Government has been criticised for its incompetent economic management, a tough, yet inconsistent, law and order policy and its human rights violations (Siddiqui et al. 2010). The numerous evictions that were conducted throughout its rule show that the governance of the social field of street food is indeed highly contested, and that these contestations are increasingly fierce in nature. This is no coincidence. While formal legislation on street vending has not substantially changed since colonial rule, the need of cheap food provision services and employment opportunities for the urban poor increased with a growing population. Public discourses, however, have shifted in Bangladesh towards public security, law and order, good governance and the fight against corruption (at least during the CTG). City beautification, public health, and food hygiene are increasingly prominent themes, too. It often seems like these hegemonic “story lines” (Hajer 2000) are merely rhetoric games of powerful agents that have no consequence in reality. But this is not the case. They are, in fact, symbolic systems that successively “mould mental structures and impose common principles of vision and division, [and] forms of thinking” (Bourdieu 1994: 7). Insistence on and repetition of these narratives lead to criminalisation of poverty, delegitimisation of licit claims of the urban poor and to further illegalisation of needed, yet unwanted segments of the informal economy. The discursive marginalisation of the street (food) trade through often uttered resentments and its active curtailing through evictions are an important case in point. The contestations over street vending point to the fact that the urban poor are not only facing changing governance regimes in terms of new actors, new policies, and new “social practices of governing” (Zimmer & Sakdapolrak 2012), they are also facing an “erratic state”, whose interventions oscillate between continuous neglect and excessive strikes (Kombe & Kreibich 2012). One year after the Caretaker Government came to power a journalist, who frequently reports on evictions of slum dwellers and street vendors, noted that the authorities would know very well that their raids were ineffective and would not solve the problem of encroachments on public space, which indeed continued unabated. Some state representatives would even recognise that the destruction or disruption of the informal street economy is detrimental to urban poverty alleviation, and indeed absolute poverty seems to have increased in Dhaka throughout the reign of the interim government (Siddiqui et al. 2010). The responsible state agents would even be aware of the close networks of corruption between the police, DCC, local political leaders and criminal gangs that extort money from the street vendors, which the interim government could not stop either through its highly symbolic anti-corruption drive.

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Knowing all this, the interim government nonetheless continued the violent expulsions, because “the military thinks they can impress people with cosmetic measures. […] the vendors are used as cannon-fodder for political purposes” (interview with Ahmede Hossain, 30.12.2007). This observation goes in line with James Scott’s argument that due to a constant testing of the limits between the elites in power and the suppressed subalterns it becomes crucial for the dominant group to symbolically defend its claims: “the decisive assertion of symbolic territory by public retribution discourages others from venturing public defiance […]; these acts are meant as public events for an audience of subordinates. They are intended as a kind of preemptive strike to nip in the bud any further challenges of the existing frontier” (Scott 1990: 197).

The forceful evictions of more than 60,000 slums dwellers in the first year of the CTG (interview, M.Q.Khan, CUP, 02.01.08), the removal of dozens of unauthorized wholesale and kitchen markets (Keck 2012), and the repeated expulsion of thousands of street vendors from public space during two years of interim rule, seemed to serve this very purpose: They were used to visually and symbolically demonstrate the capabilities and the authoritative power of the state that is seeking political control as well as recognition and legitimacy (symbolic capital in Bourdieu’s terms) in times of political insecurity. The street vending sites of Dhaka – as the most visible spaces of the informal economy – were one of the arenas, in which the macropolitical conflicts over the future of Bangladesh were fought out. It also needs to be beard in mind that the everyday practices of the urban poor are not only discursively marginalised and actively curtailed in Bangladesh. Similar rhetoric is used to legitimise the eviction of slum dwellers and street vendors all over the world. Numerous examples from the Global South demonstrate that ‘clean-up drives’ and ‘beautification campaigns’ as well as ‘fights against crime’ and for the restoration of public order work against the needs of the urban poor, and thus against the majority of megacities’ population.166 According to Mike Davis (2007: 119), “we are dealing here with a fundamental reorganization of metropolitan space, involving a drastic diminution of the intersections between the lives of the rich and the poor, which transcends traditional social segregation and urban fragmentation.” This study meant to show one example of contested governance and urban restructuring that is enforced under the banner of modernity, progress, and development.

166 For an overview on evictions drives and the discursive marginalisation of street vendors see (Cross & Karides 2007; Davis 2007: 95ff). Further case studies are: Johannesburg (Rogerson 1990), Cairo (Kuppinger 1995), Los Angeles (Cupers 2006), Delhi (te Lintelo 2009), Calcutta (Roy 2004; Bandyopadhyay 2009), Mumbai (Anjaria 2010), Lagos (Basinski 2009).

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8.4.2 The Micro-political Logic of Evictions: Keeping them Illegal and Insecure In Dhaka, the everyday practice of street food vending is predominantly not regulated through formal laws, but rather through the informal modes of governance that are in effect in an arena (Etzold et al. 2009). Research in India (cf. Corbridge et al. 2005; Zimmer 2009; Anjaria 2010) also showed that bureaucratic actors are on the one hand part of the state apparatus and ought to enforce the formal regulatory framework, but on the other hand, they are also often deeply embedded in the very local “politics of the street” (Bayat 1997). The contradiction between formal rigour, which manifests itself in evictions, and the informal tolerance of street vending can then be explained through personal network relations. As follows, patron-client relations between policemen and hawkers, for instance, do exist often in the megacities of South Asia. Regular evictions, harassment and systems of exploitation are then evidence of the ‘politics of space’, the structural violence in the encounters between street vendors and the state (see Etzold 2013b) and the social resilience that is being refused in Dhaka (Keck & Etzold 2013). Insecurity, injustice, humiliation as well as feelings of inferiority, helplessness and powerlessness are experienced by the street food vendors as real and, even worse, as unchangeable. Both occasional raids and mass evictions pose a severe livelihood challenge, which only differ according to their comprehensiveness, the extent of violence that is being used, and the length of more strictly controlled vending bans. Most vendors fear the unpredictability and brutality of security guards and policemen, many have experienced beatings themselves, and hardly any of the vendors dare to argue with them directly. As everyday tolerance of their business stands against occasional intervention, the unpredictable behaviour of state agents is the major source of their anxiety: the street vendors never know whether they will get a warning before an eviction drive or not; at particularly contested sites the hawkers always have to be alert, or ‘on their feet’ as a pushcart vendor put it; they never know whether the policemen enforce a raid rigorously, destroy their good and arrest them, or whether they ‘make an exception’ if a vendor secretly slips them some bakshish, or whether they generally ‘turn a blind eye’ because of the chanda payment system.167 Annoyed by the insecurity in the street trade, one fruit vendor at the Ferry terminal thus noted that “There is no peace selling on the streets!” Besides the symbolic demonstration of state power, the aim of police raids of vending sites, which sometimes resemble ‘cat-and-mouse games’, does not seem to be to effectively discourage the street trade, but rather to remind the vendors of the necessity to pay regular bribes. According to this micro-political logic of illegality, which Anjaria (2010) described vividly for the case of street vendors in Mumbai, the state agents themselves work against a sustainable solution to the 167 Also drawing on Bourdieu’s (1998, 2006) description of the ‘double power´ of state agents, Garcia-Rincon (2007) showed that police officers and public officials in Caracas (Venezuela) also ‘bend the rules´ and ‘turn a blind eye´ on street vendors in order to obtain financial profits from their position of power.

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contested hawkers issue, for instance, by legalizing street vending or declaring permanent vending zones (chapter 9). It is in their own interest to further criminalise street vending or keep “their legal status in a constant state of flux” (ibd: 82). Through every raid, the vendors are kept insecure, illegal, and informal. The illegalisation of street food vending, a remnant of colonial rule, is perpetuated. Thereby it becomes possible to continue the hawkers’ exploitation. While these extortion systems have to be criticized from a normative standpoint as the subordinate actors are clearly exploited by those in power, it also needs to be noted that bribes are culturally embedded in the everyday life in many cities of the Global South and can also be seen as routinized social arrangements, from which both parties can benefit (Illy 1986: 70): Although being highly dependent on few local patrons, the street vendors have at least some limited tenure security and an informal buffer system that helps them to cope with police evictions. The powerful – both formal state agents and informal power-brokers – can extract substantial benefits from the street economy that amount to an astonishing sum of 33 million Euros per year.168 It is no surprise then that police raids in Dhaka do not succeed in driving the hawkers off the streets permanently.169 8.4.3 The Hawkers’ Political Logic: Retaining Agency by Resisting the State Instead of being mere victims, the street food vendors in Dhaka, however, do possess agency and most manage to continue their business despite state violence and generally precarious working and living conditions. They know, of course, that hawking without an official license is illegal. As there is no functioning social security system in Bangladesh, as the access to formal employment is very restricted, and as there are no licenses for street food vending obtainable in Dhaka, the hawkers assert that they have to take their “right to the city” (see Etzold 2011a). Moreover, they are used to the culture and the politics of the street from their personal life experience. Having been disappointed many times when governments promised a fair redistribution of goods and opportunities, they now do not expect anything any longer from the state – except autonomy in terms of simply being spared from state interventions (Bayat 1997: 10). Street vendors, therefore, perceive their appropriation of public space as legitimate. They use multiple tactics to reduce their sensitivity to police raids and to cope with the immediate effects of evictions. Street vendors occasionally demonstrated against evictions during the reign of the Caretaker Government, which led to violent clashes with the police. Yet, organised resistance movements or open protests, in 168 If my own estimate of 97,000 street food vendors in Dhaka and the results from our survey (on average 97 Taka per day in Chanda) are taken as a base, it can be rightly assumed that each day 9.5 million Taka are extorted from Dhaka’s street food vendors every day. That amounts to an astonishing sum of 3.43 billion Taka (32.6 million Euros - exchange rate at time of the survey in December 2009) that is illegally collected yearly from street food vendors alone, and not even by other hawkers. 169 Hawker Eviction - Why drive fails again and again, The Daily Star, 05.02.2007

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which they claim their political rights, are not their major strategy of changing urban governance modes to their favour. Dhaka’s street vendors’ quiet encroachment of public space is not a collective and organised struggle for rights, but rather reflects a more subtle resistance to the state that is driven by the force of necessity (Scott 1990: 199; Bayat 1997: 5ff). Instead of changing and challenging prevailing formal and informal governance regimes, they adapt to them, for instance by investing in linking social capital. Although they have to bear the cost of these exploitative patron-client relations, through street politics the hawkers can increase their resilience to evictions and are better able to sustain their livelihoods in the long run. To sum up, in the context of regular evictions by state agents, the street food vendors’ agency depends on their own savings and access to credit (economic capital), their experience, knowledge and their access to information (cultural capital), and their informally acclaimed rights to a vending site or in turn their flexibility or mobility (spatial capital), but it particularly depends on their position in informal networks of power (social capital). Whether the police carry out eviction drives brutally or not; whether equipment is confiscated or not; whether strict street vending bans take one hour or one month; having these crucial resources will eventually enable the street food vendors to re-appropriate their position in public space and take their right to the city.

9 TOWARDS FAIR STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE “Reflexivity makes possible a more responsible politics” (Pierre Bourdieu in Bourdieu & Wacquant 1992b: 194).

In Dhaka, three quarter of the interviewed street food vendors noted that their income and quality of living improved since they entered the field of street vending. Many are thus quite content with their present livelihood situation. For almost one third of the vendors, however, harassment by policemen and evictions from their vending site are constant stresses. Eleven percent mentioned that the extortion of security payments poses a severe problem for them. And six out of ten street vendors live below the poverty line (see chapters 7.4 and 8.3). Many street vendors thus experience economic insecurity, exploitation and feelings of anxiety that are directly related to the marginal position of the field of street food vis-à-vis the field of power and to the criminalisation of informal economic practices by law. On the other hand, there is no denying that the hygiene of food that is prepared, sold and consumed on the street is a problem. Traffic jams and overcrowded streets, partly due to food vendors’ encroachment on footpaths, are indeed a great nuisance in Dhaka. Together, these facts provide the impetus to call for changes of the prevailing modes of street food governance. In the academic discourse, the contribution of street vending to employment in cities, to food distribution and food security is widely acknowledged. Moreover, the street food culture is increasingly seen as a particularly vital part of urban life (cf. FAO 1997; Tinker 1997; Nirathron 2006; Dittrich 2008). While some of Dhaka’s regulators note the benefits of the street food trade too and thus ply for its tolerance, dismissive narratives that legitimise restrictive policies and raids of street vending sites prevail (chapters 5.3, 8.2 and 8.3). The existing laws on street food vending and the appropriate use of public space in Dhaka are not only outdated (the Pure Food Ordinance was established in 1959 and the Dhaka City Corporation Ordinance dates back to 1983), but are also largely ineffective as neither the street vendors nor the state agents align their ordinary practices to them. Nonetheless, the laws and formal directives on street food vending are not irrelevant. The existence of laws that illegalise the sale of food in the open and the vendors’ encroachment on public space structures street politics: Authoritative agents can play with rules and strategically use the law as “weapons” (Bourdieu 2006: 27) in order to gain profits from their position close to the field of power. Improving the existing formal rules on street vending is important: If hawkers are fully recognized as citizens with inalienable rights, the ‘weapons’ might be taken out of the hands of the bricoleurs. Each of the empirical chapters contained an interim conclusion, in which the key findings of the respective chapter are summarised and the research questions are answered. Instead of repeating the findings again, I want to use this conclud-

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ing chapter to look ahead. The micro- and macro-political relations between the field of street food and the field of power structure the present and future conditions of street vending in Dhaka. Street food governance is about personal negotiations and discursive contestations, about state action and vendors’ reaction, about vendors’ quiet encroachment of public space and counter-insurgencies of state agents to reclaim the street. Changes in this “politics of space” (cf. Low & Smith 2006; Etzold & Keck 2009) will have large impacts on the life chances and vulnerabilities of Dhaka’s street vendors and on the food services for urban consumers. In the following, I therefore discuss policy implications of my empirical findings and conceptual considerations. On the basis of India’s street vendors’ policy, ideas by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh and other literature, ways towards a fair street food governance are sketched. These reflections are underpinned by empirical evidence as I discussed ‘solutions’ to the ‘hawkers problem’ with experts and state agents. The street vendors themselves also told me about their needs for more secure and dignified livelihoods. My suggestion might be of relevance for urban planning, city governance, poverty alleviation, food security programmes and development cooperation. On the one hand, I am in favour of pragmatism when developing solutions: Both formal and informal modes of governance, and how they are negotiated and contested, need to be taken into account pragmatically, if policy improvements for street food consumers and vendors are not to be rendered fruitless. On the other hand, I am in line with Morales (2007: 264f) who argues that legitimacy is the key for improving the relation between street vendors and the state. Fundamental macro- and micro-political changes of street food governance are necessary. These cannot be achieved through too small and local solutions, but need vision and a compass for the right direction. Fair street food governance is a question of rights and citizenship, but even more so a matter of social recognition. 9.1 POLICY GUIDELINES FOR STREET VENDING IN BANGLADESH Due to the historic legacy and spatial proximity, political developments in India are always watched carefully in Bangladesh, but often with interest. As the Indian National Policy for Urban Street Vendors, that was enacted by the Indian parliament in 2004, changed the rules and the public discourse on street vending in India substantially, it might be taken as a role model or a possible pathway for future policy developments in Bangladesh. The policy states: “Street vendors provide valuable services to the urban population while trying to earn a livelihood and it is the duty of the State to protect the right of this segment of population to earn their livelihood. This policy aims to ensure that this important section of the urban population finds recognition for its contribution to society, and is conceived of as a major initiative for urban poverty alleviation. […] The overarching objective to be achieved through this policy is to: Provide and promote a supportive environment for earning livelihoods to the street vendors, as well as ensure absence of congestion and maintenance of hygiene in public spaces and streets” (Government of India 2004: 2).

