Paper short abstract:

This paper tries to re-assess the place of second-hand clothes street vendors against the law, state-society relations, socioeconomic justice, formalization, fast fashion, and modernization. It suggests considerations for locally-grounded approaches to constructively engage this sector.

Paper long abstract:

In Africa, second-hand clothes vendors comprise a significant portion of the urban informal economy. Yet, majority of debates on their place in the flow of life in African cities still fail to appreciate the nuance of everyday realities of informal enterprise. These vendors often occupy a deeply-layered position characterized by precarity, ubiquity, fluidity, ostracization, and centrality. Their operating environment is shaped by contradictory relationships with the state, manifested through criminalization, punitive law enforcement, and co-optation. This paper explores how we can decriminalize this sector in an attempt to redefine its place in urban modernization pathways.

It follows a comparative case study design looking at Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Case selection was driven by the three countries’ different urban political settlements, approaches to the second-hand clothes dumping menace & subsequent treatment of second-hand clothes vendors, and textile industry rehabilitation ideologies. Qualitative data from key informant interviews conducted in 2023 have been used. This has informed a rethink of the place of these vendors against legal frameworks, negotiation of socio-economic justice, urban governance in predominantly-informal economies, fast fashion, and economic transformation discourses in Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on this, the paper will suggest useful considerations for practical, locally-grounded approaches to constructively engaging this sector on the path toward inclusive growth.

Preliminary findings indicate the intentional and inadvertent creation of ‘Chinese Walls’ in the handling of street vendors. They also show divergent pathways towards formalization and rehabilitation of textile industries, resulting in different consequences for informal vendors.