A Cat-and-Mouse Game: Urban Street Vending in Maputo, Mozambique

This paper discusses how street vendors in the city of Maputo have counter- vailed the municipal strategies and policies for pushing back their presence in public spaces and, in doing so, reclaimed public urban spaces. Based on ethnographic re- search carried out between 2015 and 2019 in the city of Maputo, four strategies have been identified: 1) adjustment of time-space routine; 2) spatial proximity; 3) compart- mentalization of the merchandise and/or services; 4) symbiotic interaction. These strategies are not mutually exclusive, and they are deployed by street vendors to re- sist harassment and violence, and reclaim urban public spaces in the city of Maputo. Street vendors deploy these strategies consciously in opposition to the negative polit- ical discourse about them as promoters of urban disorder. In doing so, urban street vending can be said to be a performative expression of an urban counterculture. This paper shed light on the nuances of street-vending performance as an example of how grassroots actors can shape civic conduct in the urban space.