Paper short abstract:

This article is a qualitative analysis of the spatial struggles and displacements in Harare’s flea markets between 1994 and 2016. We deploy a historical perspective to argue that the deregulation of urban spaces and ESAPs attendant growing poverty is linked to the sprouting of Mupedzanhamo, in Mbare, Harare.

Paper long abstract:

This article is a qualitative analysis of the spatial struggles and displacements in Harare's flea markets between 1994 and 2016. We deploy a historical perspective to argue that the deregulation of urban spaces and ESAPs attendant growing poverty is linked to the sprouting of Mupedzanhamo, in Mbare, Harare. We demonstrate that the sprouting of flea markets between 1995 and 2005 had the tacit support of the state/municipalities which ironically viewed them as a panacea to the country's economic problems. Thus, this study is also a historical analysis of the inconsistencies in state policy from viewing them as empowerment projects to casting them as unsanitary criminal havens and aesthetically bankrupt spaces profiting from economic illegalities. We argue that this vacillation has a direct link to national politics as dominant official transcripts regarding these spaces is mainly shaped by how politicians try to win hearts and minds at particular junctures amidst grinding urban poverty. We, therefore, posit that by 2013 the way these spaces were administered was mainly along partisan basis and that there will always be conflicting versions in the conceptualization of urban (dis)order. We are, however, also making a broader comment that the urban poor are not always victims of the political and bureaucratic arrangements existing in the city but that they have managed to subvert the systems that have been mobilised by both to the state and municipalities to curve out a niche for themselves.