Negotiating access to contested urban spaces: Street traders’ resistance against exclusionary practices in Harare,Zimbabwe

Abstract

In Global South cities, urban space is highly contested between street traders and city authorities. In Harare, urban authorities respond to traders appropriating public spaces with penalties, harassment, and displacement, aiming to eliminate perceived nuisances and uphold a modern city ideal. However, these repressive practices are constantly negotiated, challenged, and resisted by street traders through ‘infiltrating and corrupting’ the system, defiance and civil disobedience, subaltern surveillance, decoyization and deception, evasive resistance, and ‘nomadic’ manoeuvring. This study demonstrates that, rather than being powerless, street traders in the City of Harare (Zimbabwe) are active agents who negotiate and challenge urban exclusion to assert their right to the city. By examining these everyday acts of resistance, this study contributes to scholarly debate on how the subaltern negotiates and resists spatial exclusion in Global South cities, highlighting the resilience and capacity of marginalized groups to challenge dominant power structures.