Cities 70 (2017) 22–31

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Conflicts over streets: The eviction of Bangkok street vendors MARK

1
Chaitawat Boonjubun
Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Finland

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In 2014, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) introduced the ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedes-
Bangkok trians’ plan. This plan, appealing to the Act on Maintaining Public Cleanliness and Public Order, promised to
Eviction bring ‘safety and orderliness’ to the city, and its implementation led to the removal of street vendors. This article
Eyes on the street investigates the goals, practices, and effects of the street clean-up plan in Bangkok's old town and shows the
Informality
ironic consequences of the plan: the streets became less safe. By analysing the vendors' rights, interests, and
Right to the city
Street vending
strategies for coping with the eviction that affected their livelihood, this article focuses on street vendors' sur-
vival strategies and analyses various forms of conflicts over streets: the vendors versus city authorities, among
the vendors, and the vendors versus powerful gangsters, and discusses the mediation of these conflicts by a
senior Buddhist monk who spoke on behalf of street vendors in negotiations with city authorities.

1. Introduction
Suntraporn,2 a 44-year-old street vendor, had a small stall that sold
hand-made jewellery on a pavement of Tha Chang, a tourist neigh-
bourhood by the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok's old town. On 30 July
2014, Suntraporn and other vendors in the area were informed by the
Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) of ‘Reclaiming pavements
for pedestrians’, a new plan for spatial reorganisation. In line with the
military government's National Council for Peace and Order's (NCPO)
campaign to make public spaces safe across the country, this city plan
obliged the district office and the City Law Enforcement Department (or
Thetsakit) to clear vending stalls on the pavements and return the pa-
vements to pedestrians by 31 August 2014 (Phra Nakhon District,
2014).
Suntraporn, who had traded in Tha Chang for ten years, was hor-
rified at the authorities' one-month notice. She explained:
‘I've been in this business for a decade… I was totally shocked when
I heard that I′d have only thirty days to find a new place. What
should I do? Tourists know that if they want to get inexpensive,
exotic souvenirs, they have to come to Tha Chang. If the vendors
move to a marketplace assigned by the Bangkok administration, will
tourists follow? No way!’
Somjai, a former government employee in her sixties who sold
women's plastic accessories such as bracelets, necklaces, and earrings in
Tha Chang, was also affected by the clearance plan. She suspected that
the whole idea was just a question of local politics. In her words: ‘The
stall clean-up is all about politics. If local politicians don't see vendors
as their voters, they may try to remove us from the streets.’
Suntraporn and Somjai were among 300 Tha Chang street vendors
affected by the street clean-up plan. Focusing on the effects of
Bangkok's recent spatial reorganisation policy, this article asks the
following questions: What were the reasons for the ‘Reclaiming pave-
ments for pedestrians’ plan, and did the authorities consult with the
street vendors when making it? How was the plan introduced to street
vendors, and what were their reactions to the reorganisation of their
vending space? How was the plan implemented, and what were its ef-
fects? This study pays particular attention to street vendors' conflicts
and their survival strategies.
Unlike several studies on street vendors that group all vendors in
one category, and thus assume that they share similar experiences of
vulnerability and adopt similar survival strategy, my study reveals that
the interests and strategies of the Tha Chang street vendors facing
eviction were heterogeneous. Vendors saw the eviction differently, and
adopted different strategies to cope with the disastrous effects of spatial
reorganisation on their livelihood. In contrast to a recent study on street
vendors in Bangkok (Batréau & Bonnet, 2016), which emphasised the
relationship between street vendors and local authorities, my study
discloses a multiplicity of conflicts: between the vendors and city au-
thorities, among the vendors, and between the vendors and powerful
gangsters. What makes Tha Chang street vendors an extraordinary case
study is that a senior Buddhist monk mediated and negotiated between
these interest groups.
In analysing Bangkok, this article responds to a call to study cities

E-mail address: chaitawat.boonjubun@helsinki.fi.

1
Permanent address: Department of Social Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 37, FI-00014 Helsinki, Finland.
2
The names of street vendors have been changed and the actual vending locations are not mentioned. Other details are accurate.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2017.06.007
Received 29 September 2016; Received in revised form 15 April 2017; Accepted 9 June 2017
0264-2751/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C. Boonjubun
that are ‘off the map’ (Robinson, 2002) of urban research and con-
tributes to the debates on the characteristic features of the cities in
global South - ‘informality’ (Roy, 2005) - by unpacking the complex
nature of ‘informality’ and showing the varieties of rights.
The data for this study were collected during nine months of field-
work in Bangkok, between July 2014 and March 2015. They consist of
policy documents; observations; and interviews with street vendors,
pedestrians, senior-level officers at the City Law Enforcement
Department, and an assistant to the Buddhist monk who acted as a
mediator to redress the conflicts.
I begin by providing an overview of street vendors and urban po-
licies on street vending in Bangkok. I then introduce the ‘Reclaiming
pavements for pedestrians’ plan. After a brief discussion regarding the
debates on informality and rights, I analyse the effects of the spatial
reorganisation and the reactions of the Tha Chang street vendors. I
conclude by discussing street vendors' complex interests, strategies, and
rights; informality; and the effects of spatial planning on the livelihood
of street vendors and on the street safety and orderliness.
2. Street vendors in Bangkok
Street vendors provide ‘goods for sale to the public without having a
permanent built-up structure from which to sell’ (Bhowmik, 2005:
2256). The term for street vending in Thai, ‘hap re phaeng loi’ (Askew,
2002), literally translates as ‘mobile shoulder pole and floating stall’,3
and reflects the early history of street vending in Thai cities as a mobile
activity.
The literature on street vendors in the cities of the developing world
(Bhowmik, 2005; Crossa, 2009) acknowledges the role of vendors as
self-employed traders in creating employment and selling goods at a
reasonable price. Street vendors have contributed significantly to the
urban economy; however, town planners tend to see their presence as a
sign of ‘disorder’ or ‘underdevelopment’, and street vendors are among
the first to be evicted by urban policy that aims for a modern, rational
city (Bromley, 2000; Hunt, 2009). Street vendors who ‘illegally’ trade in
public spaces frequently face a cat-and-mouse game with city autho-
rities (Turner & Schoenberger, 2012). Even if they hold a licence to
trade on streets, authorised street vendors may not be able to escape
evictions, which are usually legitimised by appealing to historic site
preservation programmes, neighbourhood renewal projects, or public
events. Nonetheless, evicted vendors often move back to the streets – as
illegal street vendors – once monitoring subsides (Bromley, 2000). In
some cities, after returning to the streets, the vendors have even formed
organisations to help each other keep watch for the police (Crossa,
2009).
