The Politics of Street Trading in Maseru, Lesotho

Abstract

Research on the urban informal sector in Lesotho is scarce and largely descriptive, focussing on the demographic characteristics of street traders and their enterprises. Extant research has, therefore, assumed that the politics of street trading and regulation by the state, especially the eviction of street traders from the streets, do not matter. Drawing from research on street trading in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho, this paper departs from the mainstream assumptions underlying past research. As its point of departure, the paper argues that behind the facade of public health and urban aesthetics as reasons for the eviction of street traders lies overt exercise of state power to protect the interests of formal sector businesses and to disguise state failure to formulate inclusive and sustainable urban policies.

Who Governs the 'Ungovernable'? Examining Governing Relations in Urban Informality

“…In Maseru, Lesotho, the government evicted street vendors under the guise of public health and urban aesthetics. Behind this façade, Setšabi and Leduka (2008) argue that the reason for eviction is the state's intent to protect the interests of formal businesses and to mask state failure to enforce inclusive and sustainable urban policies.…”

“…The magnitude of informal vending activity pertains to the presence of informal vendors occupying public spaces such as streets, 69 easements, sidewalks, transport terminals, and parking lots. The literature shows the importance of the magnitude of street vending in describing how different players appropriate urban spaces, particularly in the context of conflicting interests (Peña, 1999;Hlela, 2003;Etemadi, 2004;Setšabi & Leduka, 2008;Oriard, 2015;Tucker, 2016). I build on these findings in interrogating other unexamined issues on the formal-informal interface in governing and appropriating contested vending spaces.…”

“…These mechanisms have received much attention from scholars like Peña (1999), Hlela (2003), Etemadi (2004), Shuaib (2007), and Setšabi & Leduka (2008), among others. These authors looked at the mechanisms that street hawkers have employed to sustain the informal practices in vending spaces.…”

“…While there have been studies on government policies and street hawking, the literature mainly focuses on the nature and purpose of the rules and how they impact on street vendors (Hlela, 2003;Illy, 1986;Peña, 1999;Setšabi & Leduka, 2008;Xue & Huang, 2015). Beyond the policy discourses, the question on how formal state rules on street vending relate to the notions of informality remains unexamined.…”

“…Meanwhile, social systems often refer to socio-economic conditions -poverty, unemployment, migration (Musoni, 2010;Xue & Huang, 2015) and state policies aimed at regulating, controlling or purging informal hawkers (Batréau & Bonnet, 2016;Hlela, 2003;Illy, 1986;Setšabi & Leduka, 2008). Indeed, this growing body of literature has alluded to the dynamic agent-social systems interaction, which is evident in how vendors respond to state policies and even in how the state acts as agent in inscribing what is illegal and informal.…”