Abstract

FERNANDES, Luís  and  ARAUJO, Tiago. Margin works in the city centre: the informal parking attendant. Etnográfica [online]. 2012, vol.16, n.1, pp.5-30. ISSN 0873-6561.

This paper focuses on informal parking attendants. It locates the rise of such business in relation with street-drugs actors and their behaviours. It also considers the ways in which social control agencies have elaborated crucial dimensions of “the drugs problem” around informal parking attendants. Based on ethnographic work carried out in downtown Guimarães, the paper describes the routines of informal parking attendants, stressing the structuring effects of such business in the lives of the individuals who perform it. The relational realm of life in the streets, interactions with drivers, the territorial organization of parking places, and the attendants’ relationship with control agencies are also emphasized. According to the empirical data, informal parking attendants are seen as underground economy workers and as a new type of city user: one that comes from the margins of society to take part, both in spatial and relational terms, in its centre. Thus, they can also be seen as builders of that centre.

Keywords : informal parking attendant; underground economy; ethnography; drugs; city user.

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