The street vending in times of pandemic. Disputes over public space in Buenos Aires

This paper investigates the relationship dynamics between street vendors in a neighborhood of Buenos Aires City (Argentina) and the agents who are in charge of its control, in the context of the pandemic. In this sense, it explores the transformations that occurred after the pandemic in which vendors established themselves in public space, but it also asks about the continuities and validity of what happened previously. For this, it recovers both the field work carried out with street vendors during the pandemic and that of previous periods, within the framework of an ethnographic doctoral research (in progress). Thus, after reconstructing the daily interactions between vendors and control agents, he becomes aware of the changing police practices and response actions of vendors during the context of the pandemic. In addition, the relationship is analyzed based on longer-standing experiences and processes that affected and gave particular meanings to the ways of contesting the use of public space in a pandemic.