A01=Jacinto Cuvi
Author_Jacinto Cuvi
Brazil
Category=JBSD
Category=JBSL
Category=JH
Category=JHB
criminalization
economic survival
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
eviction
government policy
informal citizenship
informal economy
informal work
Jacinto Cuvi
labor rights
law enforcement
legal pressures
licenses
livelihoods
marginalization
popsicles
public space
regulatory challenges
rights
social justice
socioeconomic inequality
survival strategies
The Edge of the Law
urban governance
urban poverty
urban sociology
water bottles
workforce
Product details
- ISBN 9780226840895
- Weight: 313g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 16 Jun 2025
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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How street vendors tangle with the law in São Paulo, Brazil.
With a little initiative and very little startup money, an outgoing individual might sell you a number of delights and conveniences familiar to city dwellers—from cold water bottles while you’re sitting in traffic to a popsicle from a cart on a summer afternoon in the park. Such vendors form a significant share of the workforce in São Paulo, Brazil, but their ubiquity belies perpetual struggle. Some have the right to practice their trade; others do not. All of them strive to make it—or stay afloat.
In The Edge of the Law, sociologist Jacinto Cuvi introduces us to the world of street vendors and teases out the relationship between the construction of legality and the experience of citizenship. As São Paulo’s city government undertakes a large-scale plan to cancel street vending licenses and evict street vendors, Cuvi reveals how the rights of informal workers can be revoked or withheld and how the lines can be redrawn between work that is “legal” and work that takes place under constant fear of law enforcement. Alongside the mechanics of disenfranchisement, Cuvi captures the lived experience of criminalization, dissecting the distribution of (shallow) rights among vendors who continually reinvent strategies to eke out a living while dealing with the constraints and pressures of informal citizenship at the edge of the law.
With a little initiative and very little startup money, an outgoing individual might sell you a number of delights and conveniences familiar to city dwellers—from cold water bottles while you’re sitting in traffic to a popsicle from a cart on a summer afternoon in the park. Such vendors form a significant share of the workforce in São Paulo, Brazil, but their ubiquity belies perpetual struggle. Some have the right to practice their trade; others do not. All of them strive to make it—or stay afloat.
In The Edge of the Law, sociologist Jacinto Cuvi introduces us to the world of street vendors and teases out the relationship between the construction of legality and the experience of citizenship. As São Paulo’s city government undertakes a large-scale plan to cancel street vending licenses and evict street vendors, Cuvi reveals how the rights of informal workers can be revoked or withheld and how the lines can be redrawn between work that is “legal” and work that takes place under constant fear of law enforcement. Alongside the mechanics of disenfranchisement, Cuvi captures the lived experience of criminalization, dissecting the distribution of (shallow) rights among vendors who continually reinvent strategies to eke out a living while dealing with the constraints and pressures of informal citizenship at the edge of the law.
Jacinto Cuvi is associate professor of sociology and development studies at the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.
