Street food as infrastructure: consumer mobility, vendor removability and food security in Mexico City

Abstract

Street food vendors are a ubiquitous but controversial feature of Mexico City’s foodscapes; in the context of urban renewal and modernization projects, vendors are frequently portrayed as backwards, dirty, and undesirable and are targeted for removal. While most studies of such processes focus on the implications for vendors themselves, this article asks about the implications of street vendor removal and removability for those who consume these foods on a regular basis. The article adopts a mobilities framework in order to argue that street food needs to be understood in relation to consumers’ everyday mobilities as part of poor and working class people’s food security, and as an urban infrastructure more broadly.

Topics & Concepts