Antigua, Guatemala, Street Food Vendors

Authors

Keywords:

street food, urban politics, rights to the city, Guatemala

Abstract

Based on long-term ethnographic research on livelihood practices in urban public spaces, I explore street food politics in Antigua, Guatemala. From various subjective vantage points, I describe the food vendors themselves, the handicraft vendors who constitute their primary clients, tourists who only by chance encounter them when purchasing handicrafts, and the city officials who are responsible for regulating the streets. I analyze the reasons why some food vending practices are permitted, despite regulations against them. Drawing on a theoretical framework that articulates Lefebvre's (1996) and Harvey's (2012) positions on rights to cities, I explain why such street food vendors persist in a highly regulated UNESCO World Heritage Site. I argue that claims of rights are not merely organized political actions but are exercised in the everyday practices of those who live and work on the street. Drawing on the concept of “gray space” from Yiftachel (2009) and shades of graying from Heyman and Smart (1999), I highlight the ambiguous social spaces and physical places that food vending and consumption takes place, to described what I call spatial permissibility, the practicing of ambiguously legal/illegal work in these gray and graying spaces.

Author Biography

Walter E. Little, University at Albany, SUNY

Walter E. Little (PhD, University at Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is Professor of Anthropology at the University at Albany, SUNY. His multi-sited ethnographic research in Guatemala and Mexico aims to understand heritage and tourism practices in urban places with attention to identity politics and handicrafts sales to tourists. He is the author of nine books and edited volumes and has published over 90 articles and reviews. His monograph, Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity (Texas, 2004), won Best Book of 2005 from the New England Council for Latin American Studies and his co-edited volume, Street Economies in the Urban Global South (SAR, 2013) won the Society for the Anthropology of Work Book Prize in 2014.

References

Abdulkarim, D., Nassar, J. (2014). Do Seats, Food Vendors, and Sculptures Improve Plaza Visitability? Environment and Behavior, 47(7), pp. 805-825. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916512475299

Bhowmik, S. (2005, May 28-June 4). Street Vendors in Asia: A Review. Economic and Political Review.

Boels, D. (2014). It’s Better Than Stealing: Informal Street Selling in Brussels. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 34(9-10), pp. 670-693. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-04-2013-0049

Cedillo Gámez de Barrios, E. M. (2017). Caracterización de las condiciones sanitarias de las ventas de alimentos en la vía pública del casco central del municipio de Antigua Guatemala [Master’s tesis]. Antigua, Guatemala: Universidad Rafael Landívar, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud. Retrieved from http://recursosbiblio.url.edu.gt/tesiseortiz/2017/09/11/Cedillo-Evelyn.pdf

Cojtí Cuxil, D. (Waqi' Q'anil). (1991). La configuración del pensamiento político del pueblo maya. Quetzaltenango, Guatemala: Asociación de Escritores Mayances de Guatemala.

Cojtí Cuxil, D. (Waqi' Q'anil). (1995). Ub'aniik ri una'ooj Uchomab'aal ri Maya' Tinamit (La configuración del pensamiento político del pueblo maya). Guatemala City, Guatemala: Editorial Cholsamaj.

Cojtí Cuxil, D. (Waqi' Q'anil). (1996). The Politics of Maya Revindication. In E. F. Fischer, R. McKenna Brown (eds.), Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (pp. 19-50). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Cojtí Cuxil, D. (Waqi' Q'anil). (1997). Ri Maya' Moloj pa Iximmulew: El movimiento maya (en Guatemala). Guatemala City, Guatemala: Editorial Cholsamaj.

Cross, J. C. (1998). Co-optation, Competition, and Resistance: State and Street Vendors in Mexico City. Latin American Perspectives, 25(2), pp. 41-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X9802500203

Cross, J. C. (2000). Street vendors, and postmodernity: Conflict and Compromise in the Global Economy. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 20(1/2), pp. 29-51. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443330010789061

Cojtí Cuxil, D. (Waqi' Q'anil), Son Chonay, E., Rodríquez Guaján, R. (2007). Ri k'ak'a runuk'ik ri Saqamaq’, Nuevas Perspectivas para la Construcción del Estado Multinacional. Guatemala City: Cholsamaj.

Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. (2002). Comida rápida, económica y también sana. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/spanish/newsroom/action/es_street.htm

Heyman, J. M., Smart, A. (1999). States and illegal practices: An overview. In J. M. Heyman (ed.), States and illegal practices: an overview (pp. 1-24). Oxford, United Kingdom: Berg.

Harvey, D. (2012). Rebel Cities: From Right to City to the Urban Revolution. London, United Kingdom: Verso.

Lefebvre, H. (1996). Writings on Cities. Oxford, United Kingdom: Blackwell Publishers.

Little, W. E. (2004). Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Little, W. E. (2008). Crime, Maya Handicraft Vendors, and the Social Re/Construction of Market Spaces in a Tourism Town. In L. Cliggett, C. A. Pool (eds.), Economies and the Transformation of Landscape, (25) (pp. 267-290). Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Little, W. E. (2014). Façade to Street to Façade: Negotiating Public Spatial Legality in a World Heritage City. City & Society, 26(2), pp. 196-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12040

Little, W. E. (2015). Urban Economies and Spatial Governmentalities in the World Heritage City of Antigua. Economic Anthropology, 2(1), pp. 42-62. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12017

Little, W. E. (2017). Historical Context of Street Vendor Politics in the Mexican State. Latin American Perspectives, 45(1), pp. 215-216. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X17744552

Mendiola García, S. (2017). Street Democracy: Vendors, Violence, and Public Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Mexico. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1m320zq

Montejo, V. (2005). Maya Intellectual Renaissance: Identity, Representation and Leadership. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Montes de Oca Barrera, L. B. (2018). Comida chatarra: Entre la gobernanza regulatoria y la simulación. Mexico City, Mexico: UNAM, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales.

Patzán, J. M. (2019, May 3). Comuna de Antigua Guatemala advierte que dará cumplimiento a acuerdo para evitar ventas ambulantes. La Prensa Libre.

Ramirez, M. (2019, March 26). Autoridades recuerdan que está prohibido la venta de carne de perro. Canal Antigua.

Roy, A. (2009). Civic Governmentality: The Politics of Inclusion in Beirut and Mumbai. Antipode, 41(1), pp. 159-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.2008.00660.x

Scott, J. C. (1989). Everyday Forms of Resistance. Copenhagen Papers, (4), pp. 33-62. https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v4i1.1765

Sicán, J. (2017, October 5). Concejo de Antigua Guatemala autoriza desalojar a vendedores de comida. La Prensa Libre.

Smart, A., Zerilli, F. (2014). Extralegality. In D.M. Nonini (ed.), A Companion to Urban Anthropology (pp. 222-238). New York, NY: John Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118378625.ch13

Yiftachel, O. (2009). Critical Theory and ‘Gray Space’: Mobilization of the Colonized. City, 13(2-3), pp. 240-256. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604810902982227

Downloads

Published

2020-06-30