Street trading from Apartheid to Post-Apartheid: More birds in the cornfield?

By Stein Inge Nesvåg

University of Natal

University of Oslo

Published in the

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy

Vol 21, #3/4, 2000.

(Special Edition edited by John C. Cross and Steve Balkin)

(This version is copyrighted by the author and is made available for general reference only. It is not necessarily a complete version. Footnotes and graphs or tables may not translate properly into the web format. For the full text, or to make formal citations, you must use the published version from the journal. Please ask your local library to request this issue of the IJSSP for your use.)

Introduction

Street traders in South Africa have generally been viewed in the same way as ‘birds in the cornfield’ to borrow Stadler’s analogy from his study on squatter movements in Johannesburg (Stadler 1979). From their establishment in urban areas around the turn of the century, it took more than 40 years and the implementation of a comprehensive net of repressive apartheid legislation to chase them out. But various social, economic and political pressures became too powerful, and in the early 1980’s a slow deregulation process started which saw a flood of street traders entering into the city. In 1984, there were some 200 street traders in Durban (City Engineer's Department 1984). By 1997 this number had increased to almost 20 000 (Markewicz English & Associates 1997).

This article provides an investigation of the history and the changing legal and regulatory environments of street vending under apartheid in Durban, the largest city of the Natal province of South Africa, with a comparison with the patterns and characteristics of street trading in post-apartheid Durban. I will show that even in post-apartheid Durban, despite democratic elections and ideological transformations, street trading is still perceived as problematic and parasitic to the urban economy. This persistence of anti street-trade ideology, together with continued uncontrolled and unlicensed mass street trade, suggests that street trading can still be analysed as an important form of resistance, in addition to being a vital survival strategy for the urban poor in South Africa. By seizing or conquering the streets of Durban, street traders boldly defied and undermined the grand apartheid urban project, and through this important symbolic occupation gradually forced forward a de-racialising of the city, setting an important precedent for later mass non-compliance.

Before I proceed, I would like to briefly introduce to the reader some of the basic traits of informal trading in Durban. Street sales in South African cities is predominantly an African, Indian, and increasingly female activity, which forms the dominant component in the large South African informal economy (Preston-Whyte and Rogerson 1991; Naidoo 1993; Rogerson and Hart 1989; Rogerson 1996). As in other Third World cities, hawking is often described as a survivalist economic sector comprising micro-enterprises with one or few ‘employees’. These enterprises are most often based on self-employment, but can also involve different kinds of contractual agreements of out-sale for White or Indian-run formal businesses. Street trading is often placed at the marginal end of informal sector activities, but there are variations, as some sectors of the street market economy are more profitable than others.

A political history of street trading in Durban

Street trading in Durban in the early twentieth century

Historical research discloses that street trading is a long-established element of the informal sector, especially in the major urban areas (La Hausse 1984; Naidoo 1993; Rogerson 1983,1985; 1989, Maylam and Edwards 1996). The history of street trading and other informal sector activities in urban areas in South Africa is closely linked with the processes of African urbanisation, the development of influx control measures and segregation policies, and the changing legal environments regarding the regulation and deregulation of the South African economy. During the height if apartheid—from the late 1930s until the early 1980’s, street traders in South African urban areas were subject to a well entrenched tradition of repression, harassment and prosecution (Maylam 1982, 1985; Rogerson and Hart 1989; Dauskardt 1991; la Hausse 1996; Maylam and Edwards 1996). But, during the first three decades of the twentieth century, street trading flourished in Durban, as it was allowed to operate with relative few restrictions (Maylam 1982; la Hausse 1996). Local Native policy throughout this early period, while repressive, was only partly effective, as it was often contradictory and full of loopholes due to deep divisions of interest between the various actors in white political and business circles in Durban (Maylam 1982). Influx control measures were designed to limit the African presence in Durban according to labour needs and to satisfy police and ratepayers’ demands for segregation. But these policies were not fully carried out and failed due to massive defiance. La Hausse has shown how, in the early 1900’s, African traders from rural areas entered Durban on five-day passes to hawk (La Hausse 1984). In part, this early African informal sector was a predominantly male-dominated, and part-time rural-urban phenomenon. Street traders established themselves around key transport nodes and outside other sites of economic and social activity, such as the hostels for togt labourers working on daily contracts at the port, around the many eating places and illegal liquor houses (shebeens), and both inside and outside formal and informal market places that emerged.

The Warwick Avenue Triangle and Grey Street areas, which today form the largest informal street market area in Durban, has a long history of hawking. Initially, most of the non-white enterprises in nineteenth century Durban were run by Indians. These Indian businesses came to dominate a large portion of the western parts of the Central Business District (CBD) from the end of the 19th century. Adjacent to this thriving Indian commercial area around Grey Street developed the prime sites for African trade: the Native Market in Victoria Street and the nearby Market system in Warwick Avenue comprising of the Squatters Market complex. By the turn of the century, both the Indian and African trading areas were consolidated as non-white economic zones with a bustling trade. The Indian trade in the Grey Street area had then, as it has now, a more formal ‘shop-like’ character with a bigger turnover, as opposed to the smaller and more stall- and pavement operation styles typical of African merchants. The most important goods and services in the street market economy around the turn of the century were vegetables, fruits, meat, second-hand clothes, prostitution, transport services, domestic service (clothes washing), African beer and traditional medicine products and healing services.