In Thailand, policies and programmes on street vending have been
ambiguous (Kusakabe, 2006). From time to time, governments have
tolerated street vending, and seen it as a significant income generation
activity that eradicates poverty, particularly in times of crisis. At other
times, authorities have considered street vending a ‘threat’ to the city's
safety and orderliness.
In the early period, vending in Bangkok took place in canals or
floating markets (Mateo-Babiano, 2012), but very soon after the con-
struction of streets began under the reign of King Rama IV
(1851–1868), which changed Bangkok from the ‘Venice of the East’ to a
land-based city, vendors moved into the streets. In the 1950s, street
vendors tended to be men who had left their work in agriculture; in the
1980s, food vendors were often female rural migrants; and today, many
women and men are involved in the vending business as couples
(Nirathron, 2006).
Street vending in Bangkok has long been recognised as an important
source of income for the urban poor, the lower educated, and migrants
(Maneepong & Walsh, 2013). The 1997 Asian financial crisis brought
3
Translated by the author.
23
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
about massive lay-offs for employees in the formal sector, leading to a
substantial rise in the number of street vendors in the city (Bhowmik,
2005). According to Maneepong and Walsh (2013), a ‘new generation
of street vendors’ emerged, characterised by sophisticated business
techniques such as branding, international supply chain management,
and advanced information technology. They argue that the vendors of
this generation had university-level education; some vendors were
educated middle-class entrepreneurs. In contrast, the street vendors of
the old generation sold low-priced products and services using limited
technical skills, and served both local and foreign customers. Further,
this new generation of street vendors often trade in private market-
places; whereas the old generation usually set up vending pitches along
busy public streets, and were vulnerable to policy changes and har-
assment by authorities or powerful gangsters.
To survive the aftermath of the financial crisis, street vendors, of
both the old and new generations, could not avoid competing against
each other for space and access to customers. This included direct
competition between fixed-stall and mobile vendors
(Maneepong & Walsh, 2013). Some vendors moved their stalls near
newly built subway or elevated train stations in order to reach new
markets (Walsh, 2010). Many old generation vendors changed their
products and services to be able to compete (Maneepong & Walsh,
2013).
The total number of street vendors in Bangkok remains unclear,
since there are both registered and unregistered vendors. According to
the 2014 official statistical data on authorised vending spots (City Law
Enforcement, 2016), 665 locations were registered for vending, and
registered vendors totalled 20,170.
3. Bangkok's inconsistent policies on street vending
The BMA has changed its policy on street vending several times
since its foundation in 1972, the same year that the law to monitor
street vending was enacted. After the first Bangkok governor4 took of-
fice in 1973, the BMA continued to monitor the streets and allowed
street vending in some parts of the city, while in others, they forced
street vendors to move into regulated marketplaces. In 1978, the BMA
established a ‘City Police Unit’ (now, Thetsakit or the City Law En-
forcement Department) to monitor street vending activities. During the
1979 recession, street vending was encouraged as a solution to un-
employment (Yasmeen & Nirathron, 2014).
The early 1990s saw rapid economic growth in Thailand, and the
number of street vendors rose to meet the higher demand. Nevertheless,
the BMA's 1992–1996 Development Plan pointed the finger of blame at
street vending for making the streets unsanitary, unsafe, and dis-
organised (BMA, 1992). In response, the Act on Maintaining Public
Cleanliness and Public Order B.E. 2535 (1992) came into force, em-
powering the BMA to decide which public spaces allowed street
vending. In the following 1997–2001 development plan (BMA, 1997),
the BMA attempted to reduce the growing number of street vendors and
prohibit cooking food on the streets. The Act was later used by the BMA
to support their division of streets into authorised and unauthorised for
vending. Street vendors in authorised areas were asked to register,
follow the rules and regulations concerning vending pitch size and
hours of trade, and had to be absent from the streets on cleaning days.
They were also obliged to pay penalty fines if they violated the law.
In addition to the registration system, in September 2011, the BMA
introduced a new regulation on collecting sanitation fees for cleaning
authorised vending areas. The fee varies depending on the size of the
vending pitch. The Thetsakit of the district office collect a monthly
cleaning fee (BMA, 2001). It is important to note that the Thetsakit do
4
The Governor of Bangkok is the head of the ‘Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’,
Bangkok's local government. The governor is elected by direct vote of the residents every
four years (BMA, 2016a).
C. Boonjubun
not collect money for rent from the vendors.
An unintended consequence of these cleaning fees and penalty fines
was bribery, or the collection of so-called ‘tea money’ by officers
(Kusakabe, 2006). Because vendors were not always aware of what fees
they should pay and were not always given a receipt for their payment,
they became easy targets for mistreatment (Yasmeen & Nirathron,
2014). Some vendors were asked to pay ‘tea money’ of up to 45,000
Baht (US$ 1515) (Maneepong & Walsh, 2013:41). Street vendors in
unauthorised areas were even more vulnerable to various forms of
harassment. To ensure a secure spot for vending, some vendors were
asked to pay protection money or illegal rent to officials and/or pow-
erful gangsters (Maneepong & Walsh, 2013; Yasmeen & Nirathron,
2014).
The vulnerability of both unauthorised and authorised street ven-
dors has increased because street vendors in Bangkok are not officially
organised or unionised (Bhowmik, 2005). As noted by Bhowmik
(2005:2259), ‘this seems surprising given their large numbers and the
problems that [Bangkok street vendors] face from the authorities’.
Unlike those in Bangkok, street vendors in other cities in the global
South such as Mexico City (Peña, 1999) have established formal orga-
nisations that collect fees from their members. These street vendors'
organisations give their members a concrete platform to express their
rights and demand protection from the authorities.
4. The ‘reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan
Thailand has been governed by military governments for most of its
history since the 1932 Revolution that transformed Thailand from an
absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. When the country was
not ruled by juntas, the heads of governments were most often Prime
Ministers who were retired army generals and entered politics after
their military career (Forsyth, 2010; Winichakul, 2014).
In 2001, Thaksin Shinawatra, the leader of the Thai Rak Thai party,
won the general election and became Prime Minister. Unlike other
politicians whose families had ties to military elites, Thaksin came from
a rural, lower-middle class background (Forsyth, 2010). The main
reasons for his triumph were the success of his party's programmes that
targeted rural voters (the 30-baht (US$ 1) universal cheap healthcare, a
village-level loan scheme, and a moratorium on debt payments); pre-
vious governments' public policies that ignored rural populations; and
resistance against the IMF in the wake of the 1997 Asian economic
crisis (Baker, 2005).
