ABSTRACT
Across different studies and policies, street vending is represented as a relatively easy, unskilled, or low-skilled form of employment in Indian cities. It is viewed as work that people settle for in the absence of skills and formal employment opportunities. This assumption, combined with the tendency to study street vending primarily through the lens of urban spatial politics, forecloses an understanding of vendors’ core work of plying a trade and how they perceive their work. Moving beyond just the structural landscape in which street vending operates to the practices and techniques involved in this work, this chapter examines the techniques and trajectories of street vending in the weekly bazaars of Delhi. Based on 18 months of fieldwork conducted across 12 weekly bazaars in different neighbourhoods of Delhi from 2016 to 2018, the chapter draws on a combination of research techniques including participant observation in the bazaars, unstructured interviews with vendors, and walking with bazaar customers. The chapter follows two interrelated practices – dukaan lagana (setting up shops) and dukaan chalana (running shops) – to understand the processes through which vendors learn and hone the techniques of their trade.