Beer brewing and the sale of traditional medicines and services were arguably the two most important African economic sectors in Durban’s street market economy. Especially during these early years, utshwala (African beer) and muthi (African medicine) provided an important link between the ‘traditional’ culture in the rural areas, and the emerging ‘modern’ urban cultures. Compared to the early urban muthi trade which was run by relatively few and wealthy African men who were trained as either inyangas (traditional doctors) or sangomas (diviners), beer brewing was a more popular based, and mostly a female-run enterprise. Paul la Hausse has vividly described the importance of alcohol and beer brewing in popular culture, and its influence on the overall social history of African life in Durban (1984). In response to the growing utshwala business and the alleged drunkenness of African workers, the Durban Town Council implemented the Native Beer Act in 1909 with the establishment of a municipal monopoly on the sale and production of beer. Upon this beer monopoly rested the elaboration of the ‘Durban system’: a system of ‘native administration’ which became a model for later urban apartheid policies around the country (Swanson 1976). The monopoly had profound impacts on the beer brewing trade and on the lives of Durban’s African population. The Act which made all private beer brewing and selling illegal, thus criminalised the many African women involved in the trade. The massive revenue derived from the monopoly on production and sale of beer was to finance what the Act called ‘native welfare’ or ‘any other object in the interest of the natives residing or resorting to a Borough or township’ (Act No. 23 of 1908 from la Hausse 1996: 35). The money was spent by the newly formed Native Administration Department on municipal breweries and beer halls, barracks and single sex hostels, as well as financing the cost of policing the natives. All this constituted the brutal and repressive system of control known as the ‘Durban system’.

A similar process of repression occurred in the informal muthi market. The African traditional medicine trade initially expanded at the turn of the century with the increasing urban demand for muthi due to increased African urbanisation. This demand for muthi products and traditional healing stems from the widely held belief amongst Africans that good health and success - or disease and misfortune - are not chance occurrences, but are due to the will or actions of individuals or ancestral spirits. Muthi and traditional healing are believed to influence all aspects of life. The muthi trade thus has a strong backing of religious and cultural ideas, which makes it profitable. These early muthi traders were targeted by city authorities for two reasons: their street trade, and as part of a broad struggle for medical rights over the control of health. The first official legislation pertaining to the muthi trade came in the 1890s with chapter 14 in the Natal Code of Native Law (Law 19) of 1891, and the Zululand Proclamation (No. VII) of 1895. Natal was the only government in South Africa that legalised the trade, but it applied elaborate and strict laws. Muthi traders were perceived as dealing with ‘witchcraft’ and ‘mumbo-jumbo’ medicines and practices, and were accused of trading on the ‘Native’s innocence’.

Despite this early official paternalistic concern for African consumer rights, the muthi trade expanded during the first three decades of the 20^th century until it reached a scale where the Natal Pharmaceutical Society came to feel the competition. Traders had expanded their range of goods to include patent drugs, and some of the more successful traders even opened up muthi shops and post-order businesses. In 1928, the Medical, Dental and Pharmacy Act (No. 13 of 1928) sparked a long and intense struggle between muthi traders (through the Natal Native Medical Association) and the Natal Pharmaceutical Society and various levels of government. Act No 13 together with the Witchcraft Suppression Act (No. 3 of 1957), and later strict nature conservation laws slowly but effectively drove the muthi trade underground or out to the emerging townships outside Durban. Indians took over most of the urban supply function by opening up muthi shops in the Indian business district around Grey Street. It was only with the revival of street trading in the 1980’s, that the muthi trade re-established itself on the streets of Durban again.

Most of the other street trading niches experienced the same fate as the muthi trade. Legislation became too harsh for a viable street trade, and from the late 1930’s and 40’s Durban’s street traders were slowly driven out into the peri-urban areas, while a few (mainly Indians) were ‘formalised’ into the municipal market system. In the 1940’s, the municipally run Early Morning market, also called ‘the Squatters Market’ was a top tourist attraction, with people of all races (but mostly Indians) buying and selling vegetables, meat and curios. This market complex, together with the Mai Mai Bazaar in Johannesburg were unique in South Africa. The market became a vital cog in Durban’s food distribution system. In 1975, the City Engineers Department estimated that almost 42% of the population of metropolitan Durban (at that time 750 000) relied on the Squatters Market for at least part of their food supply (City Engineer’s Department 1984a). In 1984, over 600 stalls operated in the market, which served over 200 000 customers a week, and the annual turnover was estimated to be around R60 million (US$31 million) per annum (City Engineer’s Department 1984a, 14). The Market later became dominated by Indian and African customers and traders. Between the late 1940’s and the late 70’s, there was only a miniscule and temporal street trade in Durban. Only very few and desperate people, mainly African women, and a few Indians trading outside shops in the Grey Street area braved the law.