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The implementation of this national policy in the respective states and municipalities is still in progress and subject to manifold contestations on the local level. Nonetheless, the Indian policy approach is promising, because it officially acknowledges the rights of street vendors and recognises their services. Moreover, it aims at protecting and supporting the vendors rather than criminalising and curtailing them (cf. Bhowmik 2007; Dittrich 2008; Sundaram 2008; Bandyopadhyay 2009b; Bhowmik 2010a; te Lintelo 2010). In Bangladesh, public health and food safety are high on the political agenda (Government of Bangladesh 2005; 2006; chapter 5.3.2), while citizens’ rights and the livelihoods of the urban poor do not seem to be (cf. Banks et al. 2011).

Box 9.1: CAB’s Policy Guidelines on Street Food Vending in Bangladesh 1. Laws should be formulated to provide legal, financial and socio-economic support to the vendors as well as to ensure safety and nutrition of the public consumers. 2. Street food vendors should be registered with the local government authorities. The registration should be renewed every three years. No eviction of licensed vendors would be legal unless it is proved to be in the public interest. 3. The local government authorities should delineate vending zones, in conformity with urban development policies and existing laws, and allow vending within these zones for a specific licensing fee. Priority should be given to vendors, who were already in business at these sites. 4. Vending committees should be formed at ward level in the cities with legal authority to allocate space for vending. Representatives of the police, the public works departments, the city corporations or municipality authorities, (micro-credit) banks and of the vendors themselves should be members of these committees. 5. The newly installed local vending committees will charge fees for allocation vending spots and issuing the licenses, keep record of the number of registered vendors, map the plots allocated to each vendor with agreed time(s) of vending, and record the collected fees, and promote activities to improve the hygienic conditions at site, and register complaints by concerned consumers. 6. A close coordination has to be established between relevant actors, e.g. the local authorities, police, health department and the vendors or their associations to implement the new laws and the new vending-zones through the vending committees. 7. Microfinance and lending institutions should provide credit to the vendors. 8. Members of the National Food Safety Advisory Council, food inspectors, law enforcers, and vendors should be informed and trained on the Pure Food Ordinance, the City Corporation Ordinance and these guidelines on safe street food vending. 9. Research will be encouraged to industrialize local food processing patters and approaches in a way that it is manageable by the vendors. 10. Public awareness should be raised on the food safety of street food. Source: CAB (2010:13ff, 79ff) Note: 10 out of 18 guidelines; wording and sequencing has been changed partially.

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The Consumers Association of Bangladesh aligned its research project on the “Institutionalization of Healthy Street Food System” to the research needs lined out in the National Food Policy Capacity Strengthening Programme (NFPCSP 2007). CAB’s policy recommendations, in turn, are closely related to the Indian Street Vending Policy. The objective of CAB’s policy guidelines is to support, organise and partly legalise the street food trade and to improve the quality and hygiene of street foods for the sake of the consumers (Box 9.1). 9.2 ARE FAIR PRACTICES OF STREET FOOD GOVERNANCE POSSIBLE? There is a “bewildering diversity of policies” in dealing with “the hawker situation” in Asian cities, as McGee (1970: 36) already expressed it in 1970. He classified existing approaches towards street vendors according to the aims that are trying to be achieved: “Limitation – aiming to limit the overall number of hawkers or specific types of hawkers; stabilization – stabilizing mobile hawkers; and removal and relocation – aiming to shift hawkers from one location to another” (ibid). In a similar vein, Illy (1986) differentiated between “locational actions” such as clearance operations or the establishment of new legal vending sites, “structural actions” such as changes in the marketing system and governance assistance, and “educational actions” such as trainings and public campaigns. Bearing in mind both approaches, the following sections discusses ten practices of governing the field of street food, critically examines the proposals by CAB and questions whether a fair and more transparent mode of street food governance can actually be achieved. Except the suggestions dealing with food safety, the outlined ideas apply to all hawkers selling goods in public space. 1) Alternative Practices: Create Employment Outside the Street Trade While there are barriers to the entry into street food vending (chapter 7.2), getting access to Dhaka’s formal job market is even more difficult. Numerous vendors told me about their plans to run a permanent (consolidated) food shop somewhere, but they could neither afford the high advance payments to the respective landlords nor the monthly rents. The recruitment process for formal employment, in turn, is marked by manipulation through political parties, corruption and personal networks. Several street vendors reported that they had paid tremendously high bribes to middlemen in order to get an adequately paid job in the public sector that also provides social security benefits, but nonetheless failed to get it. Others reported that they simply cannot afford the bribes and do not have the family ties or political networks that would lift them into a public sector job. High barriers to the formal labour market need to be reduced. Street vendors and other poor groups would benefit from this as they could either exit their precarious livelihoods or diversify risks by taking on an additional formal job that secures them a regular income and social security benefits.

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More jobs in the formal economy should be created through private, public and foreign direct investments in construction, industries and services (which of course does not mean that street vendors would have the necessary skills to work in the IT-sector, for instance). Another way would be to formalise existing informal enterprises. The regulatory requirements for setting up and running small enterprises would have to be simplified and sped up then (cf. de Soto 1992: 22; UN-Habitat 2006a: 120). This would of course not change the fact that Dhaka’s prevailing governance architecture is highly personalised, politicised and corrupt (cf. Siddiqui & Ahmed 2004; IGS 2008, 2009), which also affects the ease of entry into formal employment. Street food vendors would benefit from general campaigns for more effective, transparent and accountable urban governance, decent work and human security – no matter how realistic they might be (cf. ILO 2002a; Ogata & Sen 2003; Brown & Rakodi 2006; World Bank 2007). 2) Quantifying Practices: Count Street Vendors In between 90,000 and 200,000 street food vendors might pursue their businesses in Dhaka, while the estimates of the number of hawkers in Dhaka range from 100,000 to 500,000 or more according to the used data sources, the ways of calculation and the political interests (chapter 6.1). A hawkers’ association might exaggerate the number in order to be heard in the political arena, while a public official might exaggerate it to claim more funds for certain purposes or legitimise the municipality’s inactivity to clear public space. In turn, formal population and labour statistics probably underestimate the number of hawkers as they do not fit into the fixed employment categories, in particular if street vending is an additional or only temporary source of income. Moreover, the categories in many surveys are so broad that it is impossible to denote who of those involved in sales services is a street vendor and whether the street vendors sell food or other goods. Informal employment relations need to be included in statistical assessments. For example, in 1995, an occupational survey found only 2,000 street vendors all over South Africa. Five years later, the improved Labour Force Survey showed that there were not less than 245,000 (ILO 2002c: 52). This increase is in the first instance not caused by an increase of the number of vendors (which might additionally be the case), but due to refinements of data collection methods. A better data base on street (food) vendors is needed. As it is simply impossible to count the vendors in a megacity like Dhaka, indirect measures through detailed population and labour force surveys should be aimed at. This would not only be interesting for academics who want to know more about the size, scale and significance of the street economy for employment generation and food security, for instance, but generally help to develop better policy instruments and to raise awareness about the plights and rights of street vendors (Brown & Rakodi 2006: 205; Cross & Karides 2007: 30). Given the rapid growth and economic dynamics of Dhaka, limiting the overall number of hawkers is certainly neither a realistic nor a desirable goal of street food governance.

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3) Formalizing Practices: Register and License Street Vendors ‘Structural actions’ include the registration and licensing of street vendors, the formalisation of the exchange of goods, the introduction of daily fees or tolls for using public space and goods and service taxes that are collected from street vendors (Illy 1986: 74ff). The FAO (1997: 11) recommended that licensing was “an essential component of sound regulations for street food” and promoted the success story of Bangkok, where licenses for street vendors were introduced along with guidelines for safe food preparation in the mid-1970s, as a best practice model for other cities (cf. Dawson et al. 1996; UN-Habitat 2006a: 19f). In the Indian Street Vending Policy, the registration of the vending unit by city municipalities or town committees for a fee and the issuing of a vending licence that includes the name and picture of the vendor and the nature of his business play prominent roles (GoI 2004). In Bangladesh, a large street vendors’ association,170 demanded legal protection and trade licences for street vendors after the Caretaker Government had evicted thousands of them in early 2007 (chapter 8.3.2). CAB also proposed that all vendors should register with local government authorities and vending committees and should get trade licenses (suggestion 2). They would have to display their licence and identity card when selling in designated vending zones. The registration of street vendors could generate substantial revenue for the municipality. The vendors would get more security and rights. Many hawkers thus believed that having a licence would give them a permanent right to use public space and that this would improve their livelihood. Accordingly, they would be willing to pay for registration and rent, if then they are only spared from evictions. But so far, only rumours about licences, but little actual information exist. There are some disadvantages to formal registration of the street trade. A new hurdle to the entry in the field of street vending is introduced, which the illiterate and very poor (and in case of Dhaka many women) might not be able to cross. The bureaucracy of licencing and collecting daily, weekly or monthly fees from almost 100,000 street food vendors is also highly complex and possibly arbitrary. When state agents are involved in collecting money, even if vendors’ associations administer the allocation of space and the collection of fees (see suggestion 5 by CAB), the abuse of power is quite easy in this process. The bricoleurs might bend the rules in different ways to generate personal profits. Some street vendors, in turn, might circumvent formal permissions by paying informal fees or bribes to officials or intermediaries to buy their spot, even if the number of licenses at a site is restricted. Evidence from other cities also shows that once licenses exist, the penalties for those who continue to sell without registration rise significantly. Controls might take place more often and rules might be enforced stricter as police officers and other regulatros seek to reap extra-benefits. Formalisation might then lead to a strengthening rather than a weakening of informal systems of patronage, it might contribute to a further criminalisation of the poorest street 170 Bangladesh Sammilito Hawkers Parishad (‘Street vendors appeal for rehabilitation´, The Daily Star, 14.03.07).

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vendors, in particular female and mobile vendors, who cannot afford a license, and thus increases rather than decreases the vendors’ vulnerability to state violence (cf. Brown & Rakodi 2006: 203ff; Dittrich 2008: 28; Donovan 2008:34; te Lintelo 2009: 74). In many cities, the efforts to register and license street vendors therefore failed. I guess they would fail in Dhaka, too. 4) Spatial Practices: Secure Vendors’ Access to Public Space Case studies on street vending from all over the world and the findings presented in this study point to the crucial importance of ‘tenure security’ for street vendors. Urban public space as such is the vendors’ spatial capital and thus a vital livelihood resource (see case studies in Brown 2006b; UN-Habitat 2006a; Cross & Morales 2007b; Hackenbroch et al. 2009; Bhowmik 2010b). All policies on street vending have to consider appropriate ‘locational actions’ (Illy 1986: 75ff), or as Cross and Karides (2007: 29) noted, “the solution must be spatial.” Four spatial practices to formal street food governance are particularly important. First, evictions, clearance drives and demolitions of unconsolidated street shops are part of city municipalities’ normal repertoire to get rid of the ‘hawker problem’. The history of evictions in Dhaka and other cities, however, shows that such restrictive and often violent measures against hawkers do not solve the problem of congested public space. Moreover, rigorous and repeated evictions criminalise the everyday practices of the urban poor and give state agents even more opportunities to press for occasional bribes and regular ‘security’ payments. Large-scale and erratic evictions of street vendors in Dhaka must stop. If no adequate rehabilitation schemes are introduced many hawkers are pushed into misery, indebtedness and extreme poverty (chapter 8.3). Second, an effective spatial practice is to do nothing. The city authorities can simply tolerate further constructions and infrastructure improvements at the vending sites by the vendors themselves until the designated function of the site is lost. A street might turn into a market, for instance. Some push-cart vendors noted that they would have the money to construct a simple shack and thereby appropriate ‘their’ spot permanently, but they could not due to informal power relations in the arena. Others, who already have a permanent spot, successively enlarge and consolidate their shop, as soon as it is deemed safe to do so (see case study 8.5). Self-organised site improvements and shop constructions might, however, lead to the exclusion of the most vulnerable agents in the arena. When local political leaders turned an open space within a slum in Dhaka into a consolidated market, some women who sold vegetables there for many years were displaced, because they could not afford the high monthly rents that were introduced by the new market committee (Hackenbroch 2010). Due to politcs of the street, some vendors might benefit from the formal state’s tolerance towards the quiet encroachers, while others might lose in these power struggles over space.

