ABSTRACT
Cairo has witnessed a reduction in formal jobs and an influx of workers into the informal economy, since the late 1980s. This chapter examines the changing power relations, and the role of street vending in these, at a unique moment in Cairo's history, and the power struggle between traders and the altering state. It draws on research that took place in the midst of the political and economic upheaval of the Egyptian revolution. In pre-revolution Egypt, the phenomenon of street vendors was common and numbers and locations of vendors fluctuated, based on the intensity of police crack-downs and the economic environment. The continual growth of informal street vending clearly has implications for the city and its economy, for vendors' livelihoods, consumption of public space and circulation in the city. Public debate associates the increase in street vending with an increase in harassment of women on the street, although it should be noted that such harassment is by no means new.