To a certain extent, as Baker and Phongpaichit (2009) argue, the
populist programmes of Thaksin's government had advanced welfare
and provided peasants with improved access to capital. However,
Thaksin was criticised for his alleged abuse of power and corruption. In
2006, the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) group, known as the
‘Yellow Shirts’, was established to challenge Thaksin (Forsyth, 2010).
After the coup d'état in October 2006, the Thai Rak Thai party was
dissolved and 111 of its members were banned from running for poli-
tical office for five years. Thaksin has lived in self-exile ever since
(McCargo, 2008). The Palang Prachachon party, which was funded by
Thaksin, later emerged and won the election in 2007, but was forced by
the Constitutional Court to disband, due to vote-buying. As in the case
of the Thai Rak Thai, the court prohibited Palang Prachachon's execu-
tive members from holding political office for five years (Terwiel,
2011). The Prachathipat (Democrat Party), supported by the Yellow
Shirts, took office. It was believed that the Democrats formed a new
government through ‘a series of negotiations behind the scenes’ with
former MPs of Palang Prachachon, who later changed sides (Terwiel,
2011: 299). To counter the new government as well as the military,
judiciary, and the elites (these groups were believed to have roles in
dissolving the Thai Rak Thai and Palang Prachachon, and in supporting
the Democrats who assumed office), the United Front for Democracy
against Dictatorship (UDD) – the ‘Red Shirts’ – arose.
Whereas the Yellow Shirts represented the urban middle classes,
24
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
mobilised against corrupt politicians and safeguarding the monarchy,
the Red Shirts claimed that they were the voice of the rural people and
the urban poor, defending democracy and seeking social justice
(Winichakul, 2014). Some members of the Yellow Shirts labelled the
Red Shirts as uneducated, calling them ‘buffaloes’. The Red Shirts re-
ferred to themselves as ‘phrai’ (serfs, as in feudal times) and protested
against the ammat (lord) (Phongpaichit & Baker, 2016:17). Indeed, the
discourse of khon muang (sophisticated city dwellers) and khon ban nok
(underdeveloped country hicks) is long running in Thai society, and has
influenced the uneven development between urban and rural settings
(Askew, 2002:2; Wissink & Hazelzet, 2016). Bangkok is considered
Thailand's primate city (McGee, 1967; Walsh & Amponstira, 2013), or
the social, political, economic, and cultural centre of the country: it has
the country's highest concentration of growth, investment, and devel-
opment (Baker & Phongpaichit, 2009; Fong, 2012).
In 2011, the Pheu Thai party led by Yingluck Shinawatra, Thaksin's
sister, won the election and Yingluck became Thailand's first female
Prime Minister. Nonetheless, she was removed from office in 2014,
when a court decision found her guilty of abuse of power. Yingluck's
court conviction led to confrontations between the Red Shirts and the
Yellow Shirts in Bangkok city centre, and resulted in violence and
bloodshed. A successful military coup in May of the same year, led by
General Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Commander of the Royal Thai Army,
was carried out on a claim to bring back peace and solidarity to Thai
citizens. Prayut became Prime Minister and established the National
Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), an administrative body to govern
the country (Hewison, 2014). Alongside its attempt to tackle inequality
(Phongpaichit & Baker, 2016), the military government launched its
national campaign to reorder public spaces for pedestrians and tourists
(Phra Nakhon District, 2014). This applied not only to streets in
Bangkok but also to beaches in Phuket, Hua Hin, and Pattaya, where
the campaign took off (Bangkok Post, 31 August, 2014b).
In response to this campaign, the BMA, led by M.R. Sukhumbhand
Paribatra, the Bangkok governor from the Democrat party, announced
the ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan in July 2014 (Phra
Nakhon District, 2014). Aiming to bring safety and orderliness back to
the streets by reducing the number of street vendors, the plan was to be
implemented in all 50 districts throughout the Bangkok Metropolitan
area. This was the first ever plan to aim at reducing the number of
vending spots in all, rather than only certain, Bangkok districts. The Act
on Maintaining Public Cleanliness and Public Order B.E. 2535 (1992)
was utilised to legitimise the plan. The BMA provided the displaced
street vendors with designated marketplaces, located in far-flung cor-
ners of Bangkok.
The use of strict law enforcement to manage street vending and
sanitise the streets of Bangkok greatly resembles the management of
street vending in Singapore (Wongsamuth, 2015). Nonetheless, Singa-
pore enforced more than just a spatial order and discipline for street
vending. Unlike those in Bangkok, all hawkers in Singapore are li-
censed, well-trained, and allowed to operate only in hawker centres,5
which are secured marketplaces managed and regulated by the state's
National Environment Agency (Bhowmik, 2005; National Environment
Agency, 2016). Noticeably, the BMA's plan of taking back streets from
street vendors neither provides the vendors with secured vending
spaces easily accessible to customers, nor offers social protection or any
intensive training programmes to sustainably enhance their livelihood.
Bangkok's reclaiming pavements plan may be read as an ad hoc
answer to the military government's national-level spatial reorganisa-
tion campaign. The hands of the BMA may have been tied by the
military order. In fact, the BMA also has its ambitious ‘revitalisation’
5
A hawker centre is ‘a collection of stalls selling different types of inexpensive cooked
food, predominantly but not exclusively local fare (Chinese, Malay, Indian), with drinks
and desserts. The hawker stalls are housed in a covered, non-air-conditioned open com-
plex, and there is a common seating area for customers’ (Kong, 2007:31).
C. Boonjubun Cities 70 (2017) 22–31

policy to renew Bangkok urban spaces, which has resulted in evictions a problem, policymakers draw up land use plans to regulate urban
of the urban poor, migrants, and squatter dwellers. Notably, the BMA space, housing policies to remove slums, and labour policies to increase
has implemented a renewal of the Mahakan Fort area plan by replacing formal employment. These policies are often formulated and im-
a late 18th century community with parks for tourists (BMA, 2016b), plemented separately: the spatial plans focusing on a spatial order ne-
and the Chao Phraya For All, which is a recent riverside redevelopment glecting the housing and livelihood of inhabitants. Based on the case of
project initiated by the junta, aimed at building a fifty-seven-kilometre Bangkok street vendors, this study argues that the location of informal
walkway and bicycle path along the banks of the Chao Phraya river economic activities is crucial, particularly in Southeast Asian cities like
(BMA, 2016c). Bangkok, and therefore the spatial planning should take into account
The Mahakan Fort project is part of the 1994 conservation of the employment issues. For street vendors, the street is not just a road to go
Rattanakosin Island master plan, which aims to conserve national somewhere; it is a space of livelihood, filled with struggles, hopes, and
heritage. The authorities narrowly identify Thai heritage as temples and social relations, and a space where they contribute to the economy of
palaces, never including the vernacular architecture of ordinary citizens the city.
