‘Guerrillas of the Curbside’: Uttering the Everyday Resistance Strategies Used by Street Vendors to Stay in Urban Spaces of Xiamen City,China

Abstract

In Xiamen, urban space is highly contested between street vendors and Chengguan, China’s urban management and law enforcement agency, tasked with removing street vendors from urban space using an arsenal of punitive measures to assert absolute control. This article unearths the everyday resistance strategies used by street vendors to stay in urban spaces of Xiamen City, China. Grounded in Henri Lefebvre’s theory of the right to the city, James C. Scott’s concept of everyday forms of resistance, and Michel de Certeau’s tactics of the weak, the study employed a qualitative research approach informed by a case study design. Empirical data were collected from 35 purposively selected current own-account vendors, using in-depth interviews, key informant narratives, and non-participant observations across major vending hotspots. The data were thematically analysed in line with the study objectives and issues that emerged during the process. Findings reveal that street vendors are not passive victims of state control. Instead, they are guerrillas, who engage in multifaceted everyday covert resistance strategies such as temporal manoeuvring, performing compliance and practicing resistance, spatial reclamation, gendered tactics and networked informality to assert their right to the city. This article contributes to scholarly debates by foregrounding the astounding ingenuity and unyielding agency of marginalized vendors in a Global South context into the spotlight. It unequivocally demonstrates how these everyday acts of resistance do more than sustain precarious livelihoods; they are transformative forces, subtly yet profoundly reconfiguring urban life and reclaiming the city from exclusionary governance.