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Third, having encountered evictions and harassments, many street vendors would be willing to be relocated to permanent or special weekly markets. Like local site improvements, relocations can be exclusionary processes, from which only better-off street vendors benefit. They are also difficult to implement and the costs of formalisation are often underestimated as examples from Bogotá showed: “The benefits of flexibility and mobility were lost in the process of relocation as peripatetic [mobile] vendors found themselves in non-specialised markets, hindered by higher costs, a fixed schedule and a permanent location” (Donovan 2008: 45). Many hawkers might take into account a decreased business and lower incomes after relocation, if only their working conditions and livelihood security improves (ibid). In Bangladesh, the distribution of state benefits is highly politicised and corrupted, whether this the distribution of public land (khas) or food aid, or the access to employment programmes (cf. IGS 2010b: 42ff). There is no reason to believe that the allocation of permanent market shops to relocated street vendors would be fair and transparent. The failure of the so called weekend markets that were introduced after the hawkers evictions in early 2007 showed this clearly. The allocation of the vending spots to hawkers was left to middlemen, i.e. mastaans, who in turn capitalised on their position of power. In the end, most markets closed fairly soon (chapter 8.3.2). Nonetheless, it could be worth trying to introduce temporary ‘lunch markets’ or night markets for street food in Dhaka. They should be in places with a high food demand that cannot be met through bather hotels and canteens. Around lunchtime, for instance in the business district Motijheel, parts of a street could be opened for a limited number of vendors who then sell food for a designated time only. They might have to pay a small vending fee, but only for that day. This fee could be used to pay sweepers who clean up at the end of the day. In contrast to consolidated markets, such a model would still allow some flexibility and be better suited for those vendors, who have limited capital and therefore could never afford to pay high monthly rents. Fourth, it is necessary to plan the allocation of space for street vending. Land use planning, urban design and traffic management should incorporate the spatial needs of street (food) vendors in their plans and city municipalities should take on a pragmatic approach towards regulating these spaces (cf. Brown & Rakodi 2006: 207f; UN-Habitat 2006b: 122, Cross & Karides 2007: 30). Nazrul Islam from the Centre for Urban Studies noted that the problem can be solved “by arranging space for street hawkers. Not one or two spaces, but many spaces, because they are so many. You cannot throw them out […]. You have to recognize the size of the sector. It is so big that you have to plan for them” (interview, 26.02.2010). He also suggested that one should build very wide sidewalks or allow room for extraspaces next to the footpath so that hawkers do not encroach on the footpath or the street as such, which could ease the situation for vendors, pedestrians and other users of public space. Besides these linear arrangements, creating small street food centres could be allowed, for instance near, but not right at important traffic hubs, near factories, office buildings, etc. Based on the best practice from Bangkok, CAB (suggestion 3) proposed that local governments should delineate special street vending zones, in which hawking is legal if the vendors possess the

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aforementioned license and pay the required use fees. In turn, stricter vending bans can be issued at other places. In the Indian metropolis Hyderabad licenses for hawkers were issued and street vending areas, as well as no-vending zones, were lined out in a bid to upgrade the central parts of the city and ease traffic problems. The street vendors were not involved in decision-making. As follows, street vending was banned from the previously most profitable areas pushing the hawkers to places aside the normal flow of passengers. The number of licences for inner-city sale was also limited and registration was costly. The poorest vendors, mainly mobile vendors and women, were then excluded from the new spatial governance regimes and thus pushed into illegality (Dittrich 2008: 26ff). In Dhaka, creating street vending zones and thus new ‘spaces of formality’ with high entrance hurdles that exclude the most vulnerable vendors and whose administration might give way to the abuse of power, are certainly not a viable solution. Instead, “spatial zones of informality” (Cross & Karides 2007: 29) or ‘edge-spaces’, like the open space opposite the university hospital (figure 8.1), could be purposely tolerated. Tolerating spaces of informality and the informal practices of the poorest vendors is a fairer way of street food governance than costly, inefective and intransparent formal licensing and ‘zoning’ systems. 5) Supportive Practices: Provide Services to Street Food Vendors The need of providing adequate services to the urban poor is generally acknowledged (cf. World Bank 2007; Hossain 2011). Like slum dwellers and other informal entrepreneurs, street vendors should be supported by the state with basic services, rather than being curtailed and criminalised. If street vending zones and licensing systems, small food centres or night markets are introduced and the vendors pay usage fees, they should get something in return for their money, such as access to electricity, water or public toilets (cf. Rakodi & Brown 2006: 206). In Dhaka, most of the permanent and some semi-mobile tea and snack vendors have a small water drum at their shop to wash cups, plates and their own hands. They bring the water from home, get it at a mosque or from other public facilities such as the university hospital. During evictions some policemen purposely destroyed vendors’ water drums. This is costly for the vendors and detrimental to food safety. In order to be more flexible to flee from raids, many vendors then refrain from keeping water containers and just provide drinking water for their customers in bottles (case study 8.6). As a consequence, they wash their hands and equipment less regularly and hygienic conditions deteriorate. Providing street food vendors with an easy access to clean drinking water and to adequate toilet facilities would improve the hygienic conditions at the sites immediately and thus contribute to food safety. The vendors would pay for clean drinking water and public toilets, if only they were available. Other basic services that could improve the sanitary conditions at the sites and thus make street food safer include the effective removal of waste as well as regular cleaning of streets and sidewalks (cf. FAO 1996: 11; Tinker 1997: 189;

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Brown & Rakodi 2006: 207; CAB 2010: 80). Street vendors all over Dhaka would benefit from general infrastructure improvements such as the repair or construction of sealed roads. In areas regularly affected from water logging, such as Islambagh, vendors complained that stinking stagnant water hinders their business and is generally unpleasant (chapter 7.4.2). But the vendors themselves should also take responsibility for the cleanliness of their vending site by collecting and sorting the waste from their shop, by disposing their waste water in a responsible way and by sweeping the site at the end of the day. This points directly to the importance of education without which site improvements, new vending spaces or licensing systems would be rendered useless. 6) Educational Practices: Make Street Food Safe Offering good and safe food is a genuine interest of street food vendors as they need a regular customer base to sustain their livelihood. Nonetheless, the hygienic conditions at most observed vending sites were poor. At the Saidabad Bus Terminal, in the industrial quarter Islambagh and in the slum Bishil they were particularly bad. In turn, half of the interviewed slum dwellers refrain from taking street food, because they do not want to take ‘dusty food’ and because they think it is unhygienic (chapter 6.3.4). Sincere efforts need to be undertaken in Dhaka to improve street food safety. As food might be contaminated at different steps in the “street food production chain” (i.e. from primary production of raw food, over transport and retail, preparation and cooking, to vending and consumption; see Nicolas et al. 2007), not only the street food vendors need to be educated about food safety. CAB suggested (point 8) that food traders at markets and street vendors should get trainings about hygiene and safer food handling practices. Regulators, such as food inspectors and policemen, should also be informed about the respective formal laws in place and about strategies to improve food safety. Educational practices for food safety also contain public awareness campaigns about health risks and food-borne diseases (FAO 1996: 11; Tinker 1997: 189, CAB 2010: 81; Nirathron 2006: 59; Nicolas et al. 2007: 3ff; Supriya et al. 2012). In Thailand, a “health code of practice for street foods” was introduced in the 1990s, in which the sanitary requirement for the sale of street food are outlined (Dawson et al. 1996: 38): – – – – – – –

vending units should be designed in a way that they are easy to clean; the food preparation surface should be more than 50cm above ground; clean drinking water and high quality food should be used for preparation; food should be covered by glass or plastic lids, when displayed for sale; street vendors should not use their bare hands for serving food, but spoons, plates, etc.; dishes, cutlery and vending equipment should be cleaned thoroughly before use and kept clean at the site; and vendors should wear an apron and cover their hair.

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For street food vendors in Hyderabad, Supriya, Dahmen and Dittrich (2012) worked out a detailed “Street Food Safety Manual” that is being used as a training tool. It contains illustrated advice on the purchase, storage and preparation of raw food; on the display and serving of prepared food to customers; and on cleaning the vending units and used tools. Suggestions how to upgrade the vending unit and to keep the vending area clean are also provided. Importantly, it also addresses personal hygiene and health aspects and points out how the vendors should wash their hands, how they could deal with minor wounds, etc. For Bangladesh, CAB and other local experts developed a training manual for street food vendors that contains most of the aforementioned aspects and best practices. A standardized push-cart and a ‘uniform’ for vendors were designed and given out to street vendors after they were trained (CAB 2010: 7ff). Both training and improved equipment contributed to enhanced food safety. Apparently, the “food prepared by trained vendors contained fewer bacteria which were within acceptable standards [..] set by the World Health Organisation” (FPMU 2011: 2). According to CAB (2010: 12), trained vendors with their special pushcarts attracted more customers than they had before. The volume of sale and their income thus increased, too. Such pilot projects are clearly important steps towards making street food safer for consumption, but the successful implementation of such improvements on a larger scale remains doubtful. The director of the DCC’s Health Department noted that the few employed sanitary inspectors are already overburdened with carrying out food safety controls in authorised bather hotels, modern restaurant and canteens, and therefore cannot check the safety of street food, too (interview, 13.01.08). As not much support can be expected in this regard from the state, street food safety largely depends on the initiatives by the vendors themselves. Unless the vendors have formally inscribed rights to use public space for food vending, it is however unlikely that they will invest in improvements of vending units, take on more responsibility for their vending site and thus work for street food safety. 7) Economic Practices: Support Street Vendors’ Entrepreneurship Another way to support the street food vendors is to enable an easier access to financial services and enhance their business skills. “The access to finance is one of the most important requirements for the establishment, operation and expansion of [informal] businesses” (UN-Habitat 2006b: 123). Due to the initiative of the Grameen Bank and BRAC, micro-credits are a prominent poverty alleviation tool in Bangladesh. Indeed, many of the interviewed street vendors mentioned that they are members in saving groups and/or that they have already received credits from NGOs or community associations, but none had access to the formal banking system. Many can also rely on financial support of their family, neighbours and business partners. Only the poorest mobile vendors face difficulties in getting credit. Yet, large business investments or paying the deposits to open a

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permanent shop are beyond the means of most (chapters 7.4.2 and 8.3.2). While the access to credit at cheap rates is important for the vendors’ businesses, one also needs to note that the urban poor often take loans for social and reproductive rather than for ‘productive’ purposes, for instance simply to pay for their daily food needs (cf. Tinker 1997; Nirathron 2006; Zingel et al. 2011). Besides the extension of micro-credit programmes in Bangladesh cities, street vendors could benefit from training of entrepreneurial skills. If capacity building programmes are brought forward to improve food safety, the street food vendors should not only receive training about adequate food handling and the use of appropriate technology, but also some basic information on accounting, management, and smart investments (UN-Habitat 2006a: 124). Supporting the street economy would not only pay off for the vendors, but also contribute to the growth of the national economy. If formally accounted for, Dhaka’s street food trade would make up ten percent of Bangladesh’s domestic product in wholesale and retail trade and almost double the domestic product of hotels and restaurants.171 It might thus not be an exaggeration to say that street vendors and other informal businesses are “the backbone of our retail economy”, as one commentator put it. Bangladesh’s “future economic growth will come from developing these [informal] businesses, not from the SMEs [small and medium enterprises] as defined by the banks and donor agencies”.172 But the street vendors only stand a realistic chance of improving their businesses and their livelihood security, if their right to work and to use public space is recognised by the state. 8) Organisational Practices: Empower Street Vendors In order to fight for their rights and participate in more general decision-making processes on the governance of urban public space, street food vendors should be empowered and enabled to join associations. While there are numerous hawkers associations in Bangladesh, they do not have a unified voice. Those that exist mostly represent the interests of hawkers of clothes and other goods, but not particularly food vendors, and are closely associated with party politics (Bhowmik 2010a). Although party leaders have now and then called for recognition of hawkers’ rights before elections, and local politicians seem to be generally sympathetic towards the street vendors’ plight, the hawkers cannot expect that policy changes are initiated by politicians. The formulation of India’s National Street Vending Policy, however, showed that vendors’ organisations can effectively lobby political parties and the administration. An advocacy coalition led by the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and the National 171 Extrapolating their average business volume (2483 BDT per day) with the 97,000 street food vendors in Dhaka shows their large economic weight (even if the number is for Dhaka only!). 87,911 million BDT per year of a domestic product of wholesale and retail trade of 876,766 million BDT (for 2009) and 44,372 million BDT for hotels and restaurants (BBS 2011a: 1). 172 ‘The SME propaganda´, The Daily Star, 09.02.2008.

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Alliance of Street Vendors in India (NASVI) played a prominent role in shaping the policy agenda that eventually changed the national legislation (cf. Bandyopadhyay 2009b; te Lintelo 2010). But the implementation of national policy on the local level is a different question (cf. Dittrich 2008; Anjaria 2010). Nonetheless, organising street vendors in traders associations has benefits for vendors and the state alike. For the hawkers, associations can serve as lobby groups that protect their rights and advocate their political interest; they can function as social welfare institutions if they implement pension or health insurance schemes;173 they might provide conflict resolution mechanisms and legal support for vendors by contracting attorneys and filing cases in court; and they might facilitate communication with established businesses, NGOs and municipal agencies and ensure that the voice of the street vendors is being heard (cf. Chen 2005; Brown & Rakodi 2006; Cross & Karides 2007). The state can benefit from vocal vendors’ associations as they can negotiate the ‘appropriate’ use of public space or food safety issues with contact persons then. In Dhaka, only two percent of the interviewed street food vendors were members in a hawkers or traders association that could represent them politically. Many vendors are very skeptical about unions and associations and their prospects to change something in the street vendors’ favour. Abdur, for instance, noted that he is not involved in a vendors association, because he generally believes that there is nothing “the small people” can do against the interests of the elite, the police and the military (interview, 18.10.2007). The local vending committees that were proposed by CAB (suggestion 4) as organisational form to administer the delineated street vending zones would consist of local bureaucrats, politicians, NGO representatives and members from vendors’ organisations. Due to the politicisation and indeed personalisation of governance regimes, I share Abdur’s sceptisicm about hawkers associations. If vending zones or similar spatial arrangements are introduced, it is highly likely that the existing informal modes of governance prevail and vending spots are allocated through the vending committees based on the hawkers’ personal economic and social capital. In turn, the poorest vendors without links to local power brokers might be excluded from the new spatial governance regimes and nobody is going to lobby for their interests. The question might then not be, whether joining an association empowers a vendor, but how these representative bodies are functioning, and whether they can (or want to) contribute to fair street food governance.

173 Provision of welfare services, insurance facilities and pensions after retirement were demands by the Bangladesh Sammilito Hawkers Parishad after the Caretake Government’s eviction drives against street venodrs in 2007 (The Daily Star, 14.03.07).