Apartheid and Anti street-trade legislation in Durban

As mentioned above, street trading has been viewed in the same way as the notorious birds in the cornfield. In the eyes of the dominant discourse it is manifestly equivalent to ‘non-whiteness’, disorder, primitiveness, and its ‘criminal’ features have been perceived as sponging off the urban capitalist project. There are several factors which prompted South Africa’s anti-street trading policies. Firstly, like their counterparts in other cities in the world, hawkers in South African urban areas have suffered from conflicts between different ideologies of development, modernity and notions of urban aesthetic (Rogerson and Hart 1989; Latouche 1993). Street trading in Durban has always been stereotyped as anti-modern, unsightly, uncivilised, unsanitary and even criminal. This is partly due to the nature and perceptions of many of the goods and services involved in the street markets, which have primarily been targeted for ‘non-whites’ (traditional medicine, various processed foodstuffs etc.). The ‘sanitary syndrome’ has had a powerful influence on South African urban policy, and street trading was generally seen as a particular threat to public health and order (Swanson 1977, Rogerson 1983, Comaroff 1993). But these stereotypes also suffered (and still suffer) from racist undertones inherited from the colonial and apartheid legacy. Repressive street trade policies also stem from competitive antagonism between the so-called formal and informal sectors. However, this antagonism overstates the polarised nature of the concepts, as street trading is often intrinsically linked with the formal retail and trading sectors.

A typical South African flavour in the range of anti-hawker policies internationally was rooted in the idiosyncratic position of Africans in urban policy as temporary units of labour. Women in particular suffered the most in the apartheid city, since they were rarely included in urban labor requirements (Friedman 1987, Naidoo 1993). In general, one can say that South African urbanisation has been the history of androcentric policies and ideologies where African women were seen as unwanted or rather unneeded. In 1916, the Durban Town Council introduced new Native Affairs By-laws which laid down precise procedures for the registration of Natives, who required employment contracts and passes to be allowed in the city. This targeted all street traders, but created particular adversity for African women as there were few other income opportunities open for women at that time other than beer brewing and prostitution (la Hausse 1984, Naidoo 1993). Even commercial domestic tasks such as washing clothes were considered male tasks during these first years. Thus many women and young girls were deported from Durban. In official terms their status was clear: if they wore European clothes they were prostitutes and had no right to stay in Durban (la Hausse 1984). Later, the infamous Stallard Commission Report, which led to the Native (Urban Areas) Act of 1923, concluded that the African was required in the cities for the sole reason of servicing white needs, and once they ceased to do so they were to depart back to the reserves (Naidoo 1993). African women had no function in the apartheid city, and were dealt with accordingly. In addition, these women represented family life which again symbolised an undesired African urban permanence.

The repressive legal and regulatory systems made it almost impossible to trade before 1980. Legislation pertaining to street trading was as elaborate and strict in Durban as in other cities in South Africa. There were a number of acts, ordinances and by-laws at the various levels of government that restricted street trading. In general, the most important official instrument to control and regulate street trading has been the concession or withholding of trading licenses (Rogerson 1989). The large increase in the number of trading licenses held by ‘Asiatics’ and ‘the threatened invasion’ of the colony by still greater numbers of Indians towards the end of the nineteenth century resulted in the Act No. 18 of 1897 relating to licenses to wholesale and retail dealers. Under this Act the Town Council was granted discretionary power, through it’s Licensing Officer, to refuse licenses to all applicants whose premises were in an unhygienic condition or who were unable to comply with the conditions of the Insolvency Law regarding the keeping of proper accounts. At the level of national government the Black (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act No. 25 of 1945 and the 1950 Group Areas Act were the most important pieces of legislation which contained clauses that restricted street traders. Both acts debarred African street traders and small businesses from trading in the city. Even in ‘their own urban areas’ - the reserves and Bantustan’s - licenses were required which were reportedly difficult to obtain (Rogerson 1989). The Natal Ordinance 11/1973 further restricted street trading. This provincial legislation restricted hawking of goods within 100 metres of a fixed formal business, and prevented hawkers from taking up fixed stands by allowing them to occupy a spot for only fifteen minutes, after which they were to move at least 25 metres away. No sales points could be occupied on the same day. Furthermore, it stipulated that all traders required a suitable license to hawk or trade. But it was the Durban City street trading by-laws of 1962 (section J6) that were the most comprehensive and specific, and which totally outlawed street trading in the city. The combined effect of the above restrictions defined street traders as illegal intruders into the city which were eligible for prosecution by the Durban City Police.

Deregulation of street trading in the 1980’s

The experience of street traders in Durban and other apartheid cities was up until the early eighties marked by regular harassment by city officials in the form of arrests, confiscations, and fines. But despite the harsh legal and regulatory environment, there was defiance and resistance, led mainly by African women who now dominated in this small, marginal and survivalist sector of the informal economy. To these women, who had no other means of survival, the constant threat of prosecution was regarded as less of a burden than the threat of starvation (Naidoo 1993).

In the early 1980’s, the Durban local authorities started to reconceptualise street trading at the same time as street trading experienced a dramatic growth. As a result of increasing mass defiance by street traders, the city ran increasing costs of policing the small enclaves of street trade that started to emerge in the Warwick Avenue area. At the same time members of the liberal Progressive Federal Party (PFP) took over control of the city council and other local positions. They slowly came to realise that law enforcement was becoming increasingly impossible, and started to concede the economic immorality and dysfunctionality of existing legislation. But there were also other important reasons for this shift in policy: massive urbanisation due to the collapse of apartheid influx control measures; escalating urban unemployment; organised mass resistance and strong international pressure against apartheid; increasing international focus on the informal sector and its potential contribution to solving problems of unemployment and poverty, and finally; the general international move towards economic liberalisation.