(Askew, 2002; Herzfeld, 2006). This type of conservation of national
heritage seems to be underpinned by the ideology of royal-nationalism
5.1. Street vending and livelihood
(Prakitnonthakan, 2012) and, as observed by Herzfeld (2006: 139),
‘middle-class and upwardly mobile Bangkokians seem much less in-
Keith Hart (1973) drew a distinction between formal and informal
terested in preserving older houses, whereas the poor not only ac-
sectors as resting upon means of obtaining income: wage earning and
knowledge their historical significance but label them as “ancient
self-employment. The degree of rationalisation of work was a key
houses”’. The eviction of the 300 Mahakan Fort community dwellers
variable, and those who worked for the informal sector were classified
was supposed to be complete in 1995. In reality it has been delayed for
as self-employed or employed by small-scale enterprises. Because of the
over twenty years because of community resistance, supported by ac-
dualistic view of the developed and less developed world, the informal
tivists and academics (Herzfeld, 2016). Recently, however, the project
sector was considered an exclusive characteristic of the global South
has been resurrected. In September 2016, twelve houses in the Ma-
(Potts, 2007). Hernando de Soto in The Other Path: The Invisible Re-
hakan Fort were dismantled (Fredrickson, 2016). The demolition of
volution in the Third World (1989) saw the informal sector as a system
thirty-seven other houses continues and aims to be finished by February
operated outside state laws and regulations. In his words, people who
2017 (BMA, 2016b).
conduct informal activities ‘live within a grey area which has a long
Academics and NGOs have also criticised the Chao Phraya For All
frontier with the legal world and in which individuals take refuge when
project that its implementation will demolish the old settlements along
the cost of obeying the law outweighs the benefit’ (de Soto, 1989: 12).
the river, destroy river views, and harm the environment (Bangkok
Such a conception regards the less developed societies as ‘tradi-
Post, 11 Oct, 2016b; Bangkok Post, 12 June, 2015a; Bangkok Post, 22
tional’ or ‘less modern’. It associates them with not only the informal
September, 2016a). Despite this criticism, however, the junta has ex-
economy but also illegal activities resulting from unorganised social
pressed full support of the BMA to start implementing the project. To
and political institutions in need of specific policies for better admin-
some extent, the BMA has slowed down the project and attempted to
istration and governance: of which the most important is often to dis-
involve academics and the affected communities in the implementation
card what are perceived as informal activities. Removing informal ac-
of this ‘revitalisation’ plan. Still, the ongoing evictions of Bangkok street
tivities, however, is not necessarily a good policy, because of the
vendors in all districts, the ‘inevitable’ demolition of the Mahakan Fort
informal sector's beneficial effects and the connectedness between the
community, and the plan to dismantle thirty-two riverside communities
two sectors; for instance, lower wages in the formal sector may be
(BMA, 2016b; BMA, 2016c), will subsequently lead to gentrification of
compensated by cheaper food and housing in the informal sector (Potts,
urban spaces (streets, riverside neighbourhoods, and a historical com-
2007).
munity) and the displacement of the urban poor, migrant families, and
Street vending provides an illuminating example of the beneficial
the informal settlement dwellers who have lived in these areas for
effects of the informal sector. It is a form of self-employment and a
several decades.
survival strategy for migrants and urban low-income households, who
Overall, since the 2014 coup, the state administration has been in
have limited employment opportunities in the formal sector due to their
the hands of the military government, and Bangkok city under the su-
lack of skills or education (Bhowmik, 2005). The coexistence and in-
pervision of the governor from the Democrat party (supported by the
terdependence of the formal and informal sectors often results in the
Yellow Shirts). The Red Shirts movement has been suppressed. The
blurring of the boundaries between formal and informal activities.
revitalisation policy has particularly affected the urban poor, especially
Thailand's largest food production company, CPF, for example, sells
the rural-to-urban migrants, street vendors, and squatter dwellers. This
their Five-star Chicken franchise7 to street vendors operating kiosks on
is ‘revanchist urbanism’ (Slater, 2004; Smith, 1996) in the Bangkok
streets, which shows that the formal sector has relied heavily on labour
style: the bourgeois political elite of the Yellow Shirts, based on the
from informal street workers.
discourse that street vendors, squatters by the Chao Phraya river, and
This is not to say that there are no problems in the informal sector.
the Mahakan community have stolen the city and made the city unsafe,
Workers' rights in the informal sector are likely to be unprotected:
exacts ‘revenge’ upon street vendors, squatter dwellers, and the com-
workers lack access to social security (Bhowmik, 2005) and have their
munity members by reclaiming urban spaces from these ‘marginal’
‘dignity constantly challenged by their conditions of survival’ (Gallin,
groups through the Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians plan, the
2001:547). The vulnerability of Bangkok street vendors, especially of
Chao Phraya For All project, and the Rattanakosin Island master plan.
those who are informal sector workers and belong to the old generation,
Like in New York (Smith, 1996), as well as in other cities in the global
is increased by the fact that they have not been unionised, neither have
North (Atkinson, 2003; Schinkel & Van den Berg, 2011) and global
they formed any formal associations.
South (Swanson, 2007), revanchist urbanism in Bangkok is disguised as
Although street trade is undeniably the source of livelihood for Tha
the ‘revitalisation’ of the city.
Chang vendors, as an informal activity it stigmatises the vendors. This
study asks whether the Bangkok authorities have acknowledged the
5. Street vending and ‘a differentiation within informality6’
beneficial economic effects of street vending in drafting their
Characteristics of cities in the global South have included un-
regulated land use, informal settlements, and informal economic ac- 6
Roy (2005:149)
tivities, which are together labelled ‘informality’. Seeing ‘informality’ as 7
http://5dao.co.th/franchise/

25
C. Boonjubun
‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan, or did they simply see
street vending as an informal ‘traditional’ or ‘less developed’ activity.
5.2. Street vending in town planning and the question of rights
Modernist town planners tend to think that unregulated land use,
informal housing, and informal economy are problems that must be
solved. ‘Slums’, for instance, viewed as a spatial concentration of pov-
erty, informal housing, and informal economic activities, have become
targets for the improvement of the physical environment through ‘slum
upgrading’ programmes. The problem with such physical upgrading
plans is that treating the slum as the culprit does not tackle the causes of
the problems, which are ‘the structural forces of racism and poverty
that lead to segregation’ (Roy, 2005:151).
