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mobile phones in trade and livelihood activities – Ghana, Uganda, India, China

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Browsing Category Field Notes

Scarcity of Space in the Market

Posted on July 10, 2015 by Jenna Burrell

The area around Makola market is crowded with traders trying to carve out a small space to display their goods and attract the attention of potential customers. Rentable shops and market stalls are in short supply. It is fairly common for a property owner to ask for 10 years up front to rent such a space. Informal arrangements are common. For example, a shop owner might permit sellers to use the space just outside her door in exchange for keeping an eye on things. The video below depicts a market clearing exercise by the Accra Municipal Authority (AMA) from a few years ago:

On the sidewalk at the edge of a parking lot, a number of women have set up informal displays of their goods. A wooden pallet is covered with a blanket and children’s clothing laid on top of that. An umbrella provides shade. We see a sudden flurry of activity, women with their arms loaded with blankets running to somewhere inside or behind the chop bar along the sidewalk. A pick up truck filled with men pulls up. They are not wearing reflective vests, or uniforms of any sort, nothing that identifies them as part of the Accra Municipal Authority. We watch as they start to seize the goods from just a few street sellers still remaining on the sidewalk. They pile them bag by bag into the truck. The beefy AMA enforcers literally push the street sellers out of the way. One young women is trying to throw bags of secondhand clothes into a car parked next to her street selling spot. The enforcer physically shoves her out of the way, grabs the bag out of the car and throws it into the pickup. Another woman swoops in and helps the women by grabbing some of their goods and taking them away. The street sellers argue with the men, but don’t become irate. After it is all over the one young woman, the one trying to rescue some of her goods by throwing them into a car, stands on her wood pallet looking forlorn.

Update from the Field: Quit India demonstration

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Jenna Burrell

Editor’s Note: This is an update from the field by Janaki Srinivasan who is currently researching the fishing industry in Kerala, India and the use (broadly) of tools and technologies ranging from trawlers, nets, and GPS to the mobile phone.  Her project is funded by the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion (IMTFI)

Notes from attending Quit India demonstration by fishworkers in Trivandrum
9/8/2012, 11 am

I read about the fishworkers’ demonstration on several mailing lists. A fisherman in Kollam (James) had also informed me about it. The demonstration was supposed to be held in front of the Secretariat in Trivandrum.

A little past 10.30, I saw 80-100 people, men and women, walking up to a lane by the Secretariat building in Trivandrum. They were chanting slogans and held up blue flags. They formed a circle and a wooden model of a ship was placed at the center. The model had “Foreign Fishing Vessel” painted on its side. Many press photographers attended the event and were busy documenting it with photographs and by talking to people. A fisherman friend told me that the demonstration was aimed primarily to show displeasure at the Central Government’s decision to issue 77 letters of permit to foreign fishing vessels. The permits allowed these vessels to fish in Indian waters. The Kerala Swatantra Malsya Thozhilali federation, an independent trade union of fishworkers in Kerala was organizing this demonstration on “Quit India” day, August 9th, 1942 being the day that the Quit India movement started, telling the British to leave India. Today too, the protestors were asking the foreign vessels to “Quit India.” Such demonstrations were being held in various coastal cities and had been called for by the National Fishworkers Forum, of which the KSMTF was a part.

Why were foreign fishing vessels so unwelcome among these fishworkers, all of them artisanal fishworkers? (i.e., they worked with small boats, not trawlers). As the fishermen and their leaders who spoke at the event explained, foreign fishing vessels were big enough and had enough equipment that they could deplete the waters of fish for the artisanal fishermen. Moreover, because of the nature of the equipment they used, especially the nets, the ecology of the areas they traveled could potentially be drastically affected.

The high point of the demonstration was the burning of the ship model. As the model went up in flames, fishworkers chanted slogans of Inquilab Zindabad (Long Live the Revolution). The women sang revolutionary songs and some of those attending danced around the fire.

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