Informal trading, identity, and the law: the case of Luanda’s zungueiras

Abstract

Zungueiras is the term given that designates street vendor women in the Angolan informal market, who travel for miles in hoping of selling various products such as food, accessories, and clothing. The word zungueira derives from the term zunga from the Angolan national language kimbundu. Zunga means to circle, walk around, rotate and in Luanda refers to informal vendors, particularly street hawkers. This practice of selling on the go is a product of social, political, and economic changes in the country, and it is unfortunately marginalized by public bodies. Police inspectors often pursue those people by force and violence to expel them from public areas, which often carries the death of those women. Based on bibliographic and documentary research methodology, we aim to analyse aspects of the zungueiras' informal trade in Luanda, given the State's position, the rights of these women to the city and the cultural identity they carry. The results point at the need of reinforcing horizontal relationships that are less hierarchical or conditioned by the imperatives of hegemonic capital, which can be seen in analogous situations in the Global South. In the context of Global South, we understand this case study as a valid reference. The urban dynamics of survival, with ancestral socio-cultural roots and permeated by contradictions between precariousness and rights reveal the local knowledge and a resistance to the intentions of hegemonic alignment to globalization patterns conducted by the State.