Akin to slums, street vending has been treated as a problem, and
thus a target of town planners' disciplinary action. Displacing street
vendors immediately affects the lives of the vendors, and also the whole
atmosphere of the city.
Informal nature of street vendors' business tends to stigmatise them.
In the case of Bogotá, Colombia, Hunt (2009: 334) found out that ‘street
vendors are not considered by the state or fellow Colombians to be
citizens because they are thought to belong to a “culture of informality”
that consists of a bevy of negative vices, ranging from the unsanitary to
the violent and illegal’. Hunt's analysis demonstrates that the right of
street vendors to public space were denied not only by city authorities,
but also by their fellow urbanities. On a similar note, in Mumbai, India,
even NGOs and residents' associations that claim to fight for all citizens
have supported the city's efforts to eradicate street vendors (Anjaria,
2006). Crossa (2016) goes even further by arguing that the so-called
informal groups themselves construct the narrative of formal and in-
formal.
One reason why town planners have wished to evict street vendors
is because they are blamed for making streets unsafe. In Kuala Lumpur,
Manila, and Phnom Penh, for instance, authorities perceived street
vending as the cause of unsafe and unclean streets, and hence evicted
vendors to make cities safe and clean (Bhowmik, 2005). This policy is
irrational and creates exactly the problem it aims at removing. Several
studies on street vending and crime prevention (Reyes, 2013, for ex-
ample) show that the presence of street vendors makes streets safer and
reduce crime. Vendors are ‘the eyes on the street’, as Jane Jacobs
(1961) could have said; the more people on the streets and thus the
more eyes watching the streets, the less likely there is to be crime.
The positive functions of informal activities like street vending in
facilitating livelihood and safety suggest that informality may be an-
other mode of urbanisation, typical for the global South cities, as ar-
gued by Ananya Roy (2005). To deal with informality, as Roy (2005)
suggested, is not simply to introduce a new spatial order to demolish
informal housing and punish informal sector workers. Rather, it is to
analyse what kinds of interests and rights are connected to informal
activities and what are their functions.
What kind of interests and rights do the Bangkok street vendors
facing the eviction have? Recent debate on ‘the right to the city’, fol-
lowing the rallying cry of Henri Lefebvre (1968), has identified various
rights: the right to place (Imbroscio, 2004), the rights of the homeless
and the right to livelihood (Mitchell, 2003), the right to stay put
(Hartman, 1984), the right to participate (Purcell, 2002), and the right
to change and reinvent the city (Harvey, 2012). Moreover, ‘the right to
the city’ has been adopted by UN-HABITAT as a slogan for a just city
(UN-HABITAT, 2010).
Which ones of these rights are relevant to Bangkok street vendors?
In this article, I pay attention to the right of street vendors to participate
in the planning process, the right ‘to have the capacity to compel au-
thorities to come to the defence of the specific interest associated with
the right’ (Bromley, 2008), and the right to obtain an authorisation and
securing their right of tenure (Hartman, 1984). I examine whose in-
terests and rights the Bangkok authorities recognised in their plan and
26
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
ask: How did the Bangkok authorities conceptualise street vending; was
it regarded as a threat to the rational city; what kind of measures did
the authorities propose for solving the street vending problem; did the
authorities take into account the functions of street vending?
6. The eviction of Tha Chang street vendors
6.1. Tha Chang street vendors
Tha Chang is a riverside neighbourhood along the Chao Phraya
River on Rattanakosin Island, the old town of Bangkok. Tha Chang
street vendors were once evicted already in the 1990s. The
Rattanakosin master plan, implemented in 1995, aimed to replace shop
houses and business establishments along the Chao Phraya River with
open spaces, parks, and paths for locals and tourists, proposed re-
moving around 1000 street vendors and hundreds of local residents
from the old town, including Tha Chang (Askew, 2002). Because of
resistance and criticism pointing out that the Rattanakosin plan would
destroy historically valuable and lively communities, the plan was
suspended, and street vendors were allowed to return to the streets.
During my fieldwork in July 2014, the number of street vendors in
Tha Chang was approximately 300. Opposite to the Grand Palace, my
study area covered the pavements along Maha Rat Road, starting from
the corner of the Phraya Phet Alley and ending at the intersection of the
Thai Wang Alley. There were as many male as female vendors, aged
between 22 and 70. Some of them had grown up in other provinces, and
some had been born in Bangkok to rural-to-urban migrant families. Tha
Chang vendors were self-employed, and sold a wide variety of low-
priced goods, ranging from fresh fruits to antiques, on fixed stalls. They
served local Thais as well as foreigners who visited the Grand Palace
and other surrounding attractions. Given the basic goods and low level
of technology used, vendors in the area can be categorised as the old
generation street vendors. They were not unionised, nor were they
members of any associations. The pedestrians whom I interviewed, Thai
and foreigners alike, expressed both negative and positive views to-
wards the street vendors. Some pedestrians appreciated the presence of
street vendors selling reasonable priced goods; whereas others com-
plained that the vendors stole their walking space and made the streets
dirty. Many, however, praised street vending as a unique charm of
Bangkok.
6.2. Implementation of the ‘reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan in
Tha Chang
In July 2014, one month after the NCPO launched a national cam-
paign to make pavements and streets safe, M.R. Sukhumbhand
Paribatra, the Bangkok governor, announced the ‘Reclaiming pave-
ments for pedestrians’ plan. This plan aimed to evict street vendors
from both authorised and unauthorised streets in all 50 districts across
the Bangkok Metropolitan Area. Tha Chang, considered a prime spot for
tourism, was one of the first areas of implementation (Phra Nakhon
District, 2014).
The rationale for this clearance plan was that pedestrians, i.e.
Bangkok citizens and tourists, were complaining about safety and the
congestion caused by vending activities in the public space of pave-
ments and streets (Phra Nakhon District, 2014:1). The plan was also a
response to the concerns of the vendors themselves regarding the ex-
tortion perpetuated by powerful gangsters who demanded rent and
protection fees, and harassment by city officials. This ‘unhealthy’ nature
of street vending was viewed by the BMA as making urban space unsafe
for inhabitants and tourists, and an eyesore that could weaken the
image of the city's old town.
Reasons similar to those in the policy paper were repeated by a
senior-level officer of the Thetsakit, a key implementing authority of the
plan. During the interview, to justify the street clearance efforts, the
officer claimed that the main objective of ‘Pan kan jad rabiab hap re
C. Boonjubun
phaeng loi’ or literally ‘a plan to reorganise street vending in an orderly
manner’8 was to bring safe pavements back for pedestrians. He added
that:
‘In response to the plan, we [Thetsakit] have a duty to remove the
vendors from the streets…There were some cases of street vendors
being harassed by powerful gangsters… I could say [that] Tha
Chang is where infamous gangsters operated.’
