Refusing relocation

Urban street vendors and the problem of the neoliberal device

Bibliographic Data

ID4138737
AuthorsJames Christopher Mizes (0000-0002-3805-136X, Université Paris-Dauphine, PSL Research University, IFRIS, IRISSO, Paris, France, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume55
Issue7
Pages1762-1779
Publication date2023-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning A Economy and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0308-518X • E-ISSN: 1472-3409
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0308518x211061155
OpenAlexW4200476250
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited39

In 2010, the City of Dakar published its new master plan for a clean, competitive, modern city. This plan entailed the relocation of thousands of walking street vendors to free up traffic circulation and reduce the economic costs of congestion. Unlike previous relocations, this program required the political participation of vendor associations in the planning and design of a new commercial center. It also required the vendors to pay user charges: monthly payments for the use of the center and its utilities. Yet most Dakar's street vendors unequivocally refused to relocate, citing the building's poor location, bad design, and high price. Such user charges have become a contentious device with which governments across the world are financing the provision of public services. In this article, I analyze the politics of this device by tracing the linkages from Dakar's relocation program back to the political philosophies of prominent intellectuals commonly associated with "neoliberalism." In doing so, I reveal how popular refusal is not beyond or opposed to a depoliticizing neoliberalism, but instead forms an integral part of neoliberal reflections on popular politics. I conclude by analyzing the political effects of this neoliberal device in Dakar: it introduced a new style of political engagement-consumption-through which individual vendors could dispute their relocation. And this individualized refusal to consume incited their representative associations to extend a popular mode of valuation-negotiation-into the calculation of the building's price

Business · Commodification · Economics · Economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Relocation · Sociology · Vendor · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Marketing

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