Reclaiming Their Place in the City: Narratives of Street Food Vendors of Bengaluru During the COVID Crisis

Street vending is considered a lucrative livelihood especially among migrants coming to Indian cities. The pandemic-induced lockdowns in India brought out the precarity of these street-based livelihoods. This paper focuses on street food vendors of Bengaluru. Through narratives from in-depth interviews conducted across the city, it tries to capture the struggles of street vendors as they navigate the pandemic. With the streets being completely shut down with the lockdowns, these vendors lost their means of livelihood. Many of them who were living in the city for over a generation were forced to move back to their native villages. Those who managed to stay back had sunk into debt. Even when the lockdown was eased and streets became accessible, the vendors' struggles continued-to get back their customer base and to reclaim their physical space on the street which, during the prolonged lockdown, was appropriated for other purposes. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023.

‘If I Don't Sell Food, How Would I Eat?' Negotiating Street Vendor Livelihoods in the Context of COVID-19 Lockdowns in Urban Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos

Street vendor livelihoods have long been a point of negotiation in Southeast Asia, with government policies frequently attempting to erase this informal trade from city streets. Government officials and civil society alike tend to disdain street vending, labelling it a disruption to the economic development and daily operations of Southeast Asian cities. Despite such marginalisation, street vendors have persisted, employing creative tactics and resistance measures to ensure their livelihoods. Since the onset of COVID-19, which hit Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos in early 2020, the pandemic has redefined the challenges that urban street vendors face. Focusing on Chiang Mai in Thailand, Hanoi in Vietnam, and Luang Prabang in Laos, we find that governments have approached the pandemic very differently-from more immediate and stricter lockdowns to slower and less aggressive approaches. Drawing on interviews with 61 street vendors, this chapter analyses how the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic differently affected street vendors in each of these cities. It also focuses on how vendors responded to government lockdowns and staggering declines in their vending incomes, ranging from expected coping mechanisms to more innovative responses. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

"It was bad, very, very bad."The effect of COVID-19 on informal street vendors in the city centre of Cape Town

