Ramos, R.R., Hayes, N. orcid.org/0000-0001-8718-4671 and Tarafdar, M. (2023) E-formality and data justice: the individualization of street trade in Recife, Brazil. Information Technology for Development, 29 (2-3). pp. 184-204. ISSN 0268-1102
Abstract
Informal street trade has historically been seen by local authorities as backward, inefficient, and detrimental to urban areas and thus, has been subject to formalization policies. This paper reports on an ethnographic study of a project that sought to formalize street trade in Recife (Brazil). Street trade was presented by the City Council as hindering urban mobility, unhygienic and detrimental to the development of the city. A spreadsheet was developed to record, license and enforce the formalization of street trade. The spreadsheet and its classification scheme expanded the possibilities of control over individual street vendors. We will argue that formalization requires street traders to be rendered objects and subjects of knowledge. What this does is to individualize and discipline street trade. More substantially, we argue that the regulations and classification scheme shaped understandings of street trade as becoming individualized and this led to some contradictory implications for urban street trade.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Classification, governmentality, formalization, e-formality, data justice |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Accounting & Finance Division (LUBS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 15 Mar 2024 10:18 |
Last Modified: | 15 Mar 2024 10:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor and Francis Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/02681102.2022.2141673 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:210326 |
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