These developments resulted in the launch of two studies into street trading in Durban: the ‘Market Survey’ in 1983 and the ‘Hawker Report’ in 1984 (City Engineer’s Department; 1983, 1984b). The reports, which studied the street market system, its extent, location, and policy options for street trading in general, marked a watershed in official policy towards street trading in Durban, and later in other South African cities. The reports concluded that the illegal status of the street trader had to be re-evaluated, which was perceived as radical at the time. The original plan was to move all informal sector activities out of the central business district in a typical apartheid separate-development fashion, so that the highways and freeways could continue to dominate the Warwick Avenue area. But the Market Report (1983) pointed out that this market area was important precisely because of its location and the flow of pedestrians created by nearby transportation facilities and stressed the need for the market system to exist in the area. The Hawker Report (1984b) investigated the role of street trading in Durban’s economy, and argued for a more flexible approach towards the regulation of street trading. It recommended a simpler licensing procedure, but more importantly, it introduced the idea of a number of ‘immune zones’ in the central business district where hawkers could operate on a ‘free for all’ or ‘first-come’ basis. The report considered that an element of control was essential to any functioning street trade economy, but emphasised that control measures should be fair to those within the system.

The two documents were relatively favourably received, and the necessity for this form of trade was later recognised in principle by the City Council. In 1985, a sub-committee was established to find practical ways of implementing more favourable policies towards street traders. In addition to implementing designated trading areas, a more lenient policing approach was adopted by city officials. Another outcome of the report was the introduction of a new vending license to replace the archaic hawker license. This move created a simpler and more appropriate set of licensing requirements (Rogerson 1989; Naidoo 1993). But the 1985 ‘Sub-committee re: Hawkers’ and later bodies failed to come up with clear policy statements, and practical plans for management structures and control measures within the ‘immune zones’. The policy approach adopted in Durban differed from other South African cities in that it attempted a more loosely regulated control system (Rogerson 1989).

Three years after Durban’s reconceptualisation of street trading, came the 1987 White Paper on Privatisation and Deregulation. This central State policy document saw the imperative for encouraging entrepreneurship and stressed that the approach to regulation should emphasise the promotion of economic activity and be less directed towards their control. Although Durban’s approach towards street trading in principle was in line with this deregulation move, officials in Durban were still struggling to find practical ways of putting these principles into action.

The policy of non-prosecution towards the end of the 1980s contributed to a dramatic increase of street trading in Durban, which had the positive effect of creating much needed employment, but also gave rise to a number of problems. The deregulation process resulted in problems of co-operation, as street traders were uncertain of their rights and city officials were unable to respond to problems and complaints, which again resulted in the public perceiving a lack of interest or initiative on the part of the City Council. An increasing number of complaints came from the media and commuters’, ratepayers’ and residents’ associations about the growing ‘problem of street trading’. Ironically, this relative lack of official regulation and control also brought in new problems for the street traders. New sorts of informal control mechanisms came in to fill the void, including ‘take-overs’ of trading areas with extortion of ‘rent’, informal supply cartels with their own means of controlling prices, and protection rackets and mafia’s. This mainly targeted female traders and those with the least resources and connections. The opening up of informal trading also introduced new conflicts between traders, often based on race (Indian vs. African vs. whites), or stemming from newcomers who had no respect for, or knowledge of, the existing ‘informal’ rules governing the organisation of street trade.

There were several developments in the Warwick Avenue market system during the second half of the 1980’s. When the Hawker report was written in 1984, there were approximately 200 traders in the entire Central Business District (City Engineer's Department 1984b). Counts done in September 1988 revealed that there were approximately 600 traders in the Warwick Avenue area alone, which had increased to approximately 700 in February 1989, and 800 in June 1990 (City Engineer’s Department 1989, 5; 1990, 70). At the same time there was an increase in the number of African traders operating in the area and a decrease in the number of Indians. In 1984 an average of 71% of the traders were African, rising to 98% in 1990 (City Engineer's Department 1990, 7). The gender distribution changed slightly, as more men entered the street trade sector (from 33% in 1984 to 40% in 1990) (City Engineer's Department 1990, 7). The scale of operations had grown substantially, and the range of goods and services offered became more diverse and complex. The most popular items for sale in 1990 were fruit, vegetables and muthi products, and the tendency was for traders selling similar goods to group spatially, forming informal street markets (City Engineer's Department 1990, 70). There were also reports of higher incidences of ‘litter and disorganisation’ in the area. Despite these developments, the City Engineer's Department noted that the implementation of the philosophy of ‘reasonableness’ towards street trading had been ‘fairly successful’, and that street trading was now ‘firmly entrenched in the CBD’s economic structure (City Engineer's Department 1990, pp 71-72).

