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Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement in Panama

Contested Public Space and the Disenfranchisement of Street Vendors

María Luisa Amado

Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement in Panama: Contested Public Space and the Disenfranchisement of Street Vendors examines the simultaneous increase of informal sector employment and decreased access to space for Panamanian street vendors, whose creative ventures in public spaces concretize the face of informality in most of the Global South. Through the lived experiences and voices of street traders surveyed over twelve years of field research, this book portrays the long-lasting saga and resistance actions of informalized vendors dislocated from their traditional selling points in Panama City’s downtown. Amado argues that neoliberal policies, including privatization, labor deregulation, and market-led urban renewal, inflict a double squeeze on working-class Panamanians by reducing opportunities for stable formal sector employment and restricting access increasingly gentrified areas of Panama City historically used for street vending. This book also sheds light on the commoditization and contested nature of public space, discursively contended by competing views of its functions and who has the right to it.

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Lexington Books
Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-66691-894-6 • Hardback • February 2024 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
978-1-66691-895-3 • eBook • February 2024 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Social Science / Sociology / General

María Luisa Amado is Lincoln Financial Professor of sociology and anthropology at Guilford College.

Part I: Concepts, Patterns, and Theories of Informality

Chapter 1: Conceptualizing and Understanding the Informal Economy

Chapter 2: Informality, Inequality, and Neoliberalism in Panama

Chapter 3: The Double Squeeze of Neoliberal Restructuring: Street(less) Vendors in the Neoliberal City. A Review of the Literature

Part II: Street Vendors in Downtown Panama: Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement

Chapter 4: Street Market Ethnography

Chapter 5: Narratives of Work

Chapter 6: Dislodged and Disowned

Chapter 7: Chronicle of the Conflict

Chapter 8: Neoliberal Hegemony and the Discourse of Embellishment

Chapter 9: The Pandemic and its Aftermath

In this remarkable study, María Luisa Amado relies on twelve years of intensive fieldwork among street vendors in Panama City, Panama. With keen insight and a sure hand, she brings us into their lives, their woes, and their small triumphs at the core of the informal Panamanian economy. Like her earlier book on Mexican immigrants in the Atlanta labor market, this book offers rich descriptive interview materials interpreted through a solid theoretical framework. It documents, at the ground level, protracted struggles over urban space in an era of neoliberal economic reform, gentrification, and expanding tourism. But this is not a book about Panama alone; its themes and analyses are applicable globally, to every urban locale where the informal economy sustains a sizable portion of the population.


— John Boli, professor emeritus, Emory University


A thoughtful and compelling insight into the lives of Panamanian street traders who face multiple layers of socio-spatial exclusion.


— Verónica Crossa Niell, El Colegio de México


Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement in Panama

Contested Public Space and the Disenfranchisement of Street Vendors

Cover Image
Hardback
eBook
Summary
Summary
  • Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement in Panama: Contested Public Space and the Disenfranchisement of Street Vendors examines the simultaneous increase of informal sector employment and decreased access to space for Panamanian street vendors, whose creative ventures in public spaces concretize the face of informality in most of the Global South. Through the lived experiences and voices of street traders surveyed over twelve years of field research, this book portrays the long-lasting saga and resistance actions of informalized vendors dislocated from their traditional selling points in Panama City’s downtown. Amado argues that neoliberal policies, including privatization, labor deregulation, and market-led urban renewal, inflict a double squeeze on working-class Panamanians by reducing opportunities for stable formal sector employment and restricting access increasingly gentrified areas of Panama City historically used for street vending. This book also sheds light on the commoditization and contested nature of public space, discursively contended by competing views of its functions and who has the right to it.

Details
Details
  • Lexington Books
    Pages: 206 • Trim: 6¼ x 9½
    978-1-66691-894-6 • Hardback • February 2024 • $105.00 • (£81.00)
    978-1-66691-895-3 • eBook • February 2024 • $45.00 • (£35.00)
    Subjects: Social Science / Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Social Science / Sociology / General
Author
Author
  • María Luisa Amado is Lincoln Financial Professor of sociology and anthropology at Guilford College.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents
  • Part I: Concepts, Patterns, and Theories of Informality

    Chapter 1: Conceptualizing and Understanding the Informal Economy

    Chapter 2: Informality, Inequality, and Neoliberalism in Panama

    Chapter 3: The Double Squeeze of Neoliberal Restructuring: Street(less) Vendors in the Neoliberal City. A Review of the Literature

    Part II: Street Vendors in Downtown Panama: Neoliberalism and Labor Displacement

    Chapter 4: Street Market Ethnography

    Chapter 5: Narratives of Work

    Chapter 6: Dislodged and Disowned

    Chapter 7: Chronicle of the Conflict

    Chapter 8: Neoliberal Hegemony and the Discourse of Embellishment

    Chapter 9: The Pandemic and its Aftermath

Reviews
Reviews
  • In this remarkable study, María Luisa Amado relies on twelve years of intensive fieldwork among street vendors in Panama City, Panama. With keen insight and a sure hand, she brings us into their lives, their woes, and their small triumphs at the core of the informal Panamanian economy. Like her earlier book on Mexican immigrants in the Atlanta labor market, this book offers rich descriptive interview materials interpreted through a solid theoretical framework. It documents, at the ground level, protracted struggles over urban space in an era of neoliberal economic reform, gentrification, and expanding tourism. But this is not a book about Panama alone; its themes and analyses are applicable globally, to every urban locale where the informal economy sustains a sizable portion of the population.


    — John Boli, professor emeritus, Emory University


    A thoughtful and compelling insight into the lives of Panamanian street traders who face multiple layers of socio-spatial exclusion.


    — Verónica Crossa Niell, El Colegio de México


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