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is currently reverberating throughout the formal and informal sector of the South African economy - including informal street vendors. The informal sector and key activities such as informal street trading play an important role in the South African economy and the unique socio-economic context of South Africa. Despite optimistic theoretical beliefs that the informal sector will mitigate the adverse effects of external shocks (as with the COVID-19 pandemic) by absorbing the job losses that occur in the formal sector, previous studies suggest the opposite. The informal sector is often disproportionately affected by external economic and health shocks, especially in southern Africa (Bassier et al., 2020;International Labour Organisation (ILO), 2020c;Rogan & Skinner, 2018;Skinner & Rogan, 2019). Against this background, the aim of the study was to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of informal street traders. A qualitative research approach in the form of a descriptive case study was used to conduct an in-depth investigation of the effect of COVID-19 on the lives and livelihoods of street vendors in Cape Town's city centre. A qualitative approach provides the opportunity to conduct a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis around the research question. The specific area in which the study was conducted was chosen to be close to transport infrastructure such as railway stations and bus stops and other public transport routes, as the literature suggests that these are the areas preferably frequented by street vendors. Before the fieldwork started, a pilot study was done to identify possible challenges and shortcomings in the interview guide. The necessary adjustments were made and the fieldwork took place between 6 and 8 May 2021. In-depth interviews, by means of a semi-structured interview guide, were conducted with 19 different street vendors, after which data saturation was achieved. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and describe "trends or themes" (Bryman & Bell, 2014:439). Guided by the protocol of Du Plooy-Cilliers et al. (2014:230) and Guest et al. (2012:7), the researchers revisited the data numerous times, simultaneously identifying the themes several times in order to refine the analysis. The researchers consistently adhered to the "Code of Conduct for Researchers" as stipulated by the North-West University. The empirical component of the study only began after the researchers had obtained ethical approval from the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences' Research Ethics Committee. All relevant ethical principles were adhered to during the interviews with informal street vendors and COVID-19 protocol was strictly observed. The demographic and business characteristics of the respondents serve as a precursor and background to the rest of the thematic analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on street trading as a sector of the informal economy. Interviews were conducted with 19 informal enterprises. During two of the 19 interviews, there were two respondents from the same stall participating in the interview. This means that the researchers engaged with 21 informal street traders, representing 19 informal enterprises. Most respondents were men (12 out of 21) and nine had completed matric. Although four (20%) of the respondents possessed a tertiary qualification, seven (35%) respondents had not completed their schooling. The respondents, who were mostly foreigners from Cameroon, Somalia and Malawi, were mainly between 35 and 64 years old;the youngest retailer was 23 years old and the oldest retailer 74. At the time of the interviews, clothing and/or footwear were the main products sold, followed by fruit and vegetables, jewellery, accessories and handbags. Some product offerings (such as flowers and fruit and vegetables) mainly have a local customer base, while traders selling arts, crafts or curio's and some selling jewellery or accessories and bags are largely supported by tourists. The respondents'experience as informal street traders ranged from about one year to 56 years. In general, 14 (67%) of respondents had been working as informal traders for more than five years. A thematic analysis of the data showed that all the respondents' businesses closed for between one and five months in 2020 due to the national lockdown and associated regulations. Inventory losses, lack of income, depletion of their savings, layoffs of employees and significant food shortages were on-going themes. It was also not possible for the foreign respondents to make significant remittances to family in their countries of origin. Declining tourism numbers and local customers who lost their jobs are a constant threat to the livelihoods of informal street vendors. Furthermore, most of their local clients work from home and avoid public spaces to comply with social distancing regulations. In addition, several respondents said that tourists had had a positive impact on their profit margin because tourists bought more expensive products compared to the local customers. Most respondents said that their average monthly profit since the initial Level 5 lockdown in 2020 was about half of the average monthly profit the enterprise could generate before COVID-19. In addition, there were three businesses that could show only a third of the profits they had enjoyed before COVID-19, with another two businesses even reporting less than a third of their average profit prior to COVID-19 - one vendor's profit was about 20-30% less than before COVID-19. More specifically, three of the businesses made an average monthly profit of between R6 000 and R10 000 before COVID-19 and two of the businesses made an average daily profit of between R250 and R300. In the last year since the pandemic, however, three of the businesses generated an average monthly profit of between R2 000 and R5 000 and several businesses generated an average daily profit of between R100 and R200. Street vendors use various strategies, such as good customer service, efforts to obtain the best possible location, the acquisition of fresh stock, and the use of social media and electronic payment instruments in an attempt to deal with the adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite their best efforts, several respondents had no choice but to reduce their employees' working hours and/or remuneration. The challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presents to informal street vendors in Cape Town's city centre are therefore an on-going daily reality. Continuous state support and follow-up studies with the same group of respondents to examine the impact over the medium and longer term are necessary. An important example of this is action research with respondents on the impact of the existing assistance measures on their lives and living conditions. These research results may help to develop action plans that will enable the city, province and country to deal with future exogenous shocks in a manner that would ensure some mitigation of the adverse effects of similar shocks on the structurally vulnerable sections of the society and the economy.

Racism in the Times of COVID-19: Angos, Dirty, Undisciplined, and Vendors in Quito, Ecuador

This chapter brings attention to the ways in which street and market vendors were racialized and targeted by authorities and police during and after the COVID-19 quarantine in Quito, Ecuador. This took place as vendors insisted on occupying streets and public spaces to find a livelihood amidst quarantine prohibitions and declining economic conditions. This study uses social media analysis and interviews to identify how and why authorities, the media, and a section of the population understood vendor indiscipline as the result of class and cultural difference while obscuring colonial racial logics and structural inequality. The study data show that authorities and the public identify vendors as less educated, less cultured, less civilized, and as more Indigenous. Simultaneously, racist comments used to describe vendors included "angos, " a Kichwa word that means resilience and flexibility. In the context of the COVID-19 quarantine, this term was used to describe bodies inherently more resistant to COVID-19, and also as bodies more likely to spread it. This study argues that angos and other terms discussed respond to colonial racial logics that date back to the nineteenth-century, linking race, vulnerability, and hygiene. Thus racialized bodies are seen as out of place and as contaminating public spaces. Such understandings are deeply engrained in people's consciousness, not only justifying the use of force against street and market vendors, but also denying the double vulnerability vendors face on a daily basis. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

