Mobile Street Vendors in Hanoi: Features and Dynamics of a Distinct Socioeconomic Group

Abstract

In recent years, increased rural-urban migration has led to influx of working migrants toVietnam’s capital Hanoi. In this article, the author particularly focuses on mobile street vendors who are conceptualized and described in various ways: Tourists, for example, see in them “the real Southeast Asia”. The UNESCO labels mobile street vendors as part of Vietnam’s “intangible heritage”, the Vietnam state mainly associates notions of underdevelopment and disorder with street vending, whereas the development sector and scholars use frameworks such as “informal sector workers” or “urban poor” to describe them. She shows that these inadequate stereotypes and one-sided generalizations about street vendors are outdated and misleading. Instead the author focuses on the identity claims made by the street vendors themselves and their perception in the urban environment, she points out that it is crucial to understand street vending outside of the dominant discourses and rather conceptualize them as a distinct socioeconomic group with its own dynamics and features.