The post-apartheid street trading boom in the 1990’s

The 1990’s saw the boom of street trading in Durban, with the numbers of street traders reaching a formidable 19,800 in 1997 (Markewicz Report: Daily News Aug. 21 1997). The lenient policies formulated in the mid-80s were seen as one of the reasons for this growth. Other important factors were natural disasters (two floods and a severe drought) and the severe political violence that dominated the province in the 1980’s and 90’s, which drove people from their rural homes and into Durban. Although Durban is a major industrial city, most of these urban newcomers were forced into informal sector activities to make a living due to a lack of other employment opportunities and insufficient skills.

In 1991 the Business Act (No. 71 of 1991) regarding the licensing and carrying on of businesses was passed by Central government. The Act introduced a new dispensation for street trading, restricting the powers to make regulations or bylaws to prohibit street vending. Durban local authorities were not content with certain definitions and provisions of the Act, as they wanted greater control of street trading. For example, the Act did not authorise Durban’s ‘immune zones’. During the following years Durban officials worked hard to amend sections of the Business Act, as it took away their legislative means to regulate street trading. A unique situation occurred where a degree of anarchy in Durban’s streets prevailed for almost three years. The informal management problems faced by street traders in the late 80’s were intensified. In 1995, the Sunday Times reported that ‘sidewalk syndicates’ had hijacked informal street trade and had started terrorising traders in Durban, by charging up to R1,000 (US$300) a month for what should have been free prime trading sites. A city official claimed that immigrants from Pakistan, Nigeria and Zimbabwe had taken control over large portions of Durban’s streets, and this was pushing out the genuine traders who were ‘trying to make an honest living’ (Sunday Times Nov. 19, 1995). But this was merely a publicity stunt, as the local authorities used these blown up headlines to push for strict by-laws instead of accepting responsibility for the situation.

The politics of street trading in post-apartheid Durban

The early 1990s were dominated by the lack of state legitimacy followed by an unstable political climate due to the negotiations leading up to the democratic elections in 1993. Being in the international focus, white administrators were increasingly bound by an emerging ‘political correctness’ focusing on human rights and democracy, which made it practically impossible to attempt to clamp down on informal trading. The Durban authorities were forced to sit down and formulate new street trading by-laws, which turned out to be a complex process. The Informal Trading and Small Business Opportunities Department (ITSBOD) was established in 1993 to help address the growing problem of street trading and the lack of functional legislation, and to negotiate with street traders who by now had organised themselves into various bodies all claiming representation in the process. Not all of these organisations were taken seriously, as some of their leaders operated more in self-interest. Starting a street trader organisation became a lucrative business for a few power hungry entrepreneurs. There were however a few exceptions from this trend. Most important was the formation of the Self-Employed Women's Union (SEWU) in 1994, which has in a professional manner evolved into a powerful voice for female street traders and other self-employed women around the country.

The new street trading by-laws were finalised in September 1995, and implemented in January 1996. Street trading now became restricted to two areas; the Central Business District core and the Beachfront, and on specific demarcated sites. Traders could operate only between 6 am and midnight and overnight sleeping at the place of trade was forbidden. The erection of any structures was prohibited, and certain health and hygiene provisions were laid out (Municipal Notice 96 of 1995).

The new street trading by-laws were met with strong opposition from street trader organisations. SEWU and other organisations complained that they were not consulted in the drawing up of the new by-laws. They forcefully argued that the new laws automatically criminalised street traders, and in particular the prohibition of sleeping over night at the places of trade, as there had been a long-standing demand for the provision of overnight accommodation. In addition, the by-laws ascribing comprehensive cleaning responsibilities to street traders amounted to a shift of public responsibility onto marginal street traders. In fact the City had a responsibility for the workplace of the traders, they claimed. Despite these and other objections, city officials immediately started various ‘clean up operations’ to clear the streets of illegal trade.

The year 1996 was marked by this tough stance towards street trading, with pre-dawn blitz’s on street markets. I was present at one of these raids in September 1996, when over 40 heavily armed policemen and several rubbish disposal trucks moved into the Warwick Avenue area removing illegal shelters that were erected by muthi traders in Russell Street and Leopold Street. According to a senior police official, street traders supported the move to clear up the area, as it posed a serious health hazard, and the structures were hindering both traffic and pedestrian flow. The street traders’ version was different. Madlamini Khumalo, branch leader for SEWU in Russell Street handed a memorandum to the City Police condemning the police action. The statement said: "We find it unacceptable that police are sent in to harass us without the responsible authorities being able to provide us with any alternatives" (Daily News Sept. 30, 1996). She further told the newspaper that ITSBOD had promised them a new market for the last two years, and called on the department to allow the traders to trade as they did until a new and more suitable place was found for them.

The de-politicization of post-apartheid development

The deregulation process in Durban since the 1980’s has, as mentioned earlier, been dominated by confusion and conflict due to the absence of a clearly articulated management policy. Even after the implementation of the new comprehensive bylaws, street trading is still largely uncontrolled and unregulated. The period has also been marked by official passiveness or incompetence in dealing with the street trader problem. In spite of substantial funds allocated from central government via the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), and a wealthy municipal economy, the Durban local authorities have not yet managed to implement any major improvements for street traders.