VIOLENCE AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST STREET VENDORS IN THE PANDEMIC SCENARIO

This research analyses how the pandemic has affected informal vendors and their families. Taking into account that the informal economy has been affected due to the measures taken by the government, which were linked to limiting the use of public space by people, we seek to analyze the following aspects: how has how they sell and promote their products changed during the pandemic, how have they managed their economy, what benefits have they received from the government and what is their opinion of the economic reactivation proposed by the government?. © GKA Ediciones, authors.

COVID-19 Pandemic and the Challenges for Urban Informal Sector: An Insight from Street Vendors of the District Srinagar, Kashmir

This paper aims at presenting the findings of the study on the position of street vendors in the District Srinagar, Kashmir, in India, including both men and women, during the COVID-19 lockdown. The purpose of the study was to explore various challenges street vendors faced during the COVID-19 lockdown and to highlight the vulnerability of this particular group of informal workers. The data was collected through face-to-face interviews with the use of a questionnaire, on a sample of 150 street vendors from the District Srinagar. In addition, a certain number of in-depth interviews with selected respondents from the sample was done. The study findings show that the majority of the respondents have lost their job during the peak period of COVID-19, i.e. from March to July 2020. The findings have also revealed that the lockdown directly impacted the socio-economic conditions of the workers which made it very difficult for them to survive during the peak of COVID-19. Additionally, workers were struggling very hard in order to fulfill the basic daily needs of their families. Therefore, it is suggested that the government of India should provide financial support to street vendors in order to compensate for the loss caused due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

COVID-19 and Street Vending in Tribal Areas: A Qualitative Analysis From Ground Zero—Aizawl, Mizoram, Northeast India

This study explores the impact of the COVID-19-induced economic crisis on tribal street vendors in Aizawl, India, using the framework of resilience theory. The paper uses a case-study approach to examine how street vendors recouped their economic losses after the relaxed lockdown phase during the region's most celebrated Christmas and New Year festivals. A total of 74 street vendors were interviewed for this study using a semi-structured questionnaire. The study discusses that despite the relaxation of lockdowns, vendors faced extreme challenges in earning their daily wages, causing an inability to satisfy basic requirements like food, paying rent, and experiencing harsher workplace conditions. We observe that street vendors had heterogeneous motives toward street vending and were not driven by a single theoretical perspective. We present that most street vendors during the lockdowns reflect resilience in their businesses, socioeconomic, and workplace conditions through their indigenous coping mechanisms and social networking. We find that street vendors displayed entrepreneurial qualities during the lockdowns by either changing the goods they sold or how they were sold before the pandemic. The study recommends different economic and financial policies for street vendors at the ground level such as improving basic workplace amenities, safety, and awareness among street vendors and consumers. [ FROM AUTHOR]

Economy Impact of the COVID-19 Prevention Policy on Business Continuity and Welfare of Street Vendors

There is quite a lot of research on COVID-19, but research on the impact of COVID-19 prevention policies on business continuity and the welfare of street vendors has not been widely studied. This study examines the economic impact of COVID-19 prevention policies on business continuity and the welfare of street vendors. The regression value or the effect of the COVID-19 prevention policy on business continuity is 0.918. The coefficient of determination is 0.842, which means that the impact on business continuity is 84.2%. The regression value of the COVID-19 prevention policy on the welfare of street vendors is 0.934, with a coefficient of determination of 0.873. This means that the impact of the COVID-19 prevention policy on the welfare of street vendors is 87.3%. This study has limitations in one location in Semarang, and the research subjects are mostly culinary street vendors. The direction of future research is the impact of policies related to the pandemic or national economic crisis and the global crisis on the business continuity of street vendors and other informal economy business actors. © 2022 WITPress. All rights reserved.

