[Reader-list] how clean are your street hawkers?

[lakshmi kutty]

hello everybody,

brief posting on my work exploring the nuances of hygiene and sanitation in public culture spaces in mumbai. its taking some rough and jerky turns at the moment...

i have been doing an analysis of newspaper reports and feature articles on the recent 'epidemic' of jaundice that hit the city about a month or so ago. many of the reports dwell on the fact that an increasing number of these cases are occuring in south mumbai, which is an affluent location of the city. the presence of jaundice in this area has spawned discussion about how even those spaces we always thought were relatively better-endowed (in terms of water supply, sanitation or civic amenities by city authorities/planning), are proving susceptible to 'epidemics'. there have also been responses rubbishing the claim of an 'epidemic' by pointing out that cases in south mumbai are so large in number probably because reporting/recording of illnesses is done more systematically among these places/people. news articles have discussed the im/probabilities of the spread of this feacal-oral disease among residents of south mumbai - who are presumed to have impeccable hygiene, standards and knowledge - and have come to the conclusion that since their water is not infected and their lifestyles are beyond doubt the main culprits must be their servants/househelps who 'might not wash their hands properly after using the loo, and then head straight to the kitchen'. these are not exact quotes but the gist.

alongside this is a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation(BMC)-led drive to ensure that hawkers wear plastic gloves while doing business. reports and 'public opinion' articles are heavily invested in tying up the jaundice cases with the nature of danger that exists in street-spaces, which is the location of hawker food/wares. one interesting juxtaposition i came across was an article where the reporter had spoken to restaurant/hotel owners and hawkers about this new drive to enforce plastic gloves for hawkers, hygiene inspectors and regular checks inside public eating house kitchens. one of the hotel owners was unhappy about this intervention and said that they would not allow such presumption of doubt to regulate their businesses; that they maintained strict standards anyway so their establishments were not to be suspected/faulted on these grounds. now, the hawkers that the reporter spoke to agreed wholeheartedly that this BMC move was in the public interest and that they would comply with orders to wear gloves as they felt this would help combat infections and would foster a clean image for street food. i was struck by this article because it left me wondering what were the meanings conveyed by this juxtaposition... that hotel owners are shown to refuse intervention because of their location as legitimate/clean eating spaces, and hawkers are shown as reiterating the clean-up drive that accuses their businesses of fostering unclean eating cultures! while talking abt this to people, one response i got suggested that it may not be that the reporter intended to place these 2 positions in contrast, but that the hawkers must be seeing in this BMC drive a way of finally being able to upgrade the image of their businesses and so must therefore be ready to work in tandem with their regulations. i have yet to open up this node to further scrutiny (the interviewing aspect of my project has not really progressed) so it'll be some time before i have fleshed this out further. 

have been taking pictures of streetscapes and hoardings, for which i hope to set a weblink sometime soon. hoardings advertising luxurious new townships that promise a bungalow within city limits but far from the madding crowds; that are generating their own oxygen (with the symbol for oxygen written in beautiful cursive font!) and their own pure water; that are equipped with inhouse gymnasiums so u can rejuvenate yourself without having to make contact/be interrupted by anybody else. 

as far as readings go, i'm still looking for stuff that discusses urban cultures and their politics of displacement, of gentrification/upgrading; discussions on who/what is the middle class today; discourses of the body and its relationship to public spaces, external contact, purity/sacredness. i really need suggestions on these!

am currently reading jeff ferrel's 'tearing down the streets: adventures in urban anarchy' (2001), where he's mainly discussing how forms of street culture and street-life/business are being erased in american cities, to make way for a homogenised and sanitized 'disneyfication' of american public spaces. he's talking abt street musicians; punks; 'crimes' like begging, loitering, grafitti; of how impossible it is becoming to stake a claim to public spaces if one is not white and middle-class. he's discussing the underlying discourses of security, public health, weeding out of those who are not (cannot be and dont want to be) consumers of this white middle-class themepark public culture. 

have also found very useful an article in the critical pedagogy reader titled 'toward a pedagogy of place for black urban struggle' by stephen nathan haymes. the 2003 book is edited by a. darder, m. baltodano and r.d. torres. he's talking about how black life and black popular culture in american cities have strong links with their physical/territorial locations, and that cleaning up/redevelopment drives by governments constantly hack into, split and undermine the community's stakes in city spaces/cultures. he's exploring the racialization that underlies white-led planning, development, sanitizing of public spaces/cultures. 

the discourses that are being created in mumbai and about mumbai are similarly creating a language and image of the city that is out to represent 'social stability'. this stability, however, is going to be achieved only by segregating populations and by laying a premium on certain ways of life and consumption. not only that, this skewed emphasis makes sure that it is the blueprint for all future imaginings of mumbai, and so we are seeing a shift of perspective where the hawker readily agrees to being put under scrutiny and we all sit back relaxed that 'good sense' has finally dawned! 

hoping to hear how u, dear reader, thinks of this. 

lakshmi.
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