Urbanistas Meet Urban Vendors

The Urbanistas blog describes the women moving around in downtown Port of Spain and focuses on the advantages and the difficulties of navigating the space in the female body. The urban vendors in Trinidad (UVTT) blog look at the vendors specifically in the same space and breaks down the nature and feel of the space they exist in and the struggle to move product, compete with other vendors, exercise ones rights to exist there and resist imposers on those rights and the threat that globalisation places on their livelihood. In our analysis of the space we see it through the eyes of the woman whilst the UVTT blog does more of a class based analysis of the socioeconomics involved in street vending, occasionally making comparisons to cities in St. Vincent. An important aspect, the comparison, as it foregrounds the discussion upon what an image for a “Caribbean City” would consist of. This is a very important discussion in the conceptualisation of the Caribbean region and starting the informed discussion on how we can develop with the best interest of the region in mind. It was also very important to talk about how globalisation affected the city vendors increasing the difficulties of survival as the local vendors, in addition to competing with each other they now face even greater adversaries in the form of imported products by major distributors that are more cost effective and convenient and while they may be able to continue to cater to the working class poor persons this audience just may not be enough to sustain their businesses and thus their livelihoods.

Women meet in the city

The very few open public spaces left for sitting, like the Woodford Square has been the point where many women would meet either on their lunch hour or in between getting household chores done to talk with each other. This is an important function of the city, to facilitate social interactions. It also may be part of the reason why women outlive men as they make time and find safe spaces to discuss their lives and the issues that may come up, seek or give advice and listen to each other. Previously we mentioned mothers having problems navigating the city of Port of Spain with their children but the single woman is not free of challenges. There is a growing number of coffee shops and small food places but they all require person to patronise the establishments in order to then occupy the space, finding free spaces like the Woodford square with sitting space to comfortably have conversation is rare as there is only few other places like it, for instance Independence Square and the Queen’s Park Savannah. Usually leaving women conversing in the streets or on the way in and out of clothing stores. Window shopping is usually an activity that would facilitate such conversation but would not provide uninterrupted conversation and sitting space.  But women find places that may not have been intended for seated conversation.

Poor working class rural women in the city

Capitalism in its expansionist phase, regarded the colonies as a source of raw materials which once processed could be unloaded on the European market. After a phase of capital accumulation, capitalism has now modified its notion of profitability. The colonies have become the market (Fanon 1965, pg. 26). This creation of mini capitalisms existing as part of a larger capitalism has wreaked havoc on our society. In terms of gender we have a hierarchy that places people on the lowest rung based on a number of aspects of themselves. Also interesting is the fact that cities are emblems of that settled life which began with permanent agriculture (Mumford, 1989) and now in contemporary times there is no place for agriculture and very little space made for retail of fresh produce.

 “The dependency of the urban upon the rural for survival. The rural provides raw material that the urban processes for export/domestic consumption. The urban is not self-sufficient. What separates differentiates the urban from the rural is structure and supporting infrastructure. The city is a place where the society is organised and compartmentalized for easy navigation.” (Mumford, 1989)

Rural women interact with the city as an outsider. Based on conversations hand most women are part of a husband wife team and their husbands are at home working the land or securing produce from other farmers for retail and they are the ones that come to the city to sell. Their ties to the city do not go beyond income generation space and consumerism. Thus after the money is made and spent they go home to develop their home, so in terms of the city being a closed loop cycle there is a lot lost to the home environment of the rural migrants. We then have to ask ourselves the skills and investment of the rural working class women into systems of communal labour in local and regional agricultural practices and exchanges are not valued in the neoliberal capitalist city anyway. This goes beyond economics of living in the city and living in rural areas but the cultures are quite different and based on the rural to urban vis-a-vis daily exodus it would seem that the rural workers would be uncomfortable dwelling in the city that they work in. Poor folks have poor ways so when the rural women come to the city and attempt entrepreneurship that are marginalised and not accepted by the city because city folk have urban ways of commerce branding and marketing products, (people) and service. These differences provide ample ammunition for the evil to then attack society by coercing urban dwellers to reproduce these divisions and discriminations in the way the rural originals are treated by law enforcement, municipal authorities and by their fellow urban entrepreneurs.

Like our education system or urban landscapes are producing monsters. This neoliberal capitalism industrial complex is dehumanising our population, while we continue to expect the dehumanised beings to act like humans. The space that we exist in need to be changed in order to rectify the social issues that have resulted, reform of the city means fixing civilization (Mumford, 1989). The living expression of the nation is the collective consciousness in motion of the entire people. It is the enlightened and coherent praxis of the men and women (Fanon, 1964).

References

Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.

Mumford, L. 1938. The Culture of Cities. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York.

Mothers in the city

“Before concerning itself with international prestige, must first restore dignity to all citizens, furnish their minds, fill their eyes with human things and develop a human landscape for the sake of its enlightened and sovereign inhabitants” (Fanon, 1964).

