Introduction: Locating street markets in the modern/postmodern world

We typically think of street vending as a part of the premodern economic order surviving only on the fringes of modern society. How could something thought of as premodern be associated with, even revived by, modernity and completely at home with postmodernity? Our reasons for presenting the reader with this conundrum are rooted in our research on street vending in various countries – research initially rooted in the assumption that street vending should, by all logical criteria, eventually disappear. What we found, however, is that street vending, despite some problems and frequent attacks, is a thriving and growing phenomenon ironically driven, we believe, by government policy, and rooted to modernity’s economic successes and subsequent inequalities, and most fully appreciated in terms of contemporary global economic changes authors associate with postmodernity.