One reason is that the Durban post-apartheid development drive has been an ‘anti-politics machine’, to borrow a concept from Ferguson (1990): a de-politicised development process, whereby politics has been seen as hindering development by creating unnecessary power struggles, which has entailed an official refusal to face popular politics. City officials have expressed this quite openly by blaming ‘development’ delays on the chaotic state of street trader politics. This has created much conflict, as street trader organisations have constantly complained about a lack of representation and consultation in the process.

Secondly, as in most development projects, a technical and quantitative assessment of ‘the problem’ is regarded as imperative. But it has proven difficult to determine the precise extent and location of street trading, due to its intrinsically complex, spontaneous and fluctuating character. This technical and reductionist approach often creates various ‘infrapolitical’ strategies of resistance and manipulation, which are also seen as further destroying and delaying ‘development’. During the development project of building a new muthi market close to Russell Street bridge, planners counted only a dozen inyangas amongst the 400 traders in Russell Street. In their plans, they therefore made provisions for consultation rooms for these inyangas. But after the plans were presented to the traders, many more claimed to be inyangas. Some entrepreneurs earned money from this by offering three week evening courses to muthi traders and then rewarding them inyanga ‘certificates’.

The politics of street trading have not undergone the changes one could expect from the introduction of democracy, and the city bureaucracy has constantly blamed local politicians for their lack of engagement. The political transformation has created an increasingly powerful but conservative African middle-class, which has brought lots of hope but little practical results for the urban poor. Street trading is still perceived as a major problem and an eye-sore in the urban landscape one wishes to present to the booming tourist industry.

There has also been a lack of co-operation both within and between street trader organisations and local government bodies. Street trader organisations have been competing for members and representation. Some divisions are due to racial and gender tensions, as some organisations - although not always officially - are essentially either Indian, African, or female based. For example, SEWU (Self-Employed Women's Union) have by virtue of their exclusive statutes pitched themselves against the other male-dominated organisations in the name of ‘female empowerment’ in order to attract members. At the same time, the various local government departments involved in the issue (Informal Trade, City Police, City Health Department, Urban Planning and Design, Architecture, Parks and Recreation, Urban Strategy) are also not well co-ordinated in addressing the problem. The relationship between the Informal Trade Department and the various street trader organisations is still tense. One of the problems noted by SEWU officials is that the department is still filled with the same people who harassed street traders under previous administrations. Both the director and the manager are former police officers, who SEWU claim have not managed to transform into a post-apartheid reality.

Durban’s street markets today

According to a recent report, Durban’s 20,000 street traders earn between R200 and R1000 (US$30 to US$150) per month, totalling a monthly earning power of over R3.8 million (US$600,000) (Markewicz English & Associates 1997). Interviews in the Russell Street muthi market, which is one of the biggest markets in Durban, have revealed that some traders can earn up to R3 000 - 4 000 (US$450-US$600) per month. Another study on the Russell Street muthi market revealed that the total incomes earned (including operating costs) is estimated to be between R1.06 million and R1,58 million (US$150,00-240,000--which are probably underestimates), providing jobs for between 600-1000 people (including assistants and gatherers), and servicing 80% of the African population (Institute of Natural Resources 1996). African women still dominate street trading in Durban, due to the same factors that historically have placed them there. In Russell Street, approximately 80% of the muthi traders are women. Amongst the most important goods offered by street traders today are: fresh produce, prepared foods, traditional medicine products, meat, alcohol, second-hand clothing, household goods, arts and crafts, newspapers & magazines and flowers. The most prevalent services include: minibus-taxi transport, hair salons, shoe repairs, traditional healing, telephone kiosks, prostitution, car/taxi mechanics and rickshaw transport. Hawking is primarily located in public spheres where there is a high concentration of pedestrian movement and activity. In general, there are large clusters of traders around the major nodes or key installations such as transport terminals, or along routes (streets, roads, bridges) which link either different transport terminals and/or transport terminals with other important nodes of social and economic activity. Despite the new by-laws and licensing system, the degree of control has been only limited, as most of the traders operate outside these restricted areas and without licenses. In the demarcated trading areas, more people tend to have licenses due to frequent controls, but even here ‘illegal’ trade dominates. The reason for this, I believe, is that people do not wish to comply to the new regime which they still deem unfair. In the last section I will argue that this is an indication of a fundamental disjuncture in society-state relations over who makes the rules of the game, and what they should be. The fact that there still exists an illegal horde of informal traders suggests that people, through their non-compliance, wish to change the present dispensation.

Street trading as survival and resistance

How can we understand these changes in the form and extent of street trading in Durban? It is clear that any explanation or analysis of these changes has to encompass both the structural forces of economic and political apartheid state oppression and the agency of micro-level strategies of resistance. What were the prime forces behind the policy change in the 1980s? How did people survive in a repressive apartheid city or, more precisely, on what basis did people respond over time? The two questions seem to me to have an inherent reciprocity. Not bypassing or dismissing structural developments, I will focus mainly on the specific forms of responses from below. It is true that structural changes (i.e. the organic crisis of the apartheid state since the 1970s) created viable conditions for the massification of defiance, and that structural economic factors such as unemployment and poverty actually forced many individuals to defy the law despite the severe threat it posed. Notwithstanding the fact that hawking was a last resort for accumulation, i.e. a survivalist strategy for desperate urban marginals, I wish to highlight the historically important fact that these first traders, by boldly braving the law, created a vital platform for later mass non-compliance. The defiance of these street traders, and the later mass street trading, by defying the apartheid urban principles, targeted one of the most important symbols of white supremacist ideology. The urban centres were the ideological and material power nodes of the apartheid state, which was evident in the regime’s commitment to defend them from the ‘de-urbanising’ pressures of ‘blackness’ at all costs. By invading these apartheid shrines, street traders inspired others and forced forward a redefinition of urban space.