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9) Practices of Identification: Strengthen the Bengali Food Culture While street food is often portrayed in a negative light, traditional street food snacks like piaju, fuchka, chatpotti or pithas are also an expression of Bangladesh’s food culture that is highly valued by the consumers. Worldwide, Thai street food is praised for its ubiquity and taste, while Bangkok’s night markets are promoted as tourist attractions (cf. Nirathron 2006). Cross and Karrides (2007: 31) suggested that street markets can also “function as economic outlets for locally produced goods and services”, while supermarkets and restaurants offer global products, with which some consumers might not identify. Given the transformation of needs and desires in a increasingly globalised food culture, it is likely that Bangladesh will follow the food modernisation trends that can be witnessed in Thailand or India. Food distribution and preparation will become more modern, even industrialised and standardized in the future, which means more supermarkets and more fast food outlets with global foods (chapters 6.1.2 and 6.2.2). Many street vendors already capitalise on this trend and offer global food such as Coca-Cola, thai-style fried noodles or new hybrid glocal products such as shawarma wraps or kabab burgers. Yet, street vendors could also counter this trend and purposely use food from regional markets only – maybe also establish direct links to farmers cooperatives that produce ‘organic food’ – and prepare traditional local dishes. Street food could then be promoted as typical Bengali food snacks. Such a change in perspective might contribute to a strengthened local or national food identity and to profitable local or regional food markets. Moreover, it would give some street food vendors good livelihood prospects and, maybe even more important, a new legitimacy to continue their trade. In this sense, ‘Khao Bangladesh Khao’! 10) Legal and Symbolic Practices: Recognize Street Vendors and their Rights Understanding the problematic relation between street food vendors and the state is the key to understanding street food governance. In turn, according to Morales (2007: 265), “legitimacy is at the core of this relationship between merchants and the state. Vendors see the state as (il)legitimate and the state sees vendors as (il)legitimate.” Overcoming this vicious circle of reciprocal delegitimisation between the subalterns and those in power (figure 3.1; table 3.3), should then be the most promising way towards fair street food governance. It is thus of utmost importance that not only new and hopefully better techniques of governing public space and food safety are introduced, but that macro-political changes are aimed at: Slum dwellers and street food vendors have to be recognised as citizens with rights. Holston and Appadurai (1999: 2) noted that cities are the “strategic arenas for the development of citizenship”. However, in many cities of the Global South “the majority [of poor citizens] cannot expect the institutions of the state – the courts and the police especially – to respect or guarantee their individual rights, [or] arbitrate their conflicts justly” (ibid: 15).

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This is certainly the case in Dhaka. The state is neither providing services for the hawkers, nor protecting their rights, nor representing their interests. Even worse, the relation between most street food vendors and state agents is marked by distrust and fear. That is why they do not trust formal institutions either. Moreover, they have experienced that the law works against them, so they developed the disposition to resist (a habitus of resistance) to formal modes of governance. As they act informally and quietly appropriate public space, they deny the state its legitimacy (see figure 3.1). In turn, state bueraucrats defined street vending as illegal, policemen are actively curtailing vendors’ livelihoods through evictions, and state representatives contribute strongly to discursively framing the street food trade as criminal, unmodern, in the way, and unhygienic. The criminalization of the poor and excessive use of state violence against them is directly related to the privatization of security and the fragmentation of the city into elite spaces, e.g. in gated community, and spaces of the subalterns, e.g. slums (cf. Davis 2007: 95ff). The disregard of citizens’ legal rights and the illegalisation of the unwanted practices of the poor, “discredits the justice system and with it the entire project of democracy and its citizenship” (Holston & Appadurai 1999: 15). Bangladesh is member of the United Nations and adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment” (Art. 23; emphasis added). In the Constitution of Bangladesh it states that “every citizen […] shall have the right to enter upon any lawful profession or occupation and to conduct any lawful trade or business” (Art. 40; emphasis added). Street food vending is certainly ‘an unlawful occupation’ according to national and municipal laws that ought to regulate the sale of food in the public (chapter 5.3.2). Are the vendors then no citizens? And if not, do they then not have legal rights and licit claims on urban space? Whatever the answers to these questions might be, the cases of Thailand and India show that legalizing the street trade, rather than fighting it, is the first step towards recognizing people’s right to work (cf. ILO 2002b; Government of India 2004; Brown & Rakodi 2006; UN-Habitat 2006a; Bhowmik 2010b). In Bangladesh, street vendors’ right to a livelihood has to be acknowledged in formal documents, too. Street vending should be legalised and the hawkers must be safeguarded against crime and extortion. This would effectively ‘take the weapons’ out of the hands of state agents, who use their position of power to extort security money from hawkers, and who evict them to demonstrate power and sustain the system of exploitation. The vendors’ basic needs and their human rights are not only denied, but they are punished for taking their right to work and indeed their “right to the city” (Etzold 2011). The discursive marginalisation of street food vendors and their active curtailing through extortion and evictions are two sides of the same coin. They are manifestations of direct, structural and cultural violence in the relation of the state and its citizens (Etzold 2013). Street food vendors’ contribution to the urban economy, to poverty alleviation, to food security, and to the quality of urban life must be acknowledged by those in power. Some state agents play with the storyline of poverty in

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order to justify tolerance of the street trade in personal conversations, while some development agencies refer to poverty alleviation and an easy access to cheap food as important aspects. However, in official documents, media articles and personal talks the depreciative storylines on street (food) vending dominate. One might even call the obsession with food safety hegemonic. This discourse certainly contributes to “depolitizing development” (Harriss 2002) as the state’s responsibility towards its citizens, questions of equity and the contested governance of public space are completely disregarded, while hygiene, health risks and self-governance are overemphasised. All evidence from Dhaka shows that street food is indeed needed and not as dangerous as many suggest. Given its overall contribution to poverty alleviation, to food security and to the vitalisation of public space, street food vending should also get more attention by the international development community. This calls for an appreciation in policy visions that are going to affect future urban planning processes as well as development cooperation, such as Bangladesh Poverty Reduction Strategy or the National Food Policy (Government of Bangladesh 2005, 2006). Conclusion To conclude this discussion of new, maybe more fair, practices of street food governance, let me reiterate the importance of the very local politics of urban public space. If the certainly valuable policy guidelines proposed by CAB are taken as a basis for future discussions and street vending zones with a licensing system are introduced, it has to be carefully watched how vending spots are allocated. Can established vendors who have been selling at the site secure their spot? Can female vendors gain access to the site? Do mobile vendors gain or loose vending rights? Who is administering the ‘usage fees’ and how? What is being done with that money? Do the vendors get good services in return? Is the whole process of restructuring street food governance transparent and more fair thereafter, or do criminal extraction systems continue to exist? But the most relevant question is: Are very local approaches to zoning, educating and servicing the vendors a substitute for ‘bigger’ solutions that are fundamentally political as they would require a redistribution of resources, a debate about the legitimacy of state agents, and most importantly, a true recognition of all citizens’ inalienable rights. Any new urban masterplan, any street vending or food safety policy, or any poverty alleviation project, which fails to acknowledge the contestations in the fields of street food and in the local arenas of street vending, and which disregards the micro-politics and the macro-politics of street food governance is bound to fail. This book showed that Dhaka’s street food vendors deserve fair street food governance that protects them against violence and humiliation, that recognises their interests and their right to the city, and that empowers them to live a secure life in dignity.

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ANNEX Chapter 4: Research Design and Methodology: Additional Tables and Figures Field Work 1st Visit 3 weeks

2nd Visit 17 weeks

3rd Visit 4 weeks

4th Visit 5 weeks

Time Period

Feb./March 2007 April to Aug. 2007 Sept. 2007 to Jan. 2008 Feb. to July 2008 Aug./Sept. 2008 Oct. 2008 to Jan. 2009 Feb./March 2009 April to Sept. 2009

5th Visit 3 weeks

Oct./Nov. 2009 Nov. 2009 to Jan. 2010 Feb./March 2010 April to Dec. 2010 2011

till May 12 Dec. 2012 32 weeks in Dhaka

Major Purpose of Field Work / Data Analysis & Conceptual Work Family socialisation, academic education, previous travel experience, through which own values, preconceptions and categories were formed Opening workshop of research programme; meetings with counterparts; orientation in Dhaka, visit of potential study sites; observations; explorative interviews, ... Conceptual work on vulnerability, resilience, food systems, food security, megacities and Bangladesh; preparation of next research steps, … Bangla course; explorative & semi-structured interviews with street vendors, consumers, experts; observations, counting/mapping at different sites; recruitment & training of research assistants, … Data entry, selective analysis, summary of preliminary results for the application of further funding; conceptual work on informality and Bourdieu; contribution to publications; preparation of next steps, … Semi-structured interviews with street vendors at various study sites; observations, counting and mapping during Ramadan, … Data entry & selective analysis; conceptual work on informality and urban food systems ; contribution to publications; preparation of Food Consumers Survey, … In-depth interviews and Venn diagrammes with street food vendors; recruitment and training of interviewers; selection of study sites for, pre-test and start of Food Consumers Survey, … Data entry, data cleaning & selective analysis of consumers survey; conceptual work on violence-vulnerability-nexus, on institutions and on public spaces; preparation of Street Food Vendors Survey, … Selection of study sites for, pre-test and start of Street Food Vendors Survey (local supervision by two experienced research assistants) Data cleaning & selective analysis of vendors survey; conceptual work; preparation of next research steps, … In-depth interviews and Venn diagrammes with vendors; expert interviews; observation of changes at different vending sites; … Data entry & analysis; finalisation of articles on food security & health, on street vendors and public space, on violence, livelihoods and street vending; start of writing the PhD-thesis, … systematic data analysis with SPSS & Atlas.ti, writing PhD-thesis; finalisation of diverse articles and book chapters Systematic data (re)analysis with Atlas.ti and finalisation of thesis Dissertation, public defense of PhD-thesis Too many weeks spent ‘thinking in circles’ in Bonn

Tab. 4.1: Cyclical Process of Field Work and Conceptual Reflections

350 Name of Study Site

The Politics of Street Food Semi-structured Interviews

In-depth Interviews

Mapping

Counting

Structured Surveys

SF consum ers

experts, regulators, key informants

SF vendors

SF vendors

Shops at site (No. of days)

Shops at site (No. of days)

Street Food Vendors

Food Consumers

Dhaka Medical College Hospital

33

3

23

12

7

10

20

-

Dhaka University Campus

11

2

12

4

2

2

-

-

Chawk Bazar (market)

5

-

4

-

2

3

-

-

Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal

-

3

7

4

3

4

20

-

Saidabad Bus Terminal

-

-

16

-

-

2

20

-

Kamalapur Train Station

-

-

10

-

-

Islambagh

5

2

7

3

3

Dhanmondi

-

-

2

-

-

Gulshan 1

-

-

-

-

-

Bishil Sarang Bari Bustee

-

-

2

2

Other Slums

-

-

-

No specific study site

-

14

54

24

TOTAL

3

20

-

-

-

1

20

-

-

1

20

25

-

-

-

-

180

-

-

-

-

-

-

73

22

17

26

120

205

Tab. 4.2: Applied Methods to Collect Primary Data in Dhaka (Oct. 2007 to March 2010)

351

Annex Date

Organisation

Name and Position

9 Expert Interviews 25.09.07

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)

Dr. Mustafizur Rahman (Director)

04.10.07

Dr. Abul Barkat (Executive Director)

06.11.07, 07.01.08

Human Development Resource Centre (HDRC) Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB)

10.11.07

Dhaka University, Economics Department

Prof. Dr. Shafique uz-Zaman

30.12.07

The Daily Star (English Newspaper in Bangl.) Coalition for the Urban Poor (CUP)

Ahmede Hossain (Journalist)

Internat. Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR, B) Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS)

Dr. Aliya Naheed (Research Associate)

Centre of Urban Studies (CUS)

Prof. Dr. Nazrul Islam (Director)

02.01.08 14.01.08 09.07.10 (in Bonn) 26.02.10 31.12.07

Quazi Faruque (General Secretary), Quazi Fazlul Haque (Programme Co-ordinator)

Mostafa Quaium Khan (Director)

Dr. Anwara Begum (Senior Research Fellow)

11 Interviews with State Agents (Experts and/or Formal Regulators) Dhaka University (DU)

Md. Ashraf Ali Khan (Director of Public Relations) SM Kamrul Ahsan (Security Officer) *

13.01.08

Dhaka University (DU)

31.12.07

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP)

02.01.08

Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP)

06.01.08

Dhaka City Corporation (DCC)

07.01.08

DCC, Urban Planning Department

Anonymous (Officer in Charge at Shabag Police Station, university campus) Anonymous (Sergeant in Charge at Nilkhet Police Station, univ. campus) Mariam Begum Sima (Ward Commissioner, Ward 56, BNP-Party) Md. Serajul Islam (Chief Urban Planner)

13.01.08

DCC, Health Department

Dr. Md. Showkat Ali (Director)

03.01.08

Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH)

10.06.09

DMCH

Brigadeer General Dr. Md. Abdus Shahid Khan (Director) Anonymous (Gateman, Security Guard)

10.06.09

ANSARs (Bangladesh Government’s Special Discliplinary Force) Bangladesh Inland Waterways Transport Association (BIWTA)

Anonymous (Assistant Commanders of Anser-Team employed at DMCH) * Anonymous (BIWTA Chairman responsible for Sadarghat ferry terminal)

22.02.09 03.03.09

4 Interviews with local Key Informants -

Anonymous (Political Leader, Lalbagh)

17.02.09

-

22.02.09

-

03.03.09

-

Anonymous (Ferry Boat Manager at the BIWTA ferry terminal, Sadarghat) Anonymous (Ticket officer at the BIWTA ferry terminal, Sadarghat) * Anonymous (Manager of a local community park in Islambagh) *

Tab. 4.3: Interviews with Experts, Regulators and Key Informants

352

The Politics of Street Food

Key Questions for the Semi-structured Expert Interviews Food System Actors and Activities, Food Security: What kind of street food is consumed in Dhaka? What changes in SF products have there been in past 50 years or so? What kinds of SF vending patterns exist? What are the most important vending locations of SF in Dhaka? What changes in SF-vending patterns have there been in past 50 yrs? How did the socio-economic conditions of SF vendors change? How would you rate the importance of SF vending for Dhaka’s labour market? How many vendors sell SF in Dhaka (estimate)? [increase/decrease] What kind street food consumption habits exist in Dhaka? [changes] Who consumes, who does not consume street food, and who relies primarily on street food for their food security?? What is the nutritional, cultural and social value of street food? Regulation of the Street Food Trade: - How is the SF trade regulated? - Which policies, laws or norms regulate street food vending in Bangladesh? - On which sites is SF vending allowed in Dhaka/ Ward XY, and were not? - How do formal institutions try to regulate/influence the SF trade? - How did formal policies and tolerance towards the SF trade change over time? - Which informal (illegal) mechanisms regulate street vending and public spaces? - How did informal arrangements that structure the SF trade and public space change in the past 20 years (or longer)? - How can the existing modes of regulating street food vending be changed in order to secure vendors’ livelihoods and improve food safety for consumers?

Key Questions for the Semi-structured Interviews with Street Food Vendors The content of the semi-structured interviews changed considerably according to the stage of my research, the specific situation of the hawkers, whether I had spoken with them before, etc. An example of a “Street Food Vendor’s Profile”, which contains guiding questions on the life, the business situation and the major livelihood risks for a vendor, can be accessed via my “Research Gate”-profile (www.researchgate.net) or can be send to interested persons upon request. Please contact me on [email protected].

