ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the new forms of conflict that have arisen in the historic centre's long-standing outdoor market-fair, as crisis coincided with a sharp rise in tourism. Following the economic crisis, informal vending increased throughout Buenos Aires, but especially in the public spaces of the city's most touristic neighbourhoods such as the historic district of San Telmo. Some vendors are considered artisans if they use established fine arts production methods or have formal artistic training. Instead, the returning middle class of antique dealers and artists became the inheritors of the neighbourhood's European immigrant past. La Piedra is aligned with the Federation of Popular Economy Workers (CTEP), an organization that has attempted to organize informal economic sectors, a reality that it argues must be recognized rather than criminalized. Workers in Argentina have rights and members cast their ability to sell their goods not as a form of the local government's munificence but as a right to a dignified existence.
