Institutional and social aspects of petty trading spatialisation processes: the case of Temeke Stereo Marketplace in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

Petty trading constitutes a significant economic base visible in space and serving the bulk of low-income population in most of the rapidly urbanising developing countries. However, there is limited knowledge and documentation on operations and procedures that generate, structure and sustain spaces and places for petty trading. Subsequently, urban planning and architectural design responses and options for guiding and regulating petty trading has been inadequate and conflicted with reality obtaining in the marketplaces. This paper is aimed at presenting and analysing the formal and informal spatialisation processes that surround the petty trading operations. Temeke Stereo Marketplace (TSM) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania is used as the case where empirical studies were carried out. The paper argues that petty trading spatial processes in marketplaces reflect the interplay between formal and informal structures and norms that are entrenched in context specific social and institutional settings. Also, petty trading spaces are constantly being produced and reproduced as a result of conceptions, actions, compromises and reactions of defined and legitimate power constellations at the market places.

Keywords: Petty trading, marketplaces, space generation, space use and management