Street vending, vulnerability and exclusion during the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of Cali, Colombia.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on livelihoods everywhere, but especially in the informal economy where crucial forms of protection and security are often absent. A detailed understanding of the impacts for informal workers, the public policy approaches that could most effectively respond to their needs, and the barriers to such policy, is urgently needed. This paper discusses the results of a 2021 street vendor survey in Cali, Colombia, focusing on (1) vendors' socioeconomic circumstances and (2) their political engagement and attitudes on key policy and governance issues. It argues that while the pandemic and the government responses to it negatively impacted street vendors, there are steps that government could have taken, and can still take, to address vendors' needs and priorities. To ensure a just, equitable, sustainable recovery, and to protect economically marginalized groups from future crises, informal workers must be more meaningfully included in decision-making processes.

Impact of COVID 19 on street vendors in Ernakulam city

The outbreak of covid-19 caused many challenges across the world. Among them street vendors were the one who affected the most. Our study aims to identify and quantify the issues street vendors faced during Covid 19 – especially, the financial impact – with specific reference to the city of Ernakulam. The study also explores how street vendors survived the current situation. They also faced competitions from new vendors and so on. The present study includes street vendors such as cloth, vegetable or fruit sellers, street food sellers and more.The result of the study gives us a better understanding how they survived the lockdown phase. © 2022 Universidad Tecnica de Manabi. All rights reserved.

The Perception of Local Governments on Street Vendors during the Covid-19 Era: The Case of Izmir

The spread of COVID-19 has shaken people's lives around the globe in an extraordinary way, threatening health, disrupting economic activity, and spreading fear and anxiety. However, the outbreak originated as a public health crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic has also developed into a global economic crisis, with severe and potentially lasting impacts on employment and trade. The chapter investigates the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era. In this study, one of the biggest but overlooked stakeholders of the street economy, municipality's perception through the constables regarding the street vendors will be investigated. It is known that the worldwide epidemic of COVID has caused such problems as layoffs, depreciation of money, the global crisis, foreign trade coming to a halt, and, thus, it reduces individuals' purchasing power. Therefore, it is considered that the number of individuals who are parties to the street economy has increased. This research aims to understand and discuss how COVID-19 has been affected to the street economy from the point of view of the constables, who are one of the most important stakeholders of the issue. A qualitative depth interviews were conducted to the constables of Izmir Municipality in Turkey. A semi-structured interview questions were applied and the data were analysed with the NVIVO program to understand the changing dynamics of street economy during the COVID-19 era in Turkey. The research aims to support and guide the local authorities with fresh data from the field regarding the changing characteristics of street economy.

Child Labour in the Street Economy in Light of International and Turkish Labour Legislation

The presence of child labour in the world and Turkey is an undeniable social fact. There are various regulations regarding the protection of children both in international documents and in our national legislation. However, in the context of the street economy, some legal regulations, especially the occupational health and safety of children working on the street, remain incapable in terms of implementation. In this study, child labour regulations of various international organisations, including the International Labor Organization relating to child labour will be examined first, and then the existing regulations on child labour in Turkey in our working legislation will be analysed and explained. A number of actions that children working on the street who are street vendors tend to take, such as shining shoes, selling handkerchiefs, and begging, will be discussed in detail and the legal dimension will be examined. In addition, some legal changes will be addressed, such as the lack of a uniform regulation on the minimum working age and the confusion of child labour and child labour concepts. Finally, in the pandemic process that affects the whole world, the measures that are thought to be useful in terms of protecting children working on the street from the COVID-19 epidemic will be tried to be explained in the context of occupational health and safety law.