The gangsters to whom he referred were among the first citizens to
settle in the area. According to the district office (Phra Nakhon District,
2014), four gangster groups operated in Tha Chang. Each group had
occupied a substantial amount of vending spaces illegally, divided them
into small pitches, and rented them out to the vendors. Even though
Tha Chang was an authorised spot for street vending (before the 2014
eviction), these groups of gangsters collected rent and protection fees
from the vendors.
In mid-July 2014, the local media reported on the ‘Reclaiming pa-
vements for pedestrians’ plan. I asked Pracha, a 32-year-old male
vendor selling books in Tha Chang, whether he was aware of this street
vending clearance plan. He firmly believed that the clearance would not
happen in Tha Chang as this area had been an authorised vending spot
for a decade. ‘Besides, since no official announcement has been made
yet, the clearance couldn't possibly happen soon,’ he added.
On 30 July 2014, the Phra Nakhon district office announced the
implementation of the plan. It would affect approximately 300 vendors
in Tha Chang. The vendors were given 30 days – until the end of August
2014 – to move out of the area. The option offered to the vendors was to
move into one of the designated marketplaces located in four different
districts of suburban Bangkok, namely, Sanamluang 2, Thalad Plu
under the Ratchada crossover, Thavarach, and Ratchaburana (Phra
Nakhon District, 2014).
The street vendors were surprised when they heard this news, per-
ceiving it as coming out of the blue. None of the vendors I interviewed
had participated in any public hearings, nor had they been involved in
the planning process, or been informed by any Thetsakit officer of the
plan prior to the official announcement. Some vendors shared their
suspicions that perhaps they were not important to local politicians
because they were not eligible to vote, as they had no house registra-
tions in Bangkok (they were migrants who did not own any property or
lived in informal housing in the city). Some went further by criticising
that it was always easier for the authorities to clean the streets than to
prosecute corrupt politicians who illegally seized several plots of re-
served forests.
All the vendors claimed that they had always complied with the
rules and paid all their fees to the Thetsakit regularly, so they assumed
they would be the first to know if any change were to happen on the
streets and that they would be invited to hearings in preparation of the
planning. Some vendors mistook the cleaning fee they paid to the
Thetsakit for rent (the official receipts they held were for the cleaning
fee: street vendors were not charged any rent) and thought that the
payment granted them rights; at least the right to be informed and the
right to be heard before the decision-making.
The Tha Chang street vendors were concerned about the speed of
the plan's implementation; they had to leave their vending pitches
within 30 days. They were puzzled and had no idea how to handle the
relocation within such a short timeframe. Obviously, the vendors were
not happy with the relocation and began to confront the authorities.
7. Conflicts over the streets of Tha Chang
7.1. Conflict between street vendors and Bangkok authorities
Tha Chang street vendors gathered together to discuss the impact of
8
Translated by the author.
27
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
the ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan, and decided to con-
front city authorities. In August 2014, about 100 Tha Chang street
vendors protested against the street clean-up plan in front of the City
Hall. As a result, they were granted a new deadline for moving, 20
September 2014, in lieu of the original date of 31 August 2014
(Bangkok Post, 23 August, 2014a).
Pong, aged 57, had no own vending pitch, but had been hired by
street vendors for 10 years to look after vending pitches when the
vendors were away. He described his experience from the protests: ‘We
talked but they [the BMA] did not listen.’
Realising that the 20-day deadline extension was not enough, and
that the authorities did not listen to them, the Tha Chang street vendors
decided to invite Luang Pu9 Buddha Issara to represent them and ne-
gotiate with the authorities. Luang Pu Buddha Issara is a senior Buddhist
monk and well known for undertaking a leading role in the movement
of the Yellow Shirts against Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's
government in 2013–2014 (Tan, 2014). It is not uncommon for Thai
people to request support from respectful public figures and religious
leaders. The Thai state is based on the shibboleth of ‘Nation, Religion,
King’, and Thailand is a predominantly Buddhist society, ‘the religion
and its Sangha10 serve as the moral tone of the nation, provide the
people with spiritual guidance, while the political authority and the
state give them patronage, protection, and support’ (Suksamran,
1982:6). In addition, ‘prominent figures within the monkhood…are
capable of exercising moral, philosophical, and spiritual leadership’
(McCargo, 2012:630), especially senior Buddhist monks, whose roles
‘closely resemble those of army generals or provincial governors’
(McCargo, 2012: 628). As respectable figures in Thai society, Buddhist
monks often engaged not only in religious rituals but also social and
political activities, particularly when the authorities had the louder
voice (McCargo, 2012; Suksamran, 1982). However, the case of a senior
Buddhist monk speaking for street vendors is unusual.
Selecting Luang Pu Buddha Issara as their representative was a
clever move by the vendors. They wanted to avoid violence, and hoped
that the BMA would ‘listen’ to a senior, well-known Buddhist monk.
They were confident that Luang Pu Buddha Issara would have a good
relationship with the Bangkok city government. This is because he had
once been one of the key leaders of the Yellow Shirts (M.R.
Sukhumbhand Paribatra, the Bangkok governor from the Democrat
Party, was supported by the Yellow Shirts). Luang Pu Buddha Issara
agreed to represent the Tha Chang street vendors after he examined the
situation and concluded that the vendors had not been given voice or
power by the BMA to influence the plan: they had been simply left out
of the planning process.
7.2. Conflicts among street vendors
As Tha Chang is one of Bangkok's prime vending spots, competition
and conflicts over vending pitches among street vendors were common
already before the implementation of the ‘Reclaiming pavements for
pedestrians’ plan. When the plan was announced in July 2014, a new
disagreement emerged, this time concerned with different vendors'
strategies for coping with the eviction.
When the vendors visited Luang Pu Buddha Issara for the first time,
they proposed varying strategies to answer the vending clearance plan.
Some vendors intended to continue occupying their vending space,
some demanded more time to prepare for the relocation, and others
agreed to comply with the vending clearance plan but felt obliged to
participate in the protests because of peer pressure. Somjai and Meesuk
were two examples of the latter group.
Somjai, aged 60, a female vendor selling women's accessories said:
9
Luang Pu literally means a ‘respected grandfather’. This term is often used among
Thais to address a respectful, senior Buddhist monk.
10
Sangha could be referred to as ‘a body of ascetic monks’ (Suksamran, 1982:6).
