Conference proceeding
The Diaspora on Display: Production, Performance and Media Practices in Urban Space
2008
Abstract
This paper takes its point of departure in a broader study of street vendors and the positions they occupy in the mix of urban public life. In many city environments vending and other forms of public practice have been increasingly subject to regulation. Debates arise over how public space is used, focusing on the visual quality and aesthetics of a particular display or practice, without directly addressing the often equally controversial issue of the social or ethnic group responsible for the display.
In the present paper we select two aspects of the initial study for a closer examination among a broader sample of vendors. First, we examine the ways street vending is often extended into a range of media practices. While they rarely rent a locale, vendors are quite likely to have a home page and an email address, linked to the marketing of their wares. The sale of records, DVDs and other media products may also be part of their business. Second, we look more specifically at vending as a migratory phenomenon, with links between individuals and communities in different countries. In what sense do the vendors who are not “native” to the place where they are selling their wares see themselves as linked to other places and communities? Whereas in some cases vending provides a way of establishing a base in a new country or community, for others it provides experience and income that is needed in order to support and return home.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Diaspora on Display: Production, Performance and Media Practices in Urban Space
- Creators
- Karin Becker - Institutionen för journalistik, medier och kommunikation (JMK)Nancy Hauserman
- Resource Type
- Conference proceeding
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2008
- Academic Unit
- Management and Entrepreneurship
- Record Identifier
- 9984963234902771
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