On the Reflections of Street Workers during Corona Epidemic in Turkey, India and Spain

Street workers, including street vendors, buskers, and waste pickers, constitute around 10-20% of the total working population of the world. Yet they are often denied their right to organise, they cannot exercise their right to be represented in decisions that directly affect their lives and futures. The entries in this chapter gathered from the leaders of street vendors associations and media representatives throughout the world, reflect their struggles to organise, to maintain a livelihood and to survive in pandemic conditions. Arbind Singh and Cesar Garcia Arnal give a profile of the street vendors in India and Spain respectively and explore how social and solidarity economy, a concept that, however, is still not clear to some experts in the field offers a solution to the problems rising after Corona pandemic. Evren Lacin tells the story of the foundation of the Street Vendors Association of Izmir and explains how it provides a great example to other municipalities across Turkey by bringing the `street economy' model to our city and making life a part of the street. Dincer Mendillioglu, on the other hand, bring out the story of the Association of Recycling Workers, which is the first of its kind and which is established by the recycling workers or waste pickers, who are clinging to life by collecting paper and waste materials from the streets. Journalist Kasim Akan provides an example from Erzurum, where street vendors grow and sell inexpensive vital products that the lower income group can easily access during Corona crisis days.

Financial stress, financial literacy, and financial insecurity in India's informal sector during COVID-19

The lockdowns and restrictions imposed to control COVID-19 have made life miserable for people, especially those involved in informal economic activities. The pandemic induced financial hardships, caused financial anxiety and financial stress among informal sector participants. This study aimed to measure and analyze the financial stress and financial insecurity of one of the important informal sector elements (street vendors) in India. Street vendors in Bangalore were interviewed in this descriptive research through personal interaction and telephonic interviews. The collected primary data were processed using SPSS statistical package. The results have indicated that the pandemic inflicted financial stress on street vendors irrespective of their gender, marital status, age, education, monthly income, and type of product dealt. Financial stress levels varied depending on the number of dependents of street vendors and their business nature. Financial literacy differed according to street vendors' marital status. A person becomes extremely sensitive and cautious in personal finance matters on getting married. Financial stress and financial literacy correlated negatively. 89.5% of street vendors perceived that they had financial insecurity in the future due to this pandemic. The results indicated that financial stress and financial literacy did not affect financial insecurity perceptions of street vendors. The predictors of financial insecurity have been marital status and the number of dependents of the street vendors (r2: 16.6%). However, marital status alone impacted the 6% variance in financial insecurity. This study concluded that the pandemic caused financial stress and financial insecurity among street vendors, but not financial stress and financial literacy. © Thangaraj Ravikumar, Mali Sriram, S Girish, R Anuradha, M Gnanendra, 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the livelihood of a vulnerable population: Evidence from women street vendors in urban Vietnam.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused enormous detrimental impacts on a global scale. Street vendors are one of the most heavily affected groups since they lack the skills and resources to overcome shocks. This study examines the economic burden facing this group during the pandemic and their coping strategies and mitigation mechanisms in response to these adverse effects. We utilized a mixed-methods approach, wherein 91 women vendors completed a survey questionnaire and 15 women vendors were interviewed. These vendors were found to experience a large reduction in business and consumption. The businesses of immigrant vendors suffered more adverse effects than those of local vendors. Also, the vendors selling in wet market areas incurred greater economic burdens than those selling near schools or recreation centers. The vendors lacked coping strategies to sustain their businesses and adopted various mitigation mechanisms to ensure essential consumption. This study highlights the need for urban social policies that can support this vulnerable group amid a pandemic. We also discuss policy implications for cities and economic development with a focus on street vendors.