Being a mother in the city of Port of Spain is difficult as a visitor and as a resident. The poor inadequate public amenities provided, little activities and/or spaces dedicated to children, the narrow cramped pavements, the inconsiderate drivers all make Port of Spain a particularly hostile environment. Amenities that contribute to the liveability of cities are in short supply. The stock of open spaces have not kept up with population growth, especially in the older core cities. As a mother in a hostile environment makes it difficult to care for and protect a child or a number of children. God forbid one is with child and the baby get hungry and the mother has to breastfeed after finding a space where one is allowed to sit (most likely after buying an expensive coffee drink or sandwich due to the subservience of local public interests to interests of global capital (Banerjee, 1989) much to the detriment of or urban mums) a couple hours later or less mum would then have to do a more extensive search for a bathroom with a changing table to clean and change the child’s clothing. For older ones the problem would simply be keeping them occupied as beyond the National Library and food places I am unsure as to what one working class poor mother would do with a child or children in Port of Spain. There is Movietowne but there is not very working class poor friendly and while they don’t openly or blatantly discriminate against such persons their prices and unavailability of public transport to and from the venue sure does the trick of maintaining the perception they have as a middle to upper class recreational venue.

References

Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press.

Banerjee, T 1989 The future of Public Spaces: Beyond Invented Streets and Reinvented Spaces. American Planning Association. Journal of the American Planning Association; Winter 2001; 67, 1;pg 9

Class fashion and women

All over the world, there are so many magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be, in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about pleasing women” (Adichie, p. 10).

The clothes that are being designed for women shopping in the downtown urban spaces these days are extremely generic hip hop/ diva/ passa passa dance wear and the pricing and styles are geared towards a particular size shape and class. There is an internal debate going on within on how revealing women should get with their bodies. Too revealing on a regular basis could be empowering as there is celebration of the female form and banishing of the idea of a woman as an object for sexual conquest while being covered can also convey that message but from the perspective that a woman does not need to use her body to get what she wants. Black and brown bodies are hypersexualised and fetishized by persons with power attributed to gender, race and/or class and this understood sexualisation of the black and brown female form is further compounded by the styles of the clothing provided for those of lower income brackets. In terms of the urban as a reflection of society it would seem that the lower class women’s fashion is being directed by the proponents of gender based oppression to encourage a damning perception of the lower class women so as to continue the status quo.

References

Adichie, C. 2012. TEDxEuston (transcript) ‘We should all be Feminists’. Vialouge.

Women as the muse for commercialism and marketing

In the city there is a tremendous amount of advertising, which makes perfect sense as capitalist cities are geared towards income generation thus relies on consumerism which relies on sound advertising and marketing practices. It was interesting, the amount of advertisements that incorporated the use of the female image and references to females in its campaigns. The female image was used to sell lots of products and services; clothes, hair care products, food, cars and alcohol.

‘The devaluation of the woman and all things feminine has caused subsidence in all aspects of society. The girl is taught that she must be attractive, courteous, virtuous and entertaining so that a man could enjoy her company and want to keep her around’ (Adichie, 2012).The society we live in professes to be a tolerant, male/female, ‘normal sexual’, sexy yet/and respectable society but in fact we live in a society where all-inclusive just means free food and drinks at an event and nowhere puts these ideals on display on giant billboards and store signs like the city. Our society is one where male means anti-female and female means anti-everyone because girls do not do common struggle and all men are dogs. Socially accepted physical bodies are associated with products as marketing strategies with the ‘Carib girl,’ the girl with the ‘unbeweaveable’ weave, the super sexy business women becoming major personas being advertised in society along with the associated consumer goods and services that are usually able bodied, socially accepted beautiful/exotic people. We advertise, buy and sell sex (both in terms of referrals to gender and sexual connotations) and I mean that literally and figuratively and sometime we are not aware of our participation the subliminal messages we send, receive and act on and how they relates to our social problems (specifically gender based violence and discrimination). These projected personas then become objectified people and the objectified person in a black or brown body is then fetishized and oppressed. It is difficult to oppress or assert yourself over a human being but then when the human has been worn down and relegated to a breathing object it is as easy as making sexual advances to a possibly under aged girl in public at broad daylight with no condemnation or redress. 

References

Adichie, C. 2012. TEDxEuston (transcript) ‘We should all be Feminists’. Vialouge.

Women as target consumers

There has always been women that have been the sole caretakers of the household with the assistance of a male breadwinner (while it is not the only situation for women it is quite common) and this dynamic relationship between women, households and consumerism is reflected perfectly in the urban setting.  The main streets of Port of Spain are probably Frederick, Henry and Charlotte and they stretch from Independence Square to differing points before the Queen’s Park Savannah and on those streets there are a myriad of businesses most of which are geared towards providing consumer goods and services for the caretaker of the home like; grocery stores, bakeries, fresh produce, household goods stores interspersed with female hair care, clothing, accessories and shoe stores now there were also bars and casinos and barber salons and men’s wear stores but when you looked on the street at 10 am on a weekday and you counted ten people five times, in every group of ten six were women. When you looked into the stores and you looked at the workers and the customers they were mainly women. In the five instances the survey was done the four men would have been seen unloading trucks or vending.