Revealing Corporate Street Hawking in Accra, Ghana.

Keywords: urban informality, entrepreneurial governance, agency, global south.
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 8

Abstract

A common challenge shared across cities in most Newly Industrialized Countries (NICs) of the Global South is the seemingly impossible task of drawing a consensus on the right interventions and regulatory framework for street hawkers. This roadblock, for many countries, not only originates from the pervasive nature and explicit characterization of the informal sector but most notably from the fluid perceptions among urban actors associated with the use and planning of public space. What has been realized in this study is that whiles the Government is constantly fighting these street hawkers from the street, enterprises have developed an alternative to the traditional street hawking which I term as Corporate Street Hawking. This paper presents findings on this new 'informality' from phone semi-structured interviews with 47 corporate street hawkers and traditional street hawkers in Accra.