Jacinto Cuvi, "The Edge of the Law: Street Vendors and the Erosion of Citizenship in São Paulo" (U Chicago Press, 2025)

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Sep 24, 2025

Jacinto Cuvi, an Associate Professor at Université Libre de Brussels, dives into the struggles of street vendors in São Paulo, Brazil. He uncovers how these workers navigate the complex web of legality, revealing a stark contrast between municipal laws and the vendors' lived experiences. Cuvi discusses the precarious nature of their rights and how it affects their strategies for survival. He also touches on the impact of cynical political practices on their livelihoods and hints at his future research exploring informality within bureaucracies.

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INSIGHT

Informality Is More Complex Than Property Rights

Jacinto Cuvi argues De Soto's view of informal markets is overly simplistic and misses social and political complexities.
Cuvi frames his work to show informal markets involve layered power relations, not just property-rights fixes.

ANECDOTE

Gaining Street-Level Access Through An NGO

Cuvi gained field access via an NGO forum and used referrals and cold approaches to reach many vendors.
He faced refusals, but trust-building at the forum helped expand his sample across São Paulo's downtown streets.

INSIGHT

Edge Of The Law Means Precarious Rights

'Edge of the law' captures vendors' precarious, liminal legal status rather than criminality.
Cuvi emphasizes how municipal policy actively pushed vendors into illegality during his fieldwork.

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How street vendors tangle with the law in São Paulo, Brazil.

With a little initiative and very little startup money, an outgoing individual might sell you a number of delights and conveniences familiar to city dwellers—from cold water bottles while you’re sitting in traffic to a popsicle from a cart on a summer afternoon in the park. Such vendors form a significant share of the workforce in São Paulo, Brazil, but their ubiquity belies perpetual struggle. Some have the right to practice their trade; others do not. All of them strive to make it—or stay afloat.
In The Edge of the Law: Street Vendors and the Erosion of Citizenship in São Paulo, (U Chicago Press, 2025) Jacinto Cuvi introduces us to the world of street vendors and teases out the relationship between the construction of legality and the experience of citizenship. As São Paulo’s city government undertakes a large-scale plan to cancel street vending licenses and evict street vendors, Cuvi reveals how the rights of informal workers can be revoked or withheld and how the lines can be redrawn between work that is “legal” and work that takes place under constant fear of law enforcement. Alongside the mechanics of disenfranchisement, Cuvi captures the lived experience of criminalization, dissecting the distribution of (shallow) rights among vendors who continually reinvent strategies to eke out a living while dealing with the constraints and pressures of informal citizenship at the edge of the law.

Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D. is a Assistant Professor of Sociology at William Penn University. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023) and Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022). His general area of study is at the intersection of space, behavior, and identity. He is currently conducting research about: escape rooms, the use of urban design in downtown historical neighborhoods of rural communities, and a study on belongingness in college and university. To learn more about Michael O. Johnston you can go to his personal website, Google Scholar, Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social), Twitter (@ProfessorJohnst), or by email

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