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Illicit mint and unregulated vendors: constructing illegality in F rench public spaces
Author(s) -
Tchoukaleyska Roza
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
area
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.958
H-Index - 82
eISSN - 1475-4762
pISSN - 0004-0894
DOI - 10.1111/area.12170
Subject(s) - business , advertising , police department , product (mathematics) , criminology , sociology , geometry , mathematics
Focusing on street‐side vending of fresh mint and herbs in the F rench city of Montpellier, this paper considers the difference between illegal and informal vending, and the regulatory mechanisms deployed by municipal and police actors in the push to eradicate illegality. Drawing on municipal archives from the late 1990s, and interviews and city documents from the 2000s, I examine the relationship between regularised market stall holders and those selling goods outside assigned vending spaces, with a particular interest in how these two groups interact, and the instances in which police and market officials are called. Through a rapidly escalating campaign to fight illegality, green fresh mint is coded as an illicit product and the individuals who sell it are targeted as dangerous criminal elements.