Street Food Vendors Survey and Food Consumers Survey The questionnaires can be accessed via my “Research Gate”-profile or can be send to interested persons upon request. Please contact me on [email protected].

Annex Agents in Field of SF Vending - actor: expert - actors: association - actors: city authority - actors: family - actors: food consumer - actors: food trader - actors: friends - actors: hawker - actors: mastaan - actors: middlemen - actors: NGO - actors: police - actors: political leader - actors: security guard - actors: state authority - actors: street food vendor Fields and Arenas of SF Vending - arena - emergence - arena access - allocation vending spots - arena: competition among vendors - arena: food market - arena: political changes - arena: social relations - arena: public space - field of power - field: food system - field: labour – livelihoods - gender - globalisation - SF consumers - SF consumers: need - SF consumers: pleasure - SF suppliers - SF items - SF items - iftar - seasonality - Ramadan

Livelihoods & Styles of Vending - cultural capital - education - economic capital: credit - economic capital: business - economic capital: expenditure - economic capital: housing - economic capital: income - economic capital: possessions - social capital - bonding - social capital - bridging - social capital - linking - symbolic capital - access to formal labour market - employment - alternative incomes to street vending - every day routine - exchange: advice & help - exchange: food - exchange: labour - exchange: money - food security - freedom - future plans - health condition - help in times of crisis - land ownership - migration - trajectories - SF style - mobile - SF style - permanent - SF style - semi-mobile - SF style - semi-permanent Vulnerability of SF Vendors - vulnerability: adaptation - vulnerability: coping - vulnerability: exposure - vulnerability: human insecurity - vulnerability: sensitivity - vulnerability: stress

Tab. 4.4: Codes used to Analyse Qualitative Data

353 Street Food Governance - conflict resolution - institutional bricolage - institutions: formal - institutions: informal - institutions: mode of governance/rules in effect - legalization-formalization - protection (patron-client) - violence: direct physical - violence: eviction - violence: extortion chanda - resistance - negotiations - resistance - open protest - resistance - quiet encroachment - symbolic appropriation - SF solutions – policy Discourses on Street Food - story line: corruption - story line: culture - story line: functional city - story line: hygiene - story line: illegality - story line: modernity - story line: poverty - story line: security - story line: utility - SF attitudes (negative) - SF attitudes (positive) Street Food Vending sites - SF vending sites - Study Site - Bishil - Study Site - Chawk Bazar - Study Site - University - Study Site - DMCH - Study Site - Islambagh - Study Site - Sadarghat

354

The Politics of Street Food

Name of Slum (administrative unit) Kamranginchar (Dhaka Union) Faidabad, Abdullapur (Dakshin Khan, Uttara; Dhaka Union) Fulbaria (Harirampur, Turag, Dhaka Union) Bhuiapara Road (Khilgaon, DCC) Begunbari-Tilatek (Kalshi, Pallabi, DCC) Alam Bag (Shyampur, West Jurain, DCC) Adabar (Mohammadpur, DCC) Bishil & Sarang Bari Bastee (Mirpur, DCC) Kunipara (Tejgaon, DCC) TOTAL

Area in acre

Total Pop. in Slum

No. of HHs

No. of interviews (Food Survey)

57,400

No. of interviews (Health Survey) 211

456

282,400

6

6,900

1,380

180

18

6

3,100

600

201

21

8

12,000

2,400

217

22

19

16,000

4,000

176

18

13

30,000

5,000

244

25

12

5,500

1,100

176

31

15

10,000

2,500

253

25

30 ~565

30,000 ~395,900

5,000 ~79,400

247 1938

25 207 (205 valid)

22

Tab. 4.5: Information on Study Sites of Food Consumers’ Survey Source: Area, population and number of households in slums in the year 2005 are drawn from a database of the Centre for Urban Studies’ 2005 Slum Survey (CUS 2006). Note: Given the total number of households in the slums and the number of completed interviews, and a confidence level of 95%, the total confidence interval (margin of error) is 6.8. Name of Site

Site Classification

Date of Survey

Sadar Ghat Ferry Terminal Saidabad Bus Terminal

National travel hub

Islambag Bishil Sarang Bari Bustee DMCH & Shaheed Minar Gulshan 1

No. of completed interviews

26.10.09

No. of Food Vending Units (at survey date) ~ 80

National travel hub

04.11.09

~ 100

20

Industrial production site & slum Slum settlement

22.10.09

~ 30

20

~ 30

20

25.10.09

20

Public square & street

01.11.09

~ 90

20

Public square, street & traffic hub

02.11.09

~ 60

20

~ 390

120

TOTAL

Tab. 4.6: Information on Study Sites of Street Vendors’ Survey Note: Given the total number of street food vendors at the sites, the number of completed interviews, and a confidence level of 95%, the confidence interval (margin of error) is 7.5.

355

Annex

Pop. Growth (in percent)

Chapter 5: The Social Field of Street Food in Dhaka 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

9,6

10,3

9,6 7,7

3,9

7,1

7,0

4,3

4,6

4,2

4,1

3,4

3,0

2,9 2,7

1950- 1955- 1960- 1965- 1970- 1975- 1980- 1985- 1990- 1995- 2000- 2005- 2010- 2015- 202025 20 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 2000 05 10 15 (est.) (est.) (est.)

Fig. 5.2: Population Growth Rate of Dhaka Data source: UN 2012

Bangladesh

1973/741 72.7

1983/842 1988/892 1991/923 1995/963 20003 20053 62.6 47.8 56.6 50.1 48.9 40.0

20104 31.5

Rural areas

73.7

61.9

47.8

58.7

47.1

52.3

43.8

35.2

Urban areas

63.2

67.7

47.6

42.7

49.7

35.2

28.4

21.3

Dhaka Division

-

-

-

-

-

46.7

32

30.5

Dhaka City

-

-

50.0 5

-

55.02

28.2

20.2 18.0 (in percent)

Tab.5.2: Poverty Rates in Bangladesh and Dhaka Note: Share of population below the upper poverty line (headcount; cost of basic needs method) Data source: 1 (Kumar Das 2003: 64), 2 (Pryer 2003: 174), 3 (BBS 2007c: 57), 4 (BBS 2011c: 62), 5 (Islam 2005: 30)

Bangladesh‘s population Bangladesh’s poor Dhaka’s pop. (DSMA) Dhaka’s poor*

1974

1984

1989

1991

1995

2000

69,567

89,828

102,682

107,769

115,059

129,592 140,588 148,692

50,575

56,232

49,082

60,997

57,645

63,370

56,233

46,838

~ 6,200

6,844

8,332

10,285

12,555

14,648

2,951

2,922

4,141

2,900 2,536 2,636 (in thousand of people)

1,607 1,016

~ 4,300 2,911

2005

2010

Tab. 5.3: Number of People below the Upper Poverty Line Note: As contrasting poverty rates are mentioned in the literature, the absolute number of Dhaka’s poor has been calculated on the basis of the poverty rates for the urban areas (until 1995) and the poverty rates of urban areas in Dhaka Division 2000 to 2010 (BBS 2007, 2011b). Data source: UN 2012 and tables 5.2

356

The Politics of Street Food

Chapter 6: Street Food Vending and Urban Food Security Type of Employment Relation1 national rural

Formal employment in private sector

4,460 9.4%

Formal employment in public sector

1,357 2.9%

Informal employment

41,538 87.7%

2,899 8.0%

urban SMA 931 1,988 18.1% 32.7%

33,233 4,223 4,082 92.0% 81.9% 67.3%

Sector of Employment 2 national

rural

urban

Dhaka SMA3

7,368 16.6%

4,748 14.1%

2,579 24.1%

1,022 36.9%

1,877 4.2%

861 2.6%

1,016 9.5%

393 14.2%

35,078 79.1%

27,951 7,127 83.2% 66.5%

1,349 48.7%

(in thousands) Tab.6.1: Informal and Formal Labour Relations in Bangladesh Datasources: All sources draw on Bangladesh’s Labour Force Surveys (LFS), but use data from different years. Maligalig et al. (2009) used the LFS 2005 and the aforementioned ‘informal employment relations’ definition; 2 BBS (2004: 117) is the LFS 2002-03. 3 The study by the World Bank (2007: 102) used the LFS 2000. The data provided here by BBS and the World Bank is based on the aforementioned ‘informal sector’ definition. Maligalig et al. and BBS used the labour force definition of employed persons 15 years or older, whereas the World Bank refers to an extended labour force definition of employed persons 10 years or older. 1

Estimate of the Number of Street Vendors in Dhaka The United Nations (2012) estimate that 14.93 million people lived in the megacity Dhaka (Statistical Metropolitan Area – DSMA) in the year 2010. According to the Labour Force Survey 2002-03 of Bangladesh’s Bureau of Statistics (BBS 2004: 138), of 44,322,290 working people (older than 15 years) in Bangladesh 467,834 are street vendors by major occupation; that is a share of 1.06 %. With 1.4 % this share is higher for Bangladesh’s urban areas (150,824 vendors) than in the rural areas, where the total number is bigger (0.9% or 317,010). 1.2 % of working men are street vendors (413,623), whereas only 0.5 % of working women (54,210) took up this profession (in urban areas it is 1.5 % and 1% respectively). Taking into account the labour force participation rate of 54.5% in Dhaka (see table 6.2) then 5,558,000 of 14,930,000 people are working (and older than 15 years) in the DSMA in 2010. If 1.41 % of these 8,136,850 working people depend on street vending for their main income, and we assume there is only street vendor per dependent household, there are 78,638 street vendors in DSMA. According to the 2001 Population Census (BBS 2007: 377), of 1,666,181 households in Dhaka District, 10,979 households depend on hawking as major source of household income; this is a share of 0.66 %. For only the urban areas in Dhaka District the respective figures are 10,739 households (0.7% of 1,522,801 urban hh; and 0.67% of the total urban population); and for only the core city (DCC) 7,319 households have a hawker as the main bread winner (also 0.7% of 1,044,201 households in DCC-area). As follows, 0.7 % of 14,930,000 people (UN, 2010: 43) equals 104,510 hawkers in DSMA.

Annex

357

In 1995 an international team of academics conducted the ‘urban livelihoods study’ in slum agglomerations in Mohammadpur thana in Eastern Dhaka. A survey was conducted in 843 slum households (Salway 2003; Pryer 2003). According to this study 64% of the slum population (older than 15 years) is working (Pryer 2003: 72). According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 69.3% of the urban population is older than 15 years (BBS 2011: 13). As follows, roughly 2,476,500 of 5,583,800 people living in slums are working (pop. estimate for 2010 based on UN 2012). According to Salway et al. (2003: 885) 6.4% of the working slum dwellers in Dhaka are street vendors by their main occupation (6.8% of 781 working men and 5.8% of 452 working women). The Centre of Urban Studies 2005 Slum census, however, finds that only 3.7% of the slum dwellers work as hawkers (CUS 2006:48). As follows, the estimate of the number of street vendors living in Dhaka’s slums alone ranges between 91,600 and 158,500. Comparing these estimates that are based on labour force surveys, population census and two slum surveys, and considering Dhaka’s enormous population growth, one can rightly assume that at least 80,000 and maybe even up to 150,000 street vendors roam the streets of the megacity and sell clothes, household utensils, books, unprepared food such as vegetables or fruits, or prepared street food snacks and beverages.

Estimate of the Number of Street Food Vendors in Dhaka The absolute number and share of street food vendors amongst all hawkers can be estimated with help of slum population data and our own surveys. According to the CUS (2006: 21), out of the 9.14 million people living in Dhaka (DMA1) in the year 2005, 3.42 million people (or 37.4%) were living in 4,966 slum clusters all over the city. 96 % of the slum dwellers (3,287,000 persons) live in normal households, whereas 3.9 % live in mass accommodations (134,000 persons). According to our Street Food Vendors Survey, 68.8% of Dhaka’s street food vendors2 live in slums: 55.7% in normal households and 13.1% in mass accommodation (so called mess) and 31.2 % outside of slums. This was calculated through the proxy of housing conditions: 78.5% of street food vendors live in a rented room, flat or house, 4.7% in their own house, 13.1% in a mess and 4% on the street. For the purpose of these estimates, those who live in their own pucca house or in a rented pucca room/flat/house (27.1% of all) are not considered to live in slum-like conditions, because they live in comparatively less dense housing arrangements and have better access to basic services. Data from our Food Consumption Survey, in turn, suggests that 4.9 % of the slum households in Dhaka depend on street food vending as their main source of income. Taking into account Dhaka’s population growth I estimate for the year 2010:

–

Of roughly 5,583,800 slum dwellers living in 1,100,000 households, at least 53,900 families depend on street food vending as the main source of income. If each of these households is supported by only one vendor, then there are 53,900 street food vendors living in normal slum households and around 237,200 slum dwellers depend on them: If there are 14,930,000 persons in DSMA in 2010 (UN 2012) and the share of

1

The area under consideration by the CUS, the Dhaka Metropolitan Area (DMA, 307 sq.km), is smaller than the area which is used in the UN statistics, the Dhaka Statistical Metropolitan Area (DSMA, 1350 sq.km)(Islam 2005: 8f). Here only ‘real´ street food vendors are considered, which excludes those vendors selling from permanent consolidated (pucca) shops, and which then includes permanent (kutcha) vendors, semi-permanent, semi-mobile and mobile food vendors.

2

358

–

–

– – –

The Politics of Street Food

the slum population of the city population is 37.4% (CUS 2006: 20), then the total slum population in 2010 would be 5,583,820. If, as in 2005, the share of the slum dwellers living in normal households (hh) is 96.1% (5,366,051 people) and the average number of person per slum hh is 4.877 (CUS 2006: 37), the number of slum hh in 2010 would be 1,100,277. If 4.9% of these hh depend on street food vending as the main income and only one hh member is a vendor, then the number of street food vendors living in slums is 53,913. According to our vendors survey the vendors living in slum-like conditions have on average 4.4 people per household; 237,219 people then depend on them. Of about 218,000 people living in mass accommodations in Dhaka’s slums in 2010, around 12,600 are street food vendors, who then support around 46,500 people: If, as in 2005, the share of the slum dwellers living in a mess is 3.9% (CUS 2006: 37), the total number of slum dwellers living in such mass accommodation in 2010 would be 217,768. According to my vendors’ survey, 18.9% of the vendors living in slum-like conditions live in a mess; that is then 12,564 street food vendors living in mass accomodation. As on average their direct family (whether in Dhaka or not) consists of 3.7 persons, 46,487 people then depend on these street food vendors living in slums in a mess. If 66,477 street food vendors live within slums, at least 30,200 street food vendors live outside of slums (in old Dhaka, in lower middle-class living quarters, on the street), and in turn at least 141,7200 people depend on them: Based on our SF vendors’ survey, the share of SF vendors living in slums is 68.8% against 31.2% not living in slums. If we continue this calculation, and assume that 66,477 vendors live in slums, there are 30,147 street food vendors who live outside slums, either in other/better living arrangements all over Dhaka, but also on the street. As on average, 4.7 people live in a household in DSMA (BBS 2007: 26), the number of people depending on them is 141,689. Thus, the total number of street food vendors living and working within the megacity Dhaka (DSMA) is around 96,600. That is 0.65 % of Dhaka’s population, 1.2 % of Dhaka’s labour force, and roughly 1.8 % of informal employment relations. Thus, at least 425,500 people or 2.85 % of Dhaka’s population directly depend on the income generated by street food vendors (that is forty times the number of people depending on hawkers according to the 2001 Population Census (BBS 2007: 377). Multiplying 96,600 street food vendors with the vendor’s average number of customers (84 per day according to our Vendor’s Survey) and assuming that each customer is taking only one street food item per day leads to the following estimate: 8,116,400 people or 54.4 % of Dhaka’s population take street food every day.

