Sacrificing urban governance at the altar of political expediency: Illegal street vending in Harare

This article investigates how migrant petty trading populations confront social systems/perceptions of their host localities and the effects on the sustainability of their trading activities. I examine clusters of long-term migrant petty traders (LTMs) and very recent migrant petty traders (VRMs) (i.e. from Lake Chad region: Chad, Cameroon and Niger) found in Nigerian peri-urban areas. Adopting Kaufman’s symbolic-analytic model, I argue that a mix of socio-economic factors – peri-urban residents’ negative perception of migrant petty traders, divergence in symbolic attachments, and a low patronage system – affect the growth of the migrant petty trade sector in specific localities.

Section: Migrant Populations and The Petty Trade Sector In Nigeriamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Street-hawking in a Foreign Land: Social Dynamics of Migrant Petty Traders’ Livelihoods in Nigeria

Iwuoha

2020

“…Notably, even before the emergence of coronavirus, the informal sector within much of African cities involved the constant conflict between vendors and the law enforcement agencies, city and municipal authorities (Ndawana, 2018;Okoye, 2020;Rogerson, 2016). Such interactions are shaped by the continued negotiation for the use, regulation and access to the physical and public space within the city (Kamete, 2013;Mutongwizo, 2014Mutongwizo, , 2018Nyakuwa, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the past decades, extant research has focused on why urban dwellers turn to the informal sector to the extent that the issue has become one of the most studied topics in the contemporary era (Chen, 2007; Jones, 2010; Kamete, 2013; Matamanda et al, 2020). What, however, remains less well understood is the seeming contradictions in governing the informal sector including street vending by local and central governments in much of Africa (Gukurume and Oosterom, 2020; Kamete, 2007, 2009; Ndawana, 2018; Njaya, 2014; Resnick, 2019). In this regard, investigating the role of local government and the rationale for destroying informal traders’ vending sites during an era of COVID-19 in Zimbabwe warrants scholarly and policy attention.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demolitions of Informal Business Structures in Harare, Zimbabwe Under the Guise of COVID-19 City Clean Up

Mwonzora

2021

Recent research on the informal sector has devoted considerable attention in examining how informal traders have been affected by the coronavirus in different temporal and spatial settings. However, less well understood is the extent to which central and local governments can cunningly use the veil of COVID-19 pandemic to regulate and re-shape the informal sector. Seeking to remedy this shortcoming in the prevailing accounts and utilising a qualitative research methodology including observations, discourse analysis, critical review of policy pronouncements, by-laws, legislation, video evidence from city officials, government, health authorities, vendors associations, newspapers articles and through a case study analysis of Harare City in Zimbabwe. The article contributes to the academic and policy discussions on how law, disease outbreak, policy and governmentality of African urban spaces intersect.

“…Mugabe's reliance on a rural constituency for sustaining his rule left a lacuna because during his tenure, in contrast to rural areas, the country had no urban policy; a situation that contributed to an increasing urban malaise. Therefore, this study is critical for urban scholarship in Zimbabwe, because presently, cities and towns in Zimbabwe are characterised by a profusion of maladies that range from poor urban governance (McGregor and Chatiza, 2019;Ndawana, 2018) to urban poverty and pervasive informality (Rogerson, 2016). The study seeks to provide answers to the following questions:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mugabe’s Urban Legacy: A Postcolonial Perspective on Urban Development in Harare, Zimbabwe

Matamanda

2020

Robert Gabriel Mugabe resigned as the President of Zimbabwe in 2017 after being in office since 1980 when Zimbabwe gained independence from British colonial rule. Mugabe implemented various policies that impacted on the urbanscape of Zimbabwe. Using a desktop approach that is based on bibliography research, the study examines Mugabe’s urban legacy through the lenses of postcolonial theory and the concept of Mugabeism. The results show that power was a dominant feature in Mugabe’s legacy, as he used it to influence the socio-spatial configuration of the urban scape whenever he saw it befitting. His power was rooted in corruption, clientism, patronage, state capture and sanctioning of opponents. Essentially, Mugabe perpetuated the colonial city, in that the postcolonial city was a replication of the socio-spatial segregation which existed during the colonial era, yet this time round it was based on class and not race.