CLAIMING SPACES AND SPATIAL SUBVERSION by Jessica Kisner and Bonnie Netel

CLAIMING SPACES AND SPATIAL SUBVERSION: Maintaining Place through Active Citizenship and Street Food Vending

By Jessica Kisner and Bonnie Netel, MSDUE 2015.

Privatization, commodification and securitization are threatening our cities’ public space and people’s ability to appropriate such spaces. In addition to regulatory enforcement of the built environment, these forces directly impact vendors that sell food on the street. Furthermore, street food vending is a practice that transcends food and evokes conversations of immigration, public space and cultural narratives of its people.

The street food cart is the physical device for capturing attention and creating agency in the increasingly privatized public realm. In partnership with Vamos Unidos, the street food cart will be the host for an intervention that navigates complex urban ecologies in order for street food vendors to maintain their place on the street.