359

Annex

Cities

Africa

Latin America

Asia

Dhaka / Bangladesh Manikganj / Bangladesh Delhi / India

Total population a (2010) ~14,930,000

No. of street vendors ~115,000

Share of street vendors of pop. b ~ 0.77 %

No. of Data Sources street food vendors ~ 97,000 own estimate for 2010

~ 38,000 *

?

?

~ 550

22,157,000

~ 260,000 [160,000 600,000] ~ 250,000 (300,000)

~ 0.13 % ~ 1.37 % (~ 1.49 %)

~ 20,000 [16,000 to 60,000] ? [ 25,000]

Tinker 1997 for 1983

Mumbai / India

20,041,000

Calcutta / India

15,552,000

~150,000

~ 1,05 %

? [ 150,000]

Hyderabad / India Colombo / Sri Lanka Kathmandu / Nepal Bangkok / Thailand

~ 6,751,000

~ 45,000

~ 0.75 %

~12,500

656,000 (2007) 1,037,000

~ 9,000

~ 1.38 %

?

Kumar & Bhowmik 2010 for 2001 [te Lintelo 2009 for 2009] Gov. of India 2004; Bhowmik 2007 for 2004; [Bhat&Waghray 2000 for 1996] Gov. of India 2004; Bhowmik 2007 for 2004; Anjaria 2010 for 2010; [Bhat&Waghray 2000 for 1994] Wipper & Dittrich 2007; Dittrich 2008 for 2007 Bhowmik 2005 for 2002

~ 30,000

~ 3.68 %

?

Timalsina 2007 for 2006

6,976,000

~ 100,000

~ 1.57 % [~ 1.51 %]

Singapore

4,837,000

?

?

Kuala Lumpur / Malaysia Manila / Philippines Beijing / China Mexico City / Mexico

1,519,000

~ 47,000

~ 3.60 %

11,628,000

~ 50,000

~ 0.50 %

12,385,000

?

?

~ 72,000

19,460,000 8,500,000

~ 30,000 (~98,000) [275,000] ~ 79,000

~ 0.16 % (~0.58%) [~1.64%] ~ 1.08 %

?

8,941,000 3,090,000

~ 360,000 ~ 49,000

~ 5.06 % ~ 1.71 %

? ?

3,349,000

~ 202,000

~ 6.09 %

?

2,879,000

~ 19,000

~ 0.91 %

~ 10,000

Bogota / Colombia Lima / Peru Caracas / Venezuela Dar es Salaam / Tanzania Durban / South Africa

~ 26,000 Bhowmik 2005 for 2001 ( ~25,000) (Nirathron 2006 for [120,000] 2005) [Bhat&Waghray 2000 for 1987] ~ 23,000 Bhat & Waghray 2000 for 1988 ~ 16,500 Bhowmik 2005 for 2000 [~28,500] [Bhat & Waghray 2000 for 1993] ? Bhowmik 2005 for 2001 Bhat & Waghray 2000 for 1990 Crossa 2009 for 2008; (Wildner 2003 for 1996) [ILO 2002c for 1990s] Donovan 2008 for 2003 Roever 2006 for 2002 Garcia-Rincon 2007 for 2001 Nnkya 2006 for 2005 (ILO 2002c: 53, based on Lund 1998) for 1997

Tab. 6.4: The Number of Street (Food) Vendors in Selected Cities Notes: a The total population data refers to estimations/projections from the UN (UN 2010: File b F12) for the year 2010, except the case of Manikganj, where it is 1983. If data for pop. and for street vendors were unavailable for the same year, data of the closest year (max. 2 yrs.) was used.

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The Politics of Street Food

Glossary of Street Food Items in Dhaka Food & Drinks "Full" Rice & Roti Meals Small "dry" rice dishes Biriyani Tehari Khichuri Fried Noodles Rotis w. fried Egg Soup

Roti/Ruti Halim

Roasted Meat Kabab Other dishes Chickpea Dishes Chana Boot Chatpotti Fuchka Vilpuri /Vhalpuri Puri, Pastries, Fried Dumplings Puri/Poori Shumucha /Samosa Singhara Beguni Fuluri Pakora/ Pakura Alur Chop Piaju Alur Chips Chicken Roll / Vegetable Roll Dimer Chops

Description/examples of street food categories 1. Dishes "Full" meal consisting of rice and/or Ruti, Fish or Meat, Curries, Vegetables and Lenses. Dishes are either prepared on-site, at the vendor’s home or in a separate kitchen: e.g. Fish Curry/Maser Torkari “Dry” rice dishes that are served from one large pot, usually prepared at home of VU-owner, served without dhal, e.g.: Tehari, Khichuri Fragrant Fried rice: dish of aromatic rice with beef, mutton, or chicken and characteristic spices; for Iftar/at special festivals sold in paper boxes Fried rice: Fragrant dish of long-grained aromatic rice combined with beef, mutton, or chicken and a mixture of characteristic spices. Tasty dish of mixed rice, lentils and potatoes Thai-style fried noodles came up quite recently in Bangladesh. They are usually sold from large push-carts and are prepared on-site Rotis served with fried egg and vegetables are popular for breakfast; many food stalls that also sell full meals serve ruti in the morning Flat bread, baken/fried on a large pan over a kerosene or gas stove Soup of dal, rice, oil, fried onions, meat (normally beef or mutton, sometimes chicken); often eaten with/after iftar Beef or Mutton Kebab: roasted meat, sometimes eaten for/with Iftar [during Ramadan, beef, mutton, chicken are preferred over fish ], e.g. Muri Vorta or Bora Paper Kholay, … 2. Snacks Snacks served in small portions that have Chickpeas as main ingredients Cooked and fried chickpeas (white), often part of Iftar Cooked and fried chickpeas (black), often part of Iftar Small dish made of mashed white chickpeas (chana), mashed potato, green chillis, onions and slices of eggs; served with tamarind sauce. Spicy Snack: Small hollow balls made of chickpea flour are filled with some mashed white chickpea (chana), mashed potato, onions, Green Chilli (Kacha Morich) and other spices; served with tamarind sauce Small fried pastry shells (puri) stuffed with Chana, cucumber, onion, spices; served with tamarind sauce; very popular snack on DU campus Dough balls, stuffed pastries and dumplings/fritters that are fried in hot oil either on-site, in a kitchen/food stall or at home of vendor. Many dumplings are sold on the street during Ramadan as Iftari Small round fritters, filled with dhal, and some kind of cheese Triangular-shaped pastry filled with vegetables, than fried Fatty balls (pastry) filled with mashed potato, vegetables Eggplant fritters: Pastry filled with Eggplant (aubergine); vegetable is dipped in beson and then fried in soyabean oil; often part of Iftar Fried vegetable dippling Fried vegetable dippling: Ingredients dipped in chickpea-flour, then deepfried as small balls; served as snacks or appetizers; often as Iftari Mashed potato, green chilli, onions dipped in chickpea-flour-dough, stirfried Fatty dippling made of onion and chickpea flour; often part of Iftar Sliced potato dipped in chickpea-flour-dough and stir-fryed Popular fried pastry filled with chicken or vegetables; originally from the UK, but know common in all South Asia Pastry filled with boiled egg

Annex

361

Muri&Chanachur All Snacks with Muri and/or Chanachur as major ingredients Muri Puffed rice Rice prepared in a specific way, so that it is crispy, puffy and light, and preserved; Important component of Iftar Jhal Muri Mix of muri, Chanachur, roasted chick peas, onions sold in plastic bags or from special rickshaws with a glas top Chanachur Crunch spicy snack. slices of tomato, onions, chickpeas, Oil mixed with some spices and green chillies Ghugmni Chanachur and jhalmuri mix "Steamed", baked or fried small round cakes made from rice flour Pitas Chitoy Pita Savoury rice cake. Dough is baked in small covered pans; weak own taste; served with Vorta (kind of a fish paste/dipping) Vapa Pita Sweet rice cake. Rice flour mixed with gur and pieces of coconut and “steamed” in a form over boiling water; very popular during winter Teler / Telur Pita Small fried dough balls, fried in a lot of oil in a pan Variety of sweet and/or sour chutneys or pickles, e.g. Achar, … Pickles All kinds of raw, peeled or roasted nuts, e.g. Badam (roasted peanuts) Nuts & Popcorn Dim (eggs) from chicken, ducks, or other birds Boiled Eggs Snacks that are processed and fully-packaged by companies, not by venFully-packaged dors themselves, like potato chips, salty crackers, also Chanachur Snacks Other salty or spicy snacks sold on the street Other snacks Doi Bora Salty flat cakes made from atta flour; often served in Matha with spices 3. Bakery Products Bread rolls (also called pauruti) and loafs of bread as well as biscuits and Bread, Cake cakes that are produced in local bakeries in Dhaka, which distribute them (not packaged) to street vendors, in particular tea vendors Fully-packaged biscuits produced in Bangladesh; hygenically sealed; sold Biscuits (fullyin small grocery shops and from pushcart-vendors on the street packaged) 4. Sweets & Ice cream Long fried sweat curls (jelapi) and other sweets that are fried Fried sweets Jelapi Very fatty and sweat little rolls, which were fried in oil; important part of Iftar (fast-breaking in the evening) during Ramadan Other local sweets Other local sweets (Misty) Papri Small round plates/ biscuits of peanuts and sugar Balusha Small round balls; very sweet Moa Balls of sweetened Muri Chocolates, and other sweets; processed and fully-packaged by larger Fully-packaged companies sweets Ice cream processed and fully-packaged by local Ice-cream companies, e.g. Ice Cream fully-packaged Igloo; sold by vendors on commission for Ice-cream companies, not packaged Ice cream produced locally, served by the scoup, often made by vendors themselves; often simply frozen curd or fruit juices 5. Milk Products Milk (dud) and cream (noni), often heated on-site and served for immediMilk ate consumption Curd drinks served for immediate consumption or sold in (re)filled notCurd Drinks sealed bottles Matha Milk curd drink (salty, sweety) Borhani Milk curd drink (salty, spicy) Cheese Ponir Large pieces of cheese, not fully-packaged, sold on the street 6. Fruits & Vegetables Banana Kola Sold by the piece by “Kola-walas”, important and popular snack for all people; available from every tea&snack-vendor

362

The Politics of Street Food

Other whole fruits Malta Boroi Kamranga Angur Chopped fruits Anarosh Tormuj Pepe Amra Anar Jambura Peara Dates Khejur Cucumber/Carrot Shosha Gujar / Gajor Corn Votta Cha

Tea

Bottled water & Softdrinks

Water Juice

Pani Shorbot

Sugarcane Juice Akher Rosh Coconut Juice Cigarettes Paan-Shupari

Fruits that are sold whole, not chopped into pieces, e.g. apples, … Similar look to Oranges (but with a different taste and core) Small round sweet or sour native fruits in different varieties Starshaped green fruit, tastes sour Grapes Fruits that are chopped into pieces on-site for immediate consumption Pineapple Watermelon Papaya Elefant Apple Granat Apples (sold as whole or cut open for immediate consumption) Pomelo, grapefruit Guave, cut open and spread with salt and chilli Sweetened Dates. The dates are conserved in cooked Gur (Date sugar); imported from the Middle East, particularly important during Ramadan Chopped pieces sold on street for immediate consumption Cucumber; important component of Iftar Carrots, peeled, mostly sold by young boys who walk around with them Corn/maize pieces grilled on pushcarts or semi-permanently installed grills (mainly available during winter) 7. Beverages / Drinks Tea prepared on-site in kettles on kerosene stove, served with sugar, canned milk, or pieces of ginger/Adar. Most often local biscuits, bread rolls, cake, bananas, cigarettes and paan-shupari are sold from same shop. Mobile vendors sell tea prepared at home/in food stalls from-tea flasks, and offer biscuits and cigarettes too. Sealed water-, soft-drinks-bottles and packaged juice (mango, orange) are sold along with fully-packaged snacks and sweets, etc. from mostly permanent shops. Many international brands of soft drinks like Coca Cola, 7up, and some Bengali soft Drinks like Mojo, Lebu, RC Cola, RC lemon, etc. are sold. Sealed water (different Bengali brands). Coca-cola is also sold from special Rickshaws. Local/ DWASA water that is (re)filled in small plastic bottles and sold for immediate consumption; many street restaurants and tea-/snack-vendors offer their costumers water from 10 - 20 l water drums for free Juice/Shorbot that is made with local/DWASA water, juice powder/bushi or sirup; in summer served with crushed-ice; June-August fresh mango juice is also available from the street made by pressing sugar cane rods with a manual or motorised pressing machine, which is mounted on back of a rickshaw-van; in summer served with crushed-ice; served per glass Coconut (dab) is freshly cut open and served with a straw; sold mainly from rickshaw-vans or from vendors sitting on the ground 8. Other Cigarettes from national & international companies, locally self-made cigarettes (Biris); sold from every tea-&snacks-vendor and from mobile hawkers along with Paan-Shupari, pieces of Shupari-nut wrapped in betel leave; chewed together with Chun, a calcium-chalk-paste; sometimes sold with extra flavours

Tab 6.12: Glossary of Street Food Items

363

Annex sold on the street Categories of ready-prepared Food

2006

2007

2008

sold in bather hotel or shop 2008

Dishes Bowl or plate of rice (small plate)

3

4

5

Roti / Pooratha (per piece)

2

3 or 4

4

4

bowl of dhal (small bowl)