Margaret Levi has developed a ‘logic of institutional change’ which incorporates an analysis of both the structural impositions of dominant institutions and the responsive agency of the weak, which contains useful elements which can be applied in analysing the developments in street trading in Durban since the 1980s (Levi 1990). Her account of the strategic and behavioural withdrawal of consent to current institutional arrangements is the most interesting part of her theory, as it involves actors with maximising interests. Compliance as consent is contingent on the approval of the social bargain. It is the ‘norm of fairness’ that generates contingent consent, which means that people only comply with an institutional arrangement they deem fair and that is collectively informed and adhered to (Levi 1990, 409). Contingent consent can therefore be withdrawn if the initial gains from the trade are seen as insufficient, and an interest develops in changing the institution so as to achieve a better deal. This, she says, can either happen (1) when a group has new increased resources at its disposal that permit it to reject the current institutional arrangement, (2) when the dominant institution loses resources, (3) when a general change in consciousness occurs, (4) when people believe that others are failing to comply, or (5) when those wielding institutional power break their end of the social bargain. The crisis of apartheid can easily be interpreted as being (amongst other factors) a result of increasing mass popular non-compliance, and a far too costly (both financially and morally) law enforcement structure.

But successful collective action by the relatively weak is often extremely difficult because they lack the resources, organisational skills, and mechanisms through which to organise. Individual - but collectively informed - non-compliance, she argues, circumvents these collective action problems, and may enable those who are non-compliant to evade repression (Levi 1990, 414). For Levi then, the best scenario for their success is when subjects ‘...take advantage of any new resources that come their way’, or take advantage of any reduction in the relative bargaining power of those who control the institutional (Levi 1990, 413).

Both the ‘...generation or discovery of new resources by challengers, and the deterioration of the resources of those currently defining the institutional arrangements’ (1990, 414) are important elements of Levi’s theory, and, I believe, highly applicable on the Durban street trade experience. Urban street trading, together with other informal sector activities created new economic resources that enabled people to sustain themselves as the illegitimate state denied the provision of social and public services, security, and adequate formal wages. These survival strategies deflected demands on the state, and led to a certain degree of independence and disengagement from the state, which made it easier and safer for individuals to defy. As I have shown above, popular non-compliance which was inspired by the first defiant street traders was a vital force in bringing about liberalisation and deregulation in street trading. For the brave ‘pioneers’—mostly women--the choice of non-compliance was extremely difficult to make as they did not have the strength of numbers and could not know whether others would follow. The larger the number of people who refuse to comply the less risk there is for others who do not comply and the greater the incentive for others to join their ranks (Tripp 1997, 8).

However, several factors benefited the defiance of the pioneers. First, this type of non-compliance is often less threatening to the regime as it avoids direct confrontation and does not require a direct response (Tripp 1997, 8). Secondly, one of the most effective ways subordinates may express resistance through defiance is by embedding it in a larger context of symbolic compliance. In Mexico City, Cross (1998) argues that street vendors successfully resisted regulatory controls within the context of intense loyalty to the ruling party regime. Likewise, the public defiance of the first female street traders in Durban enjoyed relative immunity from summary violence due to their structural appeal to the same patriarchal values of religion, family, and morality to which the apartheid regime gave constant lip-service. In a public ideology that implicitly respects women in their roles as mothers and breadwinners, a violent attack on women (even African women) acting in this particular capacity would have been quite awkward for the public standing of the apartheid regime.

The history of apartheid urban policy suffered chronically from such contradictions and moral inconsistencies, but the new liberal regime in the Durban City Council in the 1980s could no longer afford to continue in this mould. Thus, as with any dominant ideology, this ideology not only excluded certain forms of activity as illegitimate it also, perhaps inadvertently, created a small niche of opportunity that was utilised by these desperate mothers. By clothing their defiance in the hegemonic dress, so to say, these women were able to challenge the regime. But Scott (1985) warns against over-romanticising ‘everyday forms of resistance’. Especially for these early ‘illegal’ street traders, life on the streets was definitely not easy.

In addition to the agency of contingent consent, Levi mentions the importance of decisions by institutional managers that have the unintended consequences of undermining their own power. This too is relevant for the case of street trading in Durban. For the Durban local authorities in the early 1980s, the massive non-compliance of street traders was a clear indication that the confidence and legitimacy had already diminished considerably to an extent whereby coercion in this context would imply an even greater loss of power at a greater cost and risk. But by starting a deregulation process without a clear vision of what they wanted to achieve, and without proper instruments of implementation and control measurements, and most importantly lacking popular legitimacy, the process soon led to anarchy.

