“Between a Rock and a Hard Place”: Vendors and the Negotiation of Policing in Mexico City,from the Late Nineteenth Century Through the 1930s

Abstract

This article investigates how vendors and police in Mexico City negotiated police power, especially over discretionary regulatory enforcement, during a period of significant urbanization. Using criminal court records alongside other sources, this paper reconstructs changing patterns of relations between a wide range of vendors and police in Mexico City, finding that social relationships between the two were crucial in shaping policing, as vendors negotiated for police tolerance and protection in the context of expansive regulations on vending and public space. These relations began to shift in the 1920s, moving from highly individualized negotiations between police and vendors, to more regularized protection rackets organized by the police hierarchy. By negotiating policing, vendors gained a fragile foothold in the city, at the cost of entrenched vulnerability to police violence. In tracing these practices’ historical development, this article contributes to the historicization of urban informality and corruption.