C. Boonjubun
‘I had no problem with moving out since rules are rules… I parti-
cipated in the protest because it seemed mandatory. As we know,
Kao muang ta lew tong lew ta tam.11 If I hadn't taken part, the others
[vendors] would've treated me badly.’
Meesuk, a 67-year-old woman who had a tiny space for selling
lingerie also disagreed with the protesters. She felt that any resistance
would be futile at this point:
‘I agreed with the vending clearance, as the Tha Chang streets have
become very crowded, too many vendors competing for vending
pitches. And, if we fight with the authorities, we'll never win.’
Some vendors who were against the relocation plan criticised those
who supported the plan as being Yellow Shirts blindly following the
military order. Hence, it was hoped that involving Luang Pu Buddha
Issara, himself a former leader of the Yellow Shirts, would help change
the minds of the street vendors who had already decided to relocate,
and persuade them to protest against the authorities.
After consulting with Luang Pu Buddha Issara, the vendors even-
tually agreed upon one single goal: to ask the Bangkok governor to
extend the vending clearance deadline.
7.3. Conflict between street vendors and powerful gangsters
While the Tha Chang vendors and Luang Pu Buddha Issara were
preparing for negotiations with the authorities, powerful gangsters
were continuing their business as usual, despite the fact that vending
space was supposed to be shortly returned to the BMA. These gangsters'
extortion at this critical time became unbearable for the vendors. Once
again, Luang Pu Buddha Issara was invited to mediate the conflict. An
assistant to Luang Pu Buddha Issara reflected upon the situation:
‘Luang Pu invited the vendors and the influential gangsters to his
temple to talk. Two meetings were held. At the first meeting, the
gangsters claimed that they were not such a powerful group, but
merely people who made profits from renting out their vending
spaces. At the second meeting, the gangsters promised that they
would no longer collect any fees from the vendors.’
On 2 September 2014, two meetings between Luang Pu Buddha
Issara and the Bangkok authorities were held. As a result, the Tha
Chang street vendors were granted two months to clean up and move
off the streets. This was the final extension. Luang Pu Buddha Issara had
completed his task of representing street vendors and the eviction
began.
With the help of a senior monk who spoke for Tha Chang street
vendors, the conflicts over streets: among the vendors, between the
vendors and city authorities, and between the vendors and powerful
gangsters were solved in a nonviolent way.
7.4. Different vendors, different strategies
On 20 November 2014, which was the deadline for vending clear-
ance, there was no trace of vendors on the streets of Tha Chang, and the
Thetsakit officers had placed steel barriers around the pavements.
Where did the vendors go? Some days later, when the barriers were
lifted, some returned.
Somjai (aged 60) and Meesuk (aged 67), the two older female
vendors who did not support the protests in the first place, eventually
settled their fixed stalls in new vending spots (which were not, how-
ever, in the four regulated markets offered by the vending clearance
plan). They cannot quit street vending, because the formal sector does
not employ people after retirement age. They still need to earn their
11
Kao muang ta lew tong lew ta tam is a popular Thai proverb that has a similar meaning
to ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’ (translated by the author).
28
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
own living, as in Thailand, the national and local pension systems do
not provide sufficient coverage for older people (the authorities only
recently paid out the first old age pension in December 2013, Social
Security Office, 2013). Somjai and Meesuk also have family members to
take care of.
Despite the eviction, some vendors continue their vending activities
in Tha Chang; with a different trading strategy, however. Suntraporn
(aged 44) and Non (aged 47) are among those who chose to stay in Tha
Chang. Having been a street vendor in Tha Chang for over ten years,
Suntraporn has built a social network with residents in the area. To
sustain her vending business, she rents a private space in a shop not far
from the streets. Non prefers to continue using the pavements, and
instead of setting up a fixed vending pitch to sell pineapples, he in-
vented a mobile vending strategy which allows him to conveniently
move his goods from one place to another without being arrested. He
displays his goods on a plastic sheet on the ground, and when a
Thetsakit officer approaches, he can swiftly wrap his pineapples in the
plastic sheet and run away.
Other vendors in Tha Chang also employ Non's mobile vending
strategy and have to look out for Thetsakit officers who attentively
monitor the pavements. This daily cat-and-mouse game between the
vendors and the Thetsakit disrupts vending activities and creates an
unsafe atmosphere. My interviews, two months after the eviction, de-
monstrate that most pedestrians were satisfied with the street clear-
ance, but that over half of them now regarded the area as less safe due
to the unorganised mobile vending on the pavements; the more orga-
nised fixed stall vending prior to the eviction had been safer.
Pedestrians were afraid of clashes between mobile street vendors and
the Thetsakit, and thus avoided buying goods from the vendors.
Tha Chang mobile vendors became disgruntled over the Thesakit's
frequent pavement monitoring. The tension between these ‘un-
authorised’ mobile vendors and Thesakit officers led to violence. The
Bangkok Post, 2 March 2015 (Fernquest, 2015), reported that an amulet
vendor assaulted an on-duty Thetsakit officer on a pavement in Tha
Chang. This incident and other minor clashes that occur regularly on
the pavements are a far cry from ‘making the streets safer for pedes-
trians and tourists’ – the original goal of the ‘Reclaiming pavements’
plan.
8. Street vendors' rights and livelihood
What does this Bangkok story have to offer urban studies' debates on
informality and rights? Below, I discuss the complexities of the rights of
the Tha Chang street vendors, their heterogeneous interests and stra-
tegies, and the functions of the informal activities of street vending.
First, the BMA's ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan is an
application of the military government's new spatial order and the city
authorities' ‘revitalisation’ policy that aimed to renew Bangkok urban
space by evicting the urban poor, migrants, and squatter dwellers. This
street clean-up plan, as policy documents and an interview with senior-
level Thesakit officials show, treats street vending an informal activity, a
threat to the rational city. Street vendors were stigmatised because of
their informal work. Many of them were not eligible to vote as they had
house registrations in other provinces (they owned no property or lived
in informal housing in the city), and this made it difficult for them to
make their voices heard. Local politicians and authorities could just
ignore them. The only confession these politicians and authorities made
was allowing the vendors 20 more days to prepare for relocation, and
the concession was made only after the intervention of a respectful,
senior monk. The Tha Chang case shows that classifying street vendors
as being beyond the boundaries of formal and rational society, makes it
easy for local authorities to ignore street vendors' criticism and protests,
and even justified claims.
