Abstract

MOCTEZUMA MENDOZA, Vicente. Vulnerability and violence in popular commerce in Mexico City. Rev. Mex. Sociol [online]. 2023, vol.85, n.1, pp.167-197.  Epub Feb 10, 2023. ISSN 2594-0651.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iis.01882503p.2023.1.60418.

This article analyzes how dynamics of interpersonal violence configure the working conditions of low-income merchants in an important commercial area of Mexico City that has experienced growing insecurity. Based on ethnographic research, the text centers on the experiences of vendors (in streets, shopping plazas and public markets) suffering economic and institutional vulnerability. It analyzes how these and other actors in the neighborhood (leaders, petty criminals and organized criminals) turn to violence as a resource (culturally and morally constituted in heterogeneous ways) in order to create and preserve socio-spatial micro-orders as part of a broader quest for economic gain.

Keywords : popular commerce; urban violence; inequality; vulnerability; marginality; informality.

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