They Are Not Seen, They Are Not Counted.

What makes a space truly public? Who gets to be visible, and who watches whom?

In the context of India, street vending and hawking act as an integral part of the lived experiences and memories that we associate with our cities. The public nature of streets allows various ‘affordances’ of the ‘social’ to come together, acting as a meeting point for people, commerce, culture, ritual, and politics. The act of hawking emerges as critical to the function of public spaces as it generates ‘points of sociality’ (Holston, 1989), fostering exchanges, sense of community, friendship, and dissent. The dynamisms of public spaces within India are a by-product of these

affordances and how they interact and negotiate with one another. however, upon enquiry, what we observe is that streets and the act of hawking is also entangled in larger socio-political contestations of rights, agency, and governance. And market spaces and hawkers often invisiblised due to their ability to challenge the modern nation-states organisation of ‘the social’ through the curation of crowds and chaos on the street. This leads to an invisbilisation of hawkers, as they

emerge antithetical to the assigned purposes of the public and private. Our research focuses on such contestations, we argue that hawkers and hawking are not inherently illegitimate to societies functions of public spaces, but rather, their illegality is manufactured through the states organising apparatus, perpetuating their precarious condition.

Locating Hawking; In India’s fast-modernising cities, informal work is not an exception—it is the fabric of urban life. Far from the margins, informal economies animate our public spaces, shaping how we live, move, and relate. Nowhere is this more visible than on the streets, where hawkers turn curbsides into sites of commerce, community, and survival. This research explores how hawking in Narela—along Friday Market Road and Anaj Mandi—reveals the layered struggles for recognition, dignity, and the right to work. Despite legal protections like the Street Vendors Act (2014), vendors continue to face harassment, eviction, and invisibility.

Informal work is typically outside the state’s regulatory gaze—lacking contracts, protections, or benefits. Yet, for millions, it is the only viable option. Migrants, women, and low-income communities often find in street vending a way to sustain themselves in a system that excludes them from “formal” employment. These are not “unskilled” workers. Their labour—creative, adaptive, and vital—challenges how we define value and expertise. We call attention to the contradictions of urban planning and governance, and the urgent need to recognise informal work not as disorder, but as an alternative logic of urban survival.

Between Visibility and Surveillance: The Politics of the Street.

To understand the invisible power structures shaping street life, we drew on political thinkers Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. Arendt’s concept of spaces of appearance—where people come together as equals and reveal themselves—offered us one lens. In contrast, Foucault’s work on surveillance and bio-politics showed how power often works invisibly, through systems of monitoring, categorisation, and exclusion. At the Friday Market in Narela, these ideas collide. Here, power is neither purely vertical nor horizontal—it emerges from a messy network of formal and informal actors. Local authorities like the MCD, police, and the Town Vending Committee operate side-by-side with informal middlemen like 'pradhans' and 'thekedars' within markets. These figures decide who gets to occupy space, sell goods, and be ‘seen’ in the market. Hawkers, in this context, are caught between wanting to be visible—to gain recognition and protection—and avoiding visibility—to escape surveillance, eviction, or harassment.

How do these everyday negotiations shape the life of a hawker? How does the street become both a space of belonging and a zone of precarity?

Semiotics Of A Marketplace

These women are in the market, they are not seen, they are not counted.

Within the market, women hawkers are not just economically precarious—they are spatially invisible. While male vendors often occupy central or elevated spots like bus stops, women are relegated to the market’s margins: near waste bins, behind male stalls, or on the ground with tarps and stools. Their goods are vulnerable to rain, and they are frequently displaced by parked vehicles—making them the most mobile and least anchored vendors. This invisibility extends beyond location. Women are often excluded from critical decisions by state and informal bodies like the Town Vending Commitee and Municipal Corporation of Delhi. Even elected female TVC members, operate with partial authority, often represented or overshadowed by male relatives.

The inequalities generated through the gendering of actions and spaces prompts us to question if spaces of appearance can in fact be places of equality?

This research on street hawking and informal work in Narela, North Delhi, was conducted between January and May 2024 by authors; Sohana J Sarkar, Vansh Shah, Kuhoo Sahay and Shubhangini Manis and is currently part of an ongoing publication release.