“It was bad, very, very bad.” The effect of COVID-19 on informal street vendors in the city centre of Cape Town.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is currently reverberating throughout the formal and informal sector of the South African economy – including informal street vendors. The informal sector and key activities such as informal street trading play an important role in the South African economy and the unique socio-economic context of South Africa. Despite optimistic theoretical beliefs that the informal sector will mitigate the adverse effects of external shocks (as with the COVID-19 pandemic) by absorbing the job losses that occur in the formal sector, previous studies suggest the opposite. The informal sector is often disproportionately affected by external economic and health shocks, especially in southern Africa (Bassier et al., 2020;International Labour Organisation (ILO), 2020c;Rogan & Skinner, 2018;Skinner & Rogan, 2019). Against this background, the aim of the study was to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives and livelihoods of informal street traders. A qualitative research approach in the form of a descriptive case study was used to conduct an in-depth investigation of the effect of COVID-19 on the lives and livelihoods of street vendors in Cape Town’s city centre. A qualitative approach provides the opportunity to conduct a more comprehensive and in-depth analysis around the research question. The specific area in which the study was conducted was chosen to be close to transport infrastructure such as railway stations and bus stops and other public transport routes, as the literature suggests that these are the areas preferably frequented by street vendors. Before the fieldwork started, a pilot study was done to identify possible challenges and shortcomings in the interview guide. The necessary adjustments were made and the fieldwork took place between 6 and 8 May 2021. In-depth interviews, by means of a semi-structured interview guide, were conducted with 19 different street vendors, after which data saturation was achieved. Thematic analysis was used to identify, analyse and describe “trends or themes” (Bryman & Bell, 2014:439). Guided by the protocol of Du Plooy-Cilliers et al. (2014:230) and Guest et al. (2012:7), the researchers revisited the data numerous times, simultaneously identifying the themes several times in order to refine the analysis. The researchers consistently adhered to the “Code of Conduct for Researchers” as stipulated by the North-West University. The empirical component of the study only began after the researchers had obtained ethical approval from the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences’ Research Ethics Committee. All relevant ethical principles were adhered to during the interviews with informal street vendors and COVID-19 protocol was strictly observed. The demographic and business characteristics of the respondents serve as a precursor and background to the rest of the thematic analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on street trading as a sector of the informal economy. Interviews were conducted with 19 informal enterprises. During two of the 19 interviews, there were two respondents from the same stall participating in the interview. This means that the researchers engaged with 21 informal street traders, representing 19 informal enterprises. Most respondents were men (12 out of 21) and nine had completed matric. Although four (20%) of the respondents possessed a tertiary qualification, seven (35%) respondents had not completed their schooling. The respondents, who were mostly foreigners from Cameroon, Somalia and Malawi, were mainly between 35 and 64 years old;the youngest retailer was 23 years old and the oldest retailer 74. At the time of the interviews, clothing and/or footwear were the main products sold, followed by fruit and vegetables, jewellery, accessories and handbags. Some product offerings (such as flowers and fruit and vegetables) mainly have a local customer base, while traders selling arts, crafts or curio’s and some selling jewellery or accessories and bags are largely supported by tourists. The respondents’ expe ience as informal street traders ranged from about one year to 56 years. In general, 14 (67%) of respondents had been working as informal traders for more than five years. A thematic analysis of the data showed that all the respondents’ businesses closed for between one and five months in 2020 due to the national lockdown and associated regulations. Inventory losses, lack of income, depletion of their savings, layoffs of employees and significant food shortages were on-going themes. It was also not possible for the foreign respondents to make significant remittances