2 or 3

2 or 3

5-6

8-10

portion of fish curry (with small fishes) (small bowl) portion of fish curry – sold from footpath vendor to Rickshaw pullers (small bowl) portion of chicken curry (small bowl)

10

15

20

25-35

8-10

10-15

-

15

20

30

30-50

portion of vegetables (small bowl)

5

8 or 10

10

10-15

2 or 3 Rotis served with vegetables (a common breakfast) 2 or 3 Rotis served with fried egg (dim bhaji) (a common breakfast) Halim, a specific soup (different bowl sizes)

5

7

9

10

7

10

13

14

5 or 10

10 or 15

20 or 30

20 or 30

5

5

6

8

Boot : mashed chickpeas (per little paperbag)

5

5

6

not available

Chatpotti: mixed chickpeas and potatoes with spices (little plate) Fuchka: little puri-shell filled with chickpeas, potatoes, spices (little plate) Puri (fritters)(per piece)

10

20

25

30-40

5

10

12-15

25-50

Beef Kabab (roasted Meat)

6-7

Snacks

1

2-3

3-4

3-4

3-4

3-4

2

3

4

3

3 or 5

5

not available

2

2 or 3

6

not available

3

5

5

not available

8

10

12

not available

Samucha / Samosa (per piece) Singhara (per piece) Jhal-muri: puffed rice with chilies and tamarind sauce (per little paperbag) Chitoy Pitha: baked small rice cakes (per piece) Vapa Pitha: "steamed" small rice cakes (per piece) Teler / Telur Pitha: fried small rice cakes (per piece) Boiled chicken eggs (per piece)

5

6

8

not available

Raw or raosted peanuts (badam) (per little paperbag, 100g) Popcorn (per little packet)

2 or 5

2 or 5

4-6

not available

8

10

12

not available

package of potato chips (per little packet, 50g) package of Chanachur, spicy crackers (per packet, 50g) Bakery Products

7

8

10

10

5

5

6

6-7

Pauruti: bread roll made of wheat flour (per piece) biscuit (per piece)

3

4

6

1 or 2

2

2

dry cake (per piece)

3 or 4

4 or 5

6

Tab 6.13: Price of Street Food Items in Bangladeshi Taka

8

364

The Politics of Street Food sold on the street

Categories of ready-prepared Food

2006

2007

2008

sold in bather hotel or shop 2008

Sweets & Ice cream Jelapi, a fried sweet (per 100g) Ice cream (fully-packaged by local companies, per piece) Milk Products Matha: a curd drink (0.5 l)

6

6-10

6-10

6-10

12/20/30

10/15/25

15/20/25

15/20/25

12-15

15

20

not available

Fruits & Vegetables Kola / Banana (per piece)

1 or 2

1 or 2

3 or 4

Apple (per kg)

80-100

100-120

100-140

Oranges / Comolla (per piece)

7.5

10

15

15

Mango (per kg)(in off-season)

80-90

100

140

130-150

40

50

60

60-70

2

3 to 5

Papaya/Pepe (chopped for consumption, per piece) Guave/Peara (chopped for consumption, per piece) water melon (chopped for consumption, per kg) sweetened Dates/Khejur (important for Iftar; per kg) Drinks Freshly boiled Cha (Tea) with sugar, milk sold from (semi)permanent shop (per small cup) Warm Tea sold by mobile vendor from flask (per small cup) bottled water (0.5 l) Local (DWASA) water refilled & sold in plastic bottles (2l) Softdrink bottle (RC cola , RC lemon, etc; 0.5 l) Coca Cola, Fanta or Sprite from special Rickshaws (0.5 l) Juice/Shorbot made with water, juice powder or sirup (0.5 l) Sugarcane Juice/Akher Rosh (per glass)

140 to 150

6-8

100

120

160

60-70

60-80

100

100-160

2

3

4

4-5

2

3

3

3-4

10

10

10

10

5

not available

20

20-25

20-25

30

30

30

30

5

10

15

not available

5

5

5

not available

10-15

15-20

25-30

not available

Cigarettes (per piece)

2

3

3

3-4

Paan-Shupari, pieces of shupari-nut in a betel-leave

1

1

2

Coconut juice (Dab; cut open coconut with straw (per piece) Other items sold on the street

Tab 6.13: Prices of Street Food Items Source: Own assessment: In September or October of the respective year street food vendors near DMCH and owners of bather hotels and shops near Anondo Bazar were asked about the current prices for the food items. The data for the year 2006 was assessed in retrospect in 2007.

Annex

365

Chapter 7: Styles of Vending and Social Vulnerability P

P/P P/SP P/T

P/K P/Th SP

SP/PC

SP/T SM

SM/PC SM/T SM/G M

M/B

Permanent / fixed / static VU: Shop / stall / vending unit that has been physically built on-site, remains on-site permanently and can not be removed easily. Consolidated ≥ 3 walls of cement/brick/tin; solid roof made of tin/ tiles/cement; cemented basement Pucca: solid stone building (good quality, brick, cement) (any number of storeys), flat cemented roof or roof tiles Semi-pucca: walls out of bricks + tin roof (any number of storeys) Tin: “huts”, walls out of tin/corrugated iron sheets, structure/frame usually made with bamboo poles (any number of storeys); no brick walls, but often brick-cement basement Unconsolidated: less than 2 permanent walls or just bamboo/wood/steel poles, rattan/tin/plastic/garment sheets serve as roof and/or walls, or there are no walls Kutcha: “huts”, tin or bamboo mats for roof, bamboo poles as frame, wood or bamboo mats as walls, sometimes plastic sheets used for roof Thatches: “tents”; no walls; trees, street lighting poles and walls on-site supported by bamboo poles hold the roof of plastic sheets, bamboo mats and/or cloth; the "tent" is put up or pulled down according to the weather (rain, sun) and when there is a threat of police eviction. Semi-Permanent (all day): Vending unit that has not been built on-site and which can be (re)moved easily, if necessary. But normally VU stays rather permanently at same place, i.e. all day and most often overnight. Cooking/processing/vending equipment and goods are usually kept on-site overnight. Food is often processed/cooked on that site with a stove, bowls, kettles, ... Push-cart / Rickshaw. push-cart (or rickshaws) with stationary place for sale that operate 24 hours and thereby stay on-site overnight. Also, many vendors don't push their carts home overnight, but leave them on side of footpath or in a hidden corner very close to their normal vending site. E.g. Fuchka-, Fruits-, or Cha-Push-carts Large Table or Box: large table or box from which items are sold during the day, which is kept on the spot during the night, or carried to side of footpath. The goods are covered overnight. If the VU has to be removed quickly, one man cannot do it himself. E.g. some Cha Shops Semi-mobile (standing/sitting): VU can be moved around easily and fairly quickly, either driven, pushed or carried away by the vendor without help from other people in case of a disturbance (e.g. police raid). Usually the VU is standing at one site for many operating hours a day, but the VU might be shifted easily several times a day if necessary  often there is a specific pattern of position-shifts during the day. VU is removed from the site every night. while most food preparation is done not on-site, there might be a stove to boil Cha or heat some food items. Push-cart / Rickshaw: with a specified stationary place for sale that is moved to this site or 2 to 3 sites every day, or that can be quickly shifted if necessary, e.g. Halim- or Fuchka Push-cart, Akher Rosh-Rickshaw, Nuts-Push-cart Box, basket, bowl, tray, bench, small table, stool: put up on one site for a longer period of the day, but can be removed single-handed, if necessary. E.g. some cha-shops, cigarette/paanshupari-shops, boiled egg vendors, etc. Ground covered by mat / sheet / cloth: many vendors do not possess a VU at all, and sell their items from the ground, which they cover with a simple bamboo mat, a cloth or plastic sheet. but only specific products such as pineapple, coconut, some vegetables (Truly) mobile (moving): “truly” mobile vendors move around a specific area during their vending hours in search for customers and do not remain at exactly the same spot for long (not more than 1h). However, many truly mobile vendors follow a regular route every day, carrying/pushing their light VU to the same vending spots locations every day or in any other time sequencing. No food is processed, cooked by the vendors, who do not carry a stove or other heavy equipment. small carts from which for instance ice is sold are also often in this category Basket, bowl, tray, flask, small cart: vendors walk around with their products for sale, stopping here and there and sit/stand for a shorter time to sell their product. E.g. Kola-walas, Jhal Murivendors, Cha vendors with flasks, cigarette vendors with trays, peanut vendors with small baskets; children selling sweets or popcorn ...

Tab. 7.0: Categories of Street Food Vending Units in Dhaka

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The Politics of Street Food

Selected occupations in Bangladesh1 Labour in Construction Sector Readymade Garments (overall) Readymade Garments (helper) Rickshaw Puller Household Garbage Collector Cleaner of Offices, etc. Night/Security Guard Household Help / Domestic Maid Restaurant Cook Restaurant Waiter Tea Stall Cook Salesman in Wholesale Trade Salesman in Retail Trade Hawker / Farewallah Salesman in Footpath Street Food Vendors in Dhaka2

Male 7,800 4,800 2,600 4,900 2,700 2,200 3,500 2,300 7,500 2,400 4,700 4,400 3,300 4,600 5,100 8,800

Female 3,900 3,600 2,200 1,400 1,700 1,900 6,900 3,500 3,300 3,500 6,800 7,100

National average (2010, both sexes)3

11,500

Tab. 7.12: Monthly Wages of selected Occupations 1

Data sources: BBS (2007): Wage Rate Survey. (www.bbs.gov.bd, acessed 10.11.2008). The survey is based on an assessment of nominal wages in six major cities, including Dhaka (1st quarter of 2007). In order to compare the data with my own findings, I took the increasing wage into account, which grew at a rate of 11.9% in 2007-2008 and 18.9% in 2008-09 (Government of Bangladesh 2 3 2010: 35). Own Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009. HIES 2010 (BBS 2011b).

Type of Social Capital Help with access to the vending site Linking Help by political leaders (n=12) Bridging Help from neighbours or other vendors (n=17) Bonding Help from friends and family (n=9) No social capital Help by nobody (n=80) Total Average

Share Share of of per- mobile pervendors manent in this vengroup dors in group

Value Business Business HH Share of volume profit income above equip- p. day p. day p. month Dhaka’s ment (upper) BDT BDT BDT poverty BDT line

50 %

0%

8,833

3,583

383

16,520

50 %

70 %

0%

7,971

2,953

544

21,709

53 %

44 %

11 %

11,722

5,789

383

26,434

67 %

20%

29%

6,926

2,013

284

11,601

36 %

32 %

20 %

7,634

2,587

338

15,436

42 %

Tab. 7.15: Relevance of Social Capital for Vendors’ Livelihoods Data source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey (n=120; valid n = 118 for this question) Note: see figure 7.2 on social capital and access to arenas; for the poverty line see table 7.13.

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Annex

Chapter 8: Contested Street Food Governance Time period

Political system

Prime Minister (Head of State)

President

Ruling Party

1765-1947 Province of Bengal under British Colonial Rule 1947-71 Eastern Province of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan 1970 elections: Awami League (74.9%), Pakistan Democratic Party (2.9%), Pakistan Muslim League (2.8%) 26 March 1971: Proclamation of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Beginning of the Civil War March - Dec. During Liberation War Tajuddin Ahmed Abu Sayeed Awami 1971 Government-in-Exile Choudhury League 16 December 1971: End of Civil War and de facto independence with the capitulation of Pakistan 1972 Interim system, IndiaSheikh Mujibur Rahman Abu Sayeed Awami Bangladesh-Agreement Choudhury League 1973 elections: Awami League (73.2%), National Awami Party (8.3%), Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (6.5%) 1973 – 1975 Parliamentary democracy, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Several presidents Awami then Presidential democracy (*assassinated) League 1975 – 1977 Military coup, Martial Law Army Chief of Staff: Abu Sadat Md. Administration Major Ziaur Rahman Sayem (Ruler:) 1977 – 79 Martial Law Administration Mashiur Rahman Ziaur Rahman BNP 1979 elections: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (41.2%), Awami League (24.6%), Muslim Democratic L. (10.1%) 1979 – 1982 Presidential democracy Ziaur Rahman (*assassinated 1981), then Abdus BNP Sattar 1982 – 1986 Martial Law Administration Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant Hussain Jatiya (Ershad) and several Mohammed Ershad Party PMs 1986 elections: Jatiya Party (68.4%), Awami League (26.2%), Jamaat-e-Islam Bangladesh (4.6%) 1988 elections: Jatiya Party (68.4%), Combined Opposition Party (12.6%), Jatioyo Samajtantrik (1.2%) 1986 – 1990 Presidential democracy (but Several PMs Hussain Mohammed Jatiya de facto dictatorship) Ershad Party 1991 elections: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (30.8%), Awami League (30.1%), Jatiya Party (11.9%) 1991 – 1996 Parliamentary democracy Begum Khaleda Zia, Abdur Rahman BNP widow of Ziaur Rahman Biswas 1996 elections: Awami League (37.4%), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (33.6%), Jatiya Party (16.4%) 1996 – 2001 Parliamentary democracy Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Shahabuddin AhAwami daughter of Mumed League jib.Rahman 2001 elections: Bangladesh Nationalist Party (41.4%), Awami League (40.0%), Jatiya Party (7.2%) 2001 – 2006 Parliamentary democracy Begum Khaleda Zia until B. Chowdhury until BNP 06, then Iajuddin Ahmed 02, then Iajuddin Ahmed 2006 elections: scheduled for Dec., but postponed; 11 Jan. 2007 appointment of Caretaker Government 2007 – 2008 Interim system: militaryHead of CTG: FakhrudIajuddin Ahmed backed Caretaker Governdin Ahmed ment 2008 elections: Awami League (49.0%), Bangladesh Nationalist Party (33.2%), Jatiya Party (7.0%) since 2009 Parliamentary democracy Sheikh Hasina Wazed Zillur Rahman Awami League

Tab. 8.4: Macro-political Changes in the Field of Power since Bangladesh’s Independence Data source: Wikipedia ‘Politics of Bangladesh’: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_ Bangladesh (last access: 17.06.11)

368 Time-Period In 1996 (during Awami League Government) In 2001 (start of BNP) 2001-2006 (during BNP) 18th Jan 2007 and following days (start of CTG) June 2007

Aug/Sept. 2007

Oct. to Dec. 2007

Jan. to August 2008 September 2008

The Politics of Street Food Evictions: How severe? Who was effected Comprehensive raid, confiscation of equipment, destruction of shops

