The Popular Economy in Urban Latin America

Informality, Materiality, and Gender in Commerce

Edited by Eveline Dürr and Juliane Müller - Contributions by Carlos Alba Vega; Florence E. Babb; Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld; Eveline Dürr; Natalie Göltenboth; Magali Marega; Peter Mörtenböck; Helge Mooshammer; Juliane Müller; Cristina Vega and André Vereta-Nahoum

The Popular Economy in Urban Latin America: Informality, Materiality, and Gender in Commerce advances comparative knowledge and theoretical reflections on urban popular economies in Latin America by going beyond the lenses of so-called informal and street economies. Contributors address case studies in Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru to provide new insights in key concepts such as informality, materiality, and gender. These case studies work to understand which actors, and with what agencies, are forming and transforming street markets and other place-based economies, and to what effects. Remaining sensitive to history, power, and urban politics, this book offers an ethnographically informed cultural and socio-material perspective on how popular economies and commerce thrive, transform, and persist in Latin American cities today. Scholars of anthropology, economics, Latin American studies, urban studies and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Lexington Books

Pages: 214 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-7239-2 • Hardback • May 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7240-8 • eBook • May 2019 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / General, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural

The Popular Economy in Urban Latin America

Informality, Materiality, and Gender in Commerce

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The Popular Economy in Urban Latin America: Informality, Materiality, and Gender in Commerce advances comparative knowledge and theoretical reflections on urban popular economies in Latin America by going beyond the lenses of so-called informal and street economies. Contributors address case studies in Brazil, Bolivia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru to provide new insights in key concepts such as informality, materiality, and gender. These case studies work to understand which actors, and with what agencies, are forming and transforming street markets and other place-based economies, and to what effects. Remaining sensitive to history, power, and urban politics, this book offers an ethnographically informed cultural and socio-material perspective on how popular economies and commerce thrive, transform, and persist in Latin American cities today. Scholars of anthropology, economics, Latin American studies, urban studies and sociology will find this book particularly useful.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 214 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-7239-2 • Hardback • May 2019 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

978-1-4985-7240-8 • eBook • May 2019 • $105.50 • (£82.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / General, Social Science / World / Latin America, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural

Author

Eveline Dürr is professor at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Juliane Müller is lecturer at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Popular Economy and Commerce: (In)Formality, Materiality, and Gender in Latin American Cities

Chapter 1: Culture, Competition, and Urban Identities in Ecuadorian Popular Economies

Chapter 2: The Art of Crafting Formal-Informal Linkages: On the Enduring Appeal of Belo Horizonte’s Hippie Fair

Chapter 3: Muraleando—Artists as Social Entrepeneurs in the Cuban Transformation Process

Chapter 4: The Making of a Proper Marketplace: The Politics of Infrastructure in the Night Market (São Paulo)

Chapter 5: Formalizing through Marketizing: Interfaces of Technology, Knowledge, and Power in Popular Commerce in La Paz (Bolivia)

Chapter 6: Culture and Economy in the Urban Global South: Braided Inequalities among Andean Migrants in Lima, Peru

Chapter 7: Relational Autonomy, Reproduction, and Popular Trade: Mobility Trajectories and Appropriation of Space among Female Street Vendors in Quito, Ecuador

Afterword: Guillermina Rico’s Family: Four Generations of Street Vendor Leaders in Mexico City