to family in their countries of origin. Declining tourism numbers and local customers who lost their jobs are a constant threat to the livelihoods of informal street vendors. Furthermore, most of their local clients work from home and avoid public spaces to comply with social distancing regulations. In addition, several respondents said that tourists had had a positive impact on their profit margin because tourists bought more expensive products compared to the local customers. Most respondents said that their average monthly profit since the initial Level 5 lockdown in 2020 was about half of the average monthly profit the enterprise could generate before COVID-19. In addition, there were three businesses that could show only a third of the profits they had enjoyed before COVID-19, with another two businesses even reporting less than a third of their average profit prior to COVID-19 – one vendor’s profit was about 20–30% less than before COVID-19. More specifically, three of the businesses made an average monthly profit of between R6 000 and R10 000 before COVID-19 and two of the businesses made an average daily profit of between R250 and R300. In the last year since the pandemic, however, three of the businesses generated an average monthly profit of between R2 000 and R5 000 and several businesses generated an average daily profit of between R100 and R200. Street vendors use various strategies, such as good customer service, efforts to obtain the best possible location, the acquisition of fresh stock, and the use of social media and electronic payment instruments in an attempt to deal with the adverse consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite their best efforts, several respondents had no choice but to reduce their employees’ working hours and/or remuneration. The challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presents to informal street vendors in Cape Town’s city centre are therefore an ongoing daily reality. Continuous state support and follow-up studies with the same group of respondents to examine the impact over the medium and longer term are necessary. An important example of this is action research with respondents on the impact of the existing assistance measures on their lives and living conditions. These research results may help to develop action plans that will enable the city, province and country to deal with future exogenous shocks in a manner that would ensure some mitigation of the adverse effects of similar shocks on the structurally vulnerable sections of the society and the economy. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR] Die impak van die COVID-19-pandemie op informele ekonomiese aktiwiteite soos straathandel kan selfs relatief groter en meer skrikwekkend as die gevolge vir die formele ekonomie wees. ’n Kwalitatiewe navorsingsbenadering in die vorm van ’n beskrywende gevallestudie is gebruik om ’n diepgaande ondersoek na die effek van COVID-19 op die lewensomstandighede van straathandelaars in die middestad van Kaapstad te onderneem. Die spesifieke gebied waar die studie gedoen is, is gekies om naby vervoerinfrastruktuur soos byvoorbeeld treinstasies, bushaltes en openbare vervoerroetes te wees. Volgens vorige studies is dit die soort omgewing waar die meeste straathandelaars te vinde is. Diepgaande onderhoude, deur middel van ’n semigestruktureerde onderhoudsgids, is met 21 respondente (wat 19 verskillende straathandelaars verteenwoordig) gevoer waarna dataversadiging bereik is. ’n Tematiese ontleding van die data het getoon dat al die respondente se ondernemings in 2020 tussen een en vyf maande weens die grendelstaat en gepaardgaande regulasies gesluit was. Voorraadverliese, gebrek aan inkomste, uitwissing van hul spaargeld, afdanking van werknemers en wesentlike voedselnood was deurlopende temas. Dit was ook nie vir die buitelandse respondente moontlik om beduidende oorbetalings aan familie in hul lande van herkoms te maak nie. Dalende toerismegetalle en plaaslike kliënte wat hul werk verloor het, is ’n voortdurende bedreiging vir die lewensbestaan van die informele straathandelaars. Straathandelaars gebruik verskeie strategieë, soos goeie kliëntediens, pogings om die beste moontlike ligging te bekom, die verkryging van vars voorraad, en die gebruik van sosiale media en elektroniese betaalinstrumente, in ’n poging om die gevolge van die COVID-19-pandemie die hoof te bied. Volgehoue staatsondersteuning en opvolgstudies met dieselfde groep respondente om die impak oor die medium en langer termyn te ondersoek, is dringend noodsaaklik. (Afrikaans) [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe is the property of Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap & Kuns and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)

