Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Production of Latino Vending "Street-Scapes" in Los Angeles

街头贩卖是全世界数百万人从事的一种经济活动。虽然这通常被归因于第三世界经济体，但在美国的许多城市都可以看到这种现象。这个博士论文研究项目考察了拉丁美洲街头小贩在洛杉矶进行日常非正式经济活动的景观，在这个城市，许多居民（尤其是拉丁美洲人）喜欢重现他们原籍国文化和非正式经济空间的摊贩。移民贩卖机的做法通常把街角、院子和停车场变成非正式的商业盈利场所。这种对城市空间的重构不仅塑造了移民和移民小贩的日常生活体验。它也塑造了周围的城市景观。通过使用各种定性方法，特别是实地观察，半结构化访谈，照片启发和照片文档，该项目将研究(1)“地方”的概念如何塑造洛杉矶拉丁裔街头小贩的城市文化景观，(2)大规模的正式经济过程如何塑造和通知非正式的自动售货景观，以及(3)国家执法，法规，与街头小贩的日常生活有关的强加在“棕色身体”上的“非法行为”概念有助于文化景观的产生。供应商创造城市文化景观的辩证过程对于理解不同尺度的国家如何与地方相交是很重要的，在地方国家和供应商之间通过执行法规和监督机构产生紧张关系。供应商和当地政府之间的紧张关系影响了供应商景观的生产。这一辩证过程塑造了供应商的集体或个人代理。换句话说，通过分析摊贩、当地企业主和街头摊贩等行动者与当地国家（市议会、法规执行者和警察部门）的关系，人们开始了解街头摊贩是如何行使代理权的。大规模过程的相互作用，如全球经济和国际移民，以及供应商在当地社会和经济方面的努力，创造了一个空间，在这个空间里，个人或集体的机构为城市文化景观的生产提供了信息。目前关注非正式经济的理论和实证研究认为，当地非正式部门的发展是全球经济和文化进程的非正式就业机会，移民抓住了这些机会并作为非正式劳动力参与其中。然而，这些非正式的景观实际上是如何在当地尺度（街道）上产生的，还没有得到分析。此外，这些研究并没有关注非正式售货机在塑造移民日常生活中的作用。本研究探讨了非正式经济在地方尺度上的影响，特别是在像洛杉矶这样的全球城市。通过考察拉丁裔街头贩卖实践的经验性质，本研究进一步推动了对非正式经济的社会科学理解。它强调了非正规劳动力市场是如何、为什么、在哪里运作的，以及这种非正规劳动力市场是如何被种族化和性别化的。通过给予小贩，特别是妇女的特权，他们的日常生活塑造和影响着城市景观，本研究将街角与相互关联的全球进程联系起来。最后，通过将本研究的重点放在街头小贩及其家庭的人权和经济权利上，本研究将有助于制定服务和影响这一人群的政策和方案。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该奖项还将提供支持，使有前途的学生建立一个强大的独立研究生涯。

Street vending is an economic practice exercised by millions of people around the world. Although often attributed to third-world economies, it is a phenomenon that it is visible in many cities in the United States. This doctoral dissertation research project examines the landscapes in which Latino street vendors exercise their daily informal economic practices in Los Angeles, a city where many residents (especially Latinos) favor vendors who recreate the cultural and informal economic spaces of their countries of origin. Immigrant vending practices commonly transform street corners, yards, and parking lots into informal commercial profit-making sites. This reconfiguration of urban space not only shapes immigrants' and immigrant vendors' experience of everyday life. It also shapes the urban landscape around them as well. Through the use of various qualitative methods, especially field observation, semi-structured interviews, photo-elicitation, and photo documentation, the project will examine (1) how notions of "place" shape urban cultural landscapes of Latino street vendors in Los Angeles, (2) how large-scale formal economic processes shape and inform informal vending landscapes, and (3) how state enforcements, regulations, and notions of "illegalities" imposed on "brown bodies" in relation to street vendor's daily life, contribute to the production of cultural landscapes. The dialectic process of vendors creating urban cultural landscapes is important for understanding how the state at various scales intersects in the local, where tensions are created between the local-state and the vendors through the enforcement of code regulations and the surveillance of bodies. These tensions between vendors and the local state inform the production of vendor landscapes. This dialectical process shapes the collective or individual agency of the vendors. In other words, by analyzing the actors such as vendors, local business owners, and street vendors in relation to the local state (city council, code enforcers and police department), one begins to understand how street vendors exercise agency. The interplay of large-scale processes, such as the global economy and international migration together with localized social and economic efforts by vendors creates spaces where agency, individual or collective, informs the production of urban cultural landscapes.Current theories and empirical studies that focus on informal economies argue that local informal sectors develop as informal employment opportunities resulting from global economic and cultural processes in which immigrants seize the opportunities and participate as informal labor. How these informal landscapes are actually produced at the local scale (street) has not been analyzed, however. Furthermore, the studies do not focus on the role informal vending plays in shaping immigrant's daily lives. This study explores the effects of the informal economy at the local scale, particularly in global cities like Los Angeles. By examining the experiential nature of Latino street vending practices, this study furthers social science understandings of the informal economy. It highlights how, why, and where it functions as well as how this informal-labor market is racialized and gendered. By privileging voices of vendors, in particular women, whose daily lives shape and inform the urban landscape, this study links the street corner to interrelated global processes. Finally, by focusing this research on human and economic rights for street vendors and their families, this study will facilitate the development of policy and programs that serve and affect this population. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.