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Agency, choice and restrictions in producing Latina/o street‐vending landscapes in Los Angeles
Author(s) -
Munoz Lorena
Publication year - 2016
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.12266
Subject(s) - agency (philosophy) , legitimacy , sociology , state (computer science) , work (physics) , structure and agency , value (mathematics) , political science , law , engineering , social science , politics , mechanical engineering , machine learning , algorithm , computer science
This paper interrogates how street vendors and ‘street landlords’ (street gangs), the local state and its apparatus produce quasi‐organised street‐vending landscapes in Los Angeles. It draws upon the notion of urban informality, uneven geographies of value as well as work that engages with divergent enactments of agency negotiated in relation to restrictive social structural processes. It illustrates that despite complex layers of restrictions and codes imposed by the local state, gang members and the vendors themselves , street vendors do enact agency, not as collective efforts to resist or gain state legitimacy, but as an individual ‘choice’ to work as vendors among a range of employment options to them.