A STUDY ON SURVIVAL OF STREET VENDORS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO COIMBATORE CITY

In developing countries like India, the informal sector including street vending absorbs the majority of the urban unemployed growing labour force. It creates a wide employment opportunity;it is a means for income generation for the marginalized groups, and the urban poor especially for those who migrate from the rural area. However, despite its increasing importance in the total economy(especially for urban poor in the city), policies, regulations, services, infrastructure facilities and institutional support programme are not available for the street vending and the environment under which the vendor operate their business are not suitable for their health and wellbeing. In addition to this, there is no proper attention, which is given to street vending by policy makers, decision makers, and planners. Currently, there is even strong negative measures and view prevailing against street vending both by the local government and by the formal business operators. In addition, street vendors face many problems in the course of running their activities. It is therefore, the focus of this study is to assess the survival of street vendors During covid-19 in Coimbatore City. © Kalahari Journals.

The informal tourism economy, COVID-19 and socioeconomic vulnerability in Mexico

The great majority of people in developing countries depend on the informal economy for their livelihoods. In countries that rely heavily on tourism, pandemics and related confinements make these individual even more socioeconomically vulnerable. This paper critically explores the immediate socioeconomic effects on the informal tourism economy of confinement measures associated with the corona virus-19 pandemic, as seen from a social vulnerability perspective. Mexico is one of the countries that depends the most on tourism and the informal economy, so this nation was selected for an exploratory case study. The results suggest that many workers in the informal tourism sector were affected immediately by - and their vulnerability increased because of - pandemic-related confinements. These restrictive measures' imposition on the entire population highlighted Mexico's deep social inequalities. Recommendations are offered of how to protect vulnerable individuals involved in the informal tourism economy.

A Study Protocol to Assess the Respiratory Health Risks and Impacts amongst Informal Street Food Vendors in the Inner City of Johannesburg, South Africa.

The overall unemployment rate in South Africa was impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which led many people to resort to informal work such as street trading opportunities in big cities. However, this work is located in the same cities where air pollution is of concern. Furthermore, literature has indicated the lack of regulation of the informal trading sector as compared to the formal sector. An analytical cross-sectional study is proposed to be conducted amongst all of the informal food street vendors (indoor/inside buildings and outdoor/street pavements stalls) in the inner city of Johannesburg, South Africa. By adopting a total sampling method of 746 vendor stalls, this study's key focus is on inhalation as an occupational exposure. In addition, the study aims to assess the respiratory risk factors amongst informal food street vendors' stalls and their impact on vendors' respiratory health. The risk factors to be assessed include the five common air pollutants: street vendor's infrastructure; socioeconomic factors; personal behavior such as tobacco smoking and handwashing practices; wearing of respiratory protective equipment; and vendors' exposure duration. The data collection will follow three phases using quantitative methods. In the pre-assessment phase, it will include a pilot study to test the walkthrough survey checklist and the respiratory symptoms and diseases questionnaire. The assessment phase includes a total of eight area samples, which will be taken in a 1-day event over four yearly seasons, as well as thirty personal samples taken in winter over an 8-h work shift. The post-assessment phase will be the development of a risk impact assessment and a risk management model. The study is essential for healthy occupational conditions as indicated in the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Act (no. 85 of 1993) and the Regulations governing general hygiene requirements for food premises, the transport of food, and related matters (no. R638 of 22 June 2018).

The utterly unforeseen livelihood shock: COVID-19 and street vendor coping mechanisms in Hanoi, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang.

Well before COVID-19, municipal governments in Vietnam, Thailand and Laos were enacting policies that made street vendor livelihoods increasingly challenging. Yet, vending continues to support tens of thousands of urban households in these three countries. Vendors are often rural-to-urban migrants lacking the formal education skills necessary to secure 'modern' urban employment, and despite ongoing government disapproval, vending provides a relatively low entry-cost opportunity for them to support their household's financial needs. Now add to this complex situation the livelihood shocks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as additional government restrictions across these three countries to mitigate the pandemic's impacts. Drawing on interviews with 61 street vendors in Hanoi, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang, and rooted in conceptual discussions regarding urban livelihood shocks, we examine how street vendors, especially rural-to-urban migrants, experienced and responded to the 'first wave' of COVID-19, including additional government-imposed constraints on their livelihoods and mobility. We find that a diverse range of responses helped some-but not all-vendors overcome the initial shocks to their livelihoods and household responsibilities. Yet, we also note that the pandemic's onset altered urban-rural connections and mobility, with many vendors who turned to formerly dependable rural-urban ties for support facing unexpected barriers.