Conclusion: Informal Resistance par bricolage

The formidable growth of the informal economy is probably one of the most important developments in Africa in the 1980s, affecting virtually every stratum of society (Tripp 1997). Some have characterised these developments as important forms of disengagement from and resistance to the state (Drakakis-Smith 1987, Azarya and Chazan 1987, Bayart 1986, Chazan 1988). Others see it as an alternative form of social life--‘an authentic culture of poverty’--invented by social groups confronted by the impasses of both modernity and underdevelopment resulting from an increasingly dominate Occidental development ideology (Latouche 1993, 127). Street trading, especially in the major urban areas, is probably one of the most visible and economically important manifestations of this ‘informal’ economy. The ‘informal’, I would stress, can also be seen as an important form of resistance, both in its practical organisation and ideological substance. This can be done by drawing ideas from the increasing body of literature that deals with the more subtle and fugitive forms of anti-hegemonic utterances, and how these may generate change (Scott 1985, 1990; van Onselen 1976; Levi 1990; Tripp 1997).

Latouche’s notion of the informal is similar to Scott’s (1990) concept of ‘infrapolitics’. Infrapolitics refers to the wide variety of low profile forms of resistance that subordinates practice in the face of domination. The political work of infrapolitics of a subordinate group is the aggregate of a ‘hidden transcript’ developed by the same group, which acts as a critique of power behind the back of power. This offstage discourse creates many strategies by which subordinates may insinuate their resistance in disguised forms publicly. It constitutes a veiled discourse of dignity and self-assertion--‘a voice under domination’ (Scott 1990:137). For example, Scott points to Bakhtins’s analysis of medieval markets and carnivals as privileged sites of anti-hegemonic discourse (in Scott 1990:122-123) and Lewis’s proposition that spirit possession in many societies represents "a quasi-covert form of social protest for women and marginal groups" (in Scott 1990:141-142). According to Bakhtin, the market place enabled people to gather spontaneously and independently, and offered the all important anonymity which crowds create. Likewise, the conquered urban and peri-urban street markets in Durban provided conducive environments for establishing and maintaining informal networks and constituted an important forum for resistance discourses.

But as Scott argues, the hidden transcript depends not only on unmonitored physical spaces, but also on active human agents who create and disseminate them (1990:123). In the same way as Latouche’s ‘castaways of development’ create an ‘alternative to development’ by using elements from their culture and traditions, Scott’s ‘hidden transcript’ owes much to cultural engineering and invention in the creation of a dissident subculture. The role of agency and strategic innovation--or cultural bricolage, to borrow Levi-Strauss’s term--are for the sake of this argument the most interesting aspects of these forms of popular resistance.

One of the most vibrant sectors of the street market economy in Durban today is the traditional medicine trade. The re-establishment of the urban muthi trade was largely a result of an innovative ‘re-invention’ or restructuring of tradition. Hobsbawm and Ranger’s ‘The Invention of Tradition’ (1983) left out an important aspect of the strategic uses of tradition: namely that of meeting economic ends. If the early muthi trade in Durban around the turn of the century was a breach of tradition, as many elders and chiefs (but also colonial administrators) believed at that time, then the muthi trade of the 1990s would be a true provocation. From originally being predominantly a young black male enterprise, and then later taken over by Indian shop businesses under the repressive apartheid years, the urban muthi trade has transformed into a mass- and female-driven pavement venture. Many cultural and traditional rules and customs had to be bent and redefined, to enable this development. Amongst them are those concerning the purity of the medicine, which is ‘polluted’ by menstruating women or by enemies with malevolent intentions. Today on Russell Street bridge, women openly sell medicines on dirty pavements, with thousands of people walking past, every day of the month the whole year. Traditional harvesting procedures, which enabled a certain degree of sustainability (labelled indigenous conservation practices by conservationists), had to give way to (illegal and unsustainable) mass-gathering to meet the new demands. In the same fashion, new cures and remedies were developed to meet the new demands of modern urban life.

Of political importance, the urban muthi market creates a privileged physical site for maintaining and developing an exclusive ‘hidden transcript’ for Durban’s African population. It defies what the dominant ideology terms ‘de-urbanising’ elements, and instead creates an urban space for cultural assertion and dignity--in the full view of power. Thus, the cosmology of traditional medicine and healing provides both a ‘hidden transcript’ of defiance and resistance as well as serving immediate social, economic, and health related needs. In Levi’s terms, it constitutes, together with many other niches in the street trade economy, an all important ‘new’ resource created by the weak as a response to an unfair institutional arrangement.

Street trading can provide a vital key to the post-apartheid problems of unemployment, housing, education, the persistence of a culture of non-payment for services, crime and other social problems. By creating jobs and incomes, and supplying a cheap and wide range of goods and services to the urban poor, the street market economy has an important role to play in the future South Africa. A massive influx of marginalised communities will continue to commute or settle down in urban areas in the foreseeable future. As a result, it is imperative that any future approach to street trading shifts its focus from development against street trading, to constructive development for street trading: or in other words, to declare war on poverty itself, not the poor.

References

Newspapers

The Daily News, Durban, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.

The Independent on Saturday, Durban, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa.

The Sunday Times, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Cross, John C.