Duration of Vending Ban Some said vending was not possible for 3 years; others did not mention it Large eviction drive by the DCC, destruction For one month, nobody of more permanent street food shops could sell along the street No evictions were reported. Vending situation was very stable and profitable Closure and destruction of permanent food stalls inside hospital compound, police raid of DU campus and street in front of DMCH with destruction and confiscation of vending units. Several vendors were arrested by a ‘mobile court’, but released again quickly. Large police raid of street shops; eviction and destruction of jhupri living quarters (hospital workers’ tin-shed slum) inside the DMCH compound by order of DMCH director Student riots on 20th of Aug. led to the destruction of street shops. Street vendors allegedly took part in violence, A curfew was declared until early Sept. Mid-Sept., just before the start of Ramadan, many street shops in front of DMCH were evicted End of Oct., large raid of vending sites at the Teachers Student Centre/ park entrance. Between 29th Oct. and 16th Dec., 5 major raids at DMCH; food was spoiled, shops were destroyed, equipment was confiscated, some vendors got arrested 6 to 10 raids, in which vending units were destroyed and equipment was confiscated Very regular controls and raids during the day

July to Dec. 2008 (until the end of the CTG) Jan. to March 2009 (start of AL Governm.) Mid-April 2009

2 to 3 raids, in which shops were destroyed and equipment was confiscated; one day in Oct. student gangs broke all street shops No more police raids right after the election

Since Jan. 2010 (Awami League Government)

No major police raids, only occasional clearance of vending sites

Major police raid with confiscation of pushcarts and vending equipment, 3 consecutive evictions in early May

Street trade in front of DMCH was stopped for 2 to 4 months (different vendors said different times) Street trade fully suspended for many days; due to slum eviction some street vendors had to resetlle elsewhere During the curfew no vending was possible in front of DMCH. On the campus street vending was banned effectively until Nov. 2007.. After the major raid on 29th Oct. vending was suspended for 2 weeks, thereafter each time for 2 to 4 days Rather short interruptions, each time 3 or 4 days During Ramadan, vending only in the evenings Rather short interruptions, each time 1 or 2 days Fairly stable and profitable vending conditions Enhanced security at DMCH with employment of a special law and order force to evict hawkers from DMCHFairly stable and profitable conditions, only short interruptions of the street trade

Tab. 8.9: Chronology of Hawkers Evictions in Dhaka Source: Numerous semi-structured and in-depth interviews with vendors selling street food in front of DMCH and near the Shaheed Minar (Oct. 2007 to Feb. 2010)

TAFELTEIL

Map 4.1: Study Sites on Street Food Vending in Dhaka

II

The Politics of Street Food

1-50 51-250 > 250

Map 5.2: Settlement Expansion and Food Wholesale Markets in Dhaka City Data source: Draft by Markus Keck; Cartography by Sonja Raupp; Settlement dynamics in Dhaka city* according to information provided by the Centre of Urban Studies and the INNOVATE project’s GIS database (also SPP 1233); year of establishment and market dynamics assessed by Markus Keck in a Food Wholesale Survey in 2009 (see also Keck 2013). Notes: There are also settlements and markets south of the Buriganga river (which is outside the Dhaka Metropolitan Area), but the information is not displayed in this map.

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III

Fig. 6.3: Slum Dweller’s Field of Food Insecurity Source: Food Consumption Survey in nine slums conducted in April-June 2009 (n=205)

Legend

Food expenditure of the poorest income quintile (n=39) Average income per person in HH (month): 791 BDT Average food expenditure per person in HH (month): 980 BDT Average CSI-Score: 60

Food expenditure of the `best off´ income quintile (n=42) Average income per person in HH (month): 2,643 BDT Average food expenditure per person in HH (month): 1,595 BDT Average CSI-Score: 53

Fig. 6.4: `Food Basket´ of Slum Households in Dhaka Data source: Food Consumption Survey in nine slums conducted in April-June 2009 (n=205).

IV

The Politics of Street Food

Street Food as a Substitute to Home-prepared Food

Street Food as Supplement to Daily Diet

Required Street Food indicating the “Taste of Necessity”

Pleasure Street Food indicating the “Taste of Luxury”

Tea and biscuits are a necessity or a everyday luxury.

In the park families enjoy a walk and ice cream.

Workers value the tasty Pithas that are sold by a street vendor in front of a plastic recycling factory.

Fuchka and Chatpotti are traditional tasty snacks that people enjoy on DU campus on Victory Day.

Rickshaw pullers take a cheap rice meal on the street.

Fried noodles are more expensive than rice meals.

Travellers need quick snacks on their journey.

Boro Baper Polay is a popular, yet fairly expensive, traditional dish that is available in Old Dhaka.

Pict. 6.3: Diversity in the Field of Street Food: Required and Pleasure Street Food Source: B. Etzold, 2007 to 2010

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160

24

140

40 20 0

12

18 9

80 60

16 Number of Ferries at the Jetty 14

120 100

V

79 11

46 51

37 25

13 11 14 morning

10

32 25

21

9 15

noon

afternoon

14 18

10

Number of Street Food Vendors according to Mobility Type

8

truly mobile

6

semi-mobile

4 2 0

semi-permanent permanent permanent (consolidated)

evening

Fig. 6.5: Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending at the BIWTA Ferry Terminal in Sadarghat

Map 6.1a: Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending – Sadarghat Ferry Terminal in the Morning

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The Politics of Street Food

Map 6.1b: Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending – Sadarghat Ferry Terminal around Noon

Map 6.1c: Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending – Sadarghat Ferry Terminal in the Evening Data source: Mapping and counting by Sania Rahman and Afjal Hossain, 29. Aug. 2008 Cartography: Draft B. Etzold; GIS-Map prepared by Sonja Raupp, Geography Department, Bonn

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VII

Two ferries are waiting for Departure. Vendors sell

Semi-permanent shops have been put up at the

fruits and snacks from boats that are tied to the jetty.

side, while mobile vendors sit next to the ferries.

A semi-permanent vendor offers packaged bread,

Mobile vendors sell jhal muri, sweets, peanuts and

sealed water bottles and soft drinks to travellers.

bananas right in front of the ferries.

An elderly man offers tea, biscuits

A mobile vendor has freshly

A mobile sweets and snacks

and cigarettes from a table.

pealed carrots and cucumber.

vendor walks onto a ferry.

Pict. 6.4: Street Food Vendors on the Jetty of Sadarghat Ferry Terminal Source: B. Etzold, October 2007 and August 2008

VIII

The Politics of Street Food

Map 7.1: Population density in Bangladesh and Home District of Street Food Vendors Data sources: Population density according to the Population Census 2001, online-datasheet `Area, Population and Literacy Rate by Upazila/Thana-2001´. Areas of netto in-migration according to food security atlas of Bangladesh (Gov. of Bangladesh & WFP 2004: 2). Home districts of vendors according to own Street Food Vendors’ Survey (Oct./Nov. 2009, n=120).

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IX

Fig. 7.3: Venn Diagram with the Mobile Tea Vendor Ramid (DMCH and Shaheed Minar) Data source: In-depth interview with Venn Diagram, 11.04.09 Methodology: How to do and read a Venn Diagram The aim of a Venn Diagram is to map actors’ position, their social network, relations and interactions. Circles = Agents: One first lists actors or organisations that are important to the interviewed person – in our case the people that are important for the success of the vendors’ business at the local vending site. Size of circle = Power/Importance of Agents: The respondents is requested to explain why the named people are important to him and judge their importance by assigning them one of 5 different-sized circles that were prepared before – the bigger the circle is, the more important and thus powerful the respective actor is. Size of square = Own Position/Power: The respondent chooses one of 5 different-sized squares, judging his own position of power or influence on others, and then places it on the ground.

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The Politics of Street Food

Fig. 7.4: Venn Diagram with the semi-mobile Vendors Shazia and Salim (DMCH) Data source: In-depth interview with Venn Diagram, 07.09.08 and 10.02.09 Methodology: How to do and read a Venn Diagram (continued) Distance = Closeness/Degree of interaction: The other circles are arranged around one’s own square – the closer the respondent is to that person in reality (in an emotional sense or in terms of the frequency of personal interactions), the closer that respective circle should be positioned to the square. Style of Interaction: Arrows are drawn linking the other actors with the vendor. The respondent explains their respective social relation and the exchange of food, money, labour, and help. Spatial Power: The respondents explains which actors allocate vending spots and can evict other vendors.

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Fig. 7.4: Venn Diagram with the permanent Pitah Vendor Tasneem (Islambagh) Data source: In-depth interview with Venn Diagram, 03.03.09

XI

XII

The Politics of Street Food

Map 7.2: Food Wholesale Markets in Dhaka and Resource Flows to Street Food Vending Sites

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XIII

Fig. 7.8: Boxplot Diagram showing the Distribution of Daily Business Profits among each Group of Vendors Notes: The black line shows the median values; the box includes 50% of all values; the `antennas´ show the range of most values; the points and stars indicate single outlying or extreme values.

Expenditure for

Fig. 7.9: Business Expenditures of Street Food Vendors according to different Vending Styles Notes: Shares of total business expenditure; food expenditure in BDT Data Source: Street Food Vendors’ Survey 2009 (n=120)

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The Politics of Street Food

Case Study 7.1: A Tea and Snacks Vendor is facing an Entitlement Crisis

Pict. 7.5: The Street Food Vendor Salim with part of his Family and their Weekly `Food Basket´

1%

1% 0%

p

p

p (

p

)

Rice

9%

Wheat and other staples

0%

Pulses

5%

33%

Fish Meat Vegetables

12%

Fruits Edible Oil Dairy Products

3%

0% 4% 17% 3%

12%

Eggs Onion Chilli Food stall, Hotel Street Food

Fig. 7.12: `Food Basket´ of Salim’s Family

Data source: In-depth interview with food expenditure assessment, 07.09.2008.

Salim and his wife Shazia sell tea and snacks from a semi-mobile push-cart in front of the University Hospital. They have two sons and one daughter, and share one room with his mother- and his father-in-law, who also has an irregular income from street vending. Their total household income is around 11,000 Taka per month. As they have to feed 8 people that is about 1300 Taka per person. They then belong to the middle income quintile of slum dwellers (table 6.4), but to the income poorest vendors (table 7.15). For food they spend around 7800 Taka per month; per person that is about 980 Taka. They spend almost 70% of their income on food and 33% of the food budget for rice. For breakfast, they usually eat leftovers from the previous evening. Occasionally, he takes breakfast from a bather hotel, when he is food shopping. At lunch time his family eats at home, usually rice, dhal and vegetables, but he takes food to his tea shop in a tiffin. Around 10 pm in the evening, when his shop is closed, they eat rice, dhal, vegetables, and two times a week they can afford to eat fish, together at home. Shihir takes tea and snacks from his own shop, but also buys fruits or sweets from other shops for his children. On average, he spends 20 Taka per day on street food. Salim argued that their food expenditure had doubled since the beginning of the Caretaker Government’s reign. This is no surprise as the price hike of consumer goods was at its absolute peak at the time of the interview. They reacted to this by cutting `unnecessary´ costs, in particular by not taking meat and reducing expenditure on clothes and other consumer goods. As Salim was regularly evicted from his vending site by the police and his income thereby also reduced, they found it extremely difficult to cope with both stresses at the same time and their family endured serious hardship.

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XV

Case Study 7.2: A Pitha Vendor seeks to cope with the Food Crisis

Pict. 7.6: Tasneem preparing rice cakes (chitoy pitha) on mud stoves at her vending site

11%

1% 2%

Rice

20%

Wheat and other staples Pulses

3%

Fish

1%

6%

Meat Vegetables Fruits Edible Oil Dairy Products

20%

18%

Eggs Onion Chilli

17%

1%

Food stall, Hotel Street Food

Fig. 7.13: `Food Basket´ of Tasneem’s Household Data source: In-depth interview with timeline on 13.02.09, and assessment of food expenditure and coping strategies, 01.03.2009.

Tasneem sells small nourishing rice cakes to factory workers of the plastic recycling industry in Islambagh. Along with her 10-year-old son and her 18year-old nephew, she lives only a couple of metres away from her vending spot in a small room in a ramshackle bamboo hut. Tasneem earns around 100 Taka per day. Her nephew’s work also contributes to paying rent and food. Together, their household income is 4,250 Taka per month. They are among the poorest third of slum dwellers in Dhaka (`poor´ quintile in table 6.4), and belong to the poorest street vendors. She spends around 5300 Taka per month for feeding the three of them; that is 75% of her total costs of living. Most of this money goes for rice, fish, vegetables and fruits (figure 7.15 ). She can hardly afford to eat meat, which is a clear indicator for food insecurity (Zingel et al 2011). Spending 125% of the income on food is only possible through taking up loans, irregular additional earnings or family transfers. When we spoke in March 2009, Tasneem said that due to the ongoing food price crisis it would be more and more difficult to pull through, mainly for two reasons: her small income and the rising costs of living. She recalled: “When I was a kid in my father’s house in my village that time was comparatively good time in my life. After starting life in Dhaka I never found any good time. After getting married my life become hell. Misery, needs, everything increased than before. […] Previous time my husband can also work a little [as rickshaw puller]. Now he can’t [because he was sick]. Now all of those things only I have to manage. It is unbearable pressure on me. House rent, food expenditure, education expenses for my son, all of these things I have to manage alone. Always my expenses are more than which I can earn.”

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The Politics of Street Food

Map 8.1: Daily Rhythm of Street Food Vending in front of Dhaka’s University Hospital Data Source: own mapping, 08.01.2008

|semi-mobile| mobile | semi-mobile | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx | mobile | semi-permanent |

Fig. 8.1: Typical Spatial Appropriation of the Street through Food Vendors (evening, 8.p.m) Source: sketch drawn by Md. Aminul Quaium, student of BUET University

In Bangladesh, the sale of food in public space is often contested: Street food is needed, but not wanted. 100,000 street vendors sell dishes, snacks, fruits, and beverages in the megacity of Dhaka. Street food is important for urban food security as mobile labourers and the poor rely on cheap, readily available and nutritious food. The authorities argue that encroachments of streets and footpaths are illegal and disorderly, and that street food is unhygienic. They therefore evict the vendors regularly. But the hawkers are somewhat protected through the informal rules of the street. While some of them are highly vulnerable to poverty and police raids, most navigate well through these contested governance regimes and can successfully sustain their ­livelihoods and contribute to urban food security. In this book, different conceptual perspectives are integrated on the basis of Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. It provides fresh insights into the role of street food in urban food system and contributes to a deeper understanding of the vulnerabilities of the urban poor, the informal governance of public space, and the dominant discourses on street vending. From a relational and c­ ritical perspective, this book captures ‘the politics of street food’ and sketches ­innovative solutions towards fair street food governance.

ISBN 978-3-515-10619-1

www.steiner-verlag.de Franz Steiner Verlag