Second, the Bangkok authorities prioritised the needs of tourists and
pedestrians over those of the street vendors who had traded in an au-
thorised spot for several years. The relocation plan offered the vendors
C. Boonjubun
an option to move to designated marketplaces located in the outskirts of
the city. The authorities imagined that they could remove street ven-
dors out of the inner city as if the vendors are chessmen. The Tha Chang
case shows the different understanding of urban space by street vendors
and the authorities: to the authorities, land use decisions are simply to
reorganise the space by moving vendors and other pawns of the land
use game; whereas to the street vendors, urban space gives livelihood
and social networks, and the several years they had already stayed
there gave them a sense of belonging, full of memories of struggles for
survival. The Bangkok authorities prioritising the needs for leisure and
walking of tourists and pedestrians over the livelihood of street vendors
demonstrates that town planners' land use game is far from neutral, it
involves political choices.
Third, the Tha Chang case shows the difficulties faced by marginal,
stigmatised, and informal groups without voting rights not only to
claim and defend their interests and rights, but also to know them. The
relocation plan came as a surprise to Tha Chang street vendors and even
when the vendors protested in front of the city hall and expressed their
opinion, the authorities did not take seriously street vendors' interests
and rights. The Tha Chang vendors lost their ‘right to stay put’. They
had traded on that authorised land for years, they had paid a cleaning
fee and penalty fines if they violated regulations. They had registered at
the district office and held a vending permit. What they could have
done is that they could have claimed their right to stay put and con-
tinued vending by appealing to the Thai law's concept of ‘adverse
possession.’ As stated in Section 1382 of Thailand's Civil and
Commercial Code B.E. 2468 (1925): a person who openly and peace-
fully acquires ownership of an immovable property that belongs to
another for a ten-year uninterrupted period, with the intention of being
its owner, acquires its ownership through adverse possession.
Fourth, the interests of the Tha Chang street vendors were not
homogeneous. Three types of conflicts over public space emerged: be-
tween the vendors and city authorities, among the vendors, and be-
tween the vendors and powerful gangsters. Conflicts and competition
among street vendors over vending pitches and access to customers
already existed prior to the eviction. In preparing for relocation, street
vendors were divided into those who insisted on continuing to use the
Tha Chang pavements, those who needed more time to prepare, and
those who complied with the new spatial order. Understanding vendors'
different strategies requires an understanding of their diversity, their
social relations, and their multiple relations to the public space in
which the vending takes place. These interests are heterogeneous and
therefore strategies are different, depending, for example, on gender
and age. Older female vendors, for example, prefer fixed stalls, whereas
younger men prefer a mobile vending strategy in coping with the effects
of the eviction.
Lastly, the relocation of street vendors was not merely spatial re-
organisation; it interfered with the vendors' lives and livelihoods and
therefore naturally caused dissatisfaction, resistance, and mobilisation.
This study focuses on the case of Tha Chang, but street vendors in Klong
Thom (Bangkok Post, 23 December, 2014d), Saphan Lek (Bangkok Post,
21 October, 2015b), and Wat Hua Lamphong (Bangkok Post, 1 October,
2014c) also mobilised against the ‘Reclaiming pavements for pedes-
trians’ plan which forced them to leave the streets. Most of the pedes-
trians I interviewed after the sreet clearance were worried about the
clashes that often took place between mobile street vendors who came
back to use the pavements and city officials. The Tha Chang case, as
well as the other cases in Bangkok, shows that removing street vendors
from streets did not increase the safety of the streets, as the authorities
had intended; on the contrary, it caused protests, increased un-
authorised mobile vending activities and violence, and demanded more
monitoring and surveillance by officials.
9. Conclusions: town planning and street vending policy
It seems that the recent 2014 coup, intended to be a ‘good coup’ by
29
Cities 70 (2017) 22–31
bringing back social justice, equality and solidarity between the rich
and the poor to Thai society, has not been ‘good’ enough, and the junta's
efforts to reorganise public spaces for the safety of pedestrians and
tourists has led to the removal of the urban poor from urban space. In
Bangkok, the BMA's policy on street vending has been criticised for its
inconsistency and for changing constantly in response to the local po-
litical climate or pressure from the central government. The
‘Reclaiming pavements for pedestrians’ plan, legitimised by the claim
that street vendors made streets unclean, unorganised, and unsafe, has
already led to the evictions of about a quarter of Bangkok's street
vendors.12 The BMA failed to acknowledge street vendors' rights: the
right to be informed, the right to place, the right to participation in
planning processes, the right to stay put, the right to livelihood, and the
right to permanent tenure by appealing to the right of adverse posses-
sion.
Bangkok, Thailand's primate and most populous city, has been
where people of different socio-economic backgrounds use, share, and
change urban space for their livelihoods in order to survive in the city.
The eviction had an immediate negative impact on the lives and live-
lihoods of street vendors and on the ambience of Bangkok. The case of
Tha Chang demonstrates the unintended consequences of town plan-
ners' tendency to see street vending as an informal activity; an ‘un-
derdeveloped’ and unwanted activity that prevents them from planning
a rational city. The attempts to remove ‘informal’ street vending have
resulted in protests, violence, and unauthorised mobile vending ac-
tivity. Hence, town planners should at least examine the interests and
livelihoods of the present land users before planning to move them to
far-flung corners of the city.
Tha Chang street vendors have varying interests and have adopted
different strategies for dealing with threats to their livelihood caused by
the relocation plan. For some vendors, street vending was a strategy for
surviving and supporting the family; for others, it was self-employment,
a solution to being unemployed, or a way of earning extra income. After
the eviction, some vendors moved to new vending spots, some now rent
private spaces in the Tha Chang area, and some decided to risk being
arrested and become mobile vendors on the streets.
The finding that the interests and strategies of street vendors differ
may not be surprising, but the variety of street vendors' interests, rights,
and strategies shows that ‘informality’, especially in the cities of the
global South, is not a generic feature: it has its shades. A religious figure
intervening and arbitrating conflicting interests, and informing the
town planners about the claims of street vendors demonstrates the town
planners' incapability of acknowledging that the animated urban en-
vironment is made of activities like street vending.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their
insightful comments. I am grateful to my supervisor Anne Haila for her
guidance and encouragement. I wish to thank Edward Finch and my
colleagues at the Helsinki School of Critical Urban Studies for their
constructive comments. Special thanks to Pannin Sumanasrethakul,
Montira Narkvichien, Inthira Tirangkura, Chanprapa Tipayarugsa, and
Jintana Boonjuban for all their help.
12
The number of authorised spots for vending decreased from 665 in 2014 to 417 in
2016, reducing the number of registered street vendors from 20,170 to 15,769 (data as of
August 2016, City Law Enforcement, 2016).
C. Boonjubun
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