L’ambulantage : Représentations du commerce ambulant ou informel et métropolisation

Abstract

Social representations of the so-called informal or street trade sketch it as a blurred set of activities linked together with illegality, archaism and underdevelopment. In the first part of this essay, a cybergeography of these representations presents the three main identifications of this trade type, and differentiate the perspectives from English, French or Spanish languages. However, all converge in marginalizing street trade, without connecting it to the urban mutations. With this purpose, the second part explores the relationship between what is proposed to be called “ambulantism” and the contemporary metropolitan mobilities.

Keywords

• informal trade
• itinerant vendors
• ambulantism
• street vending
• peddler
• metropolization/metropolisation