Street Workers: Tensions and Resistance in the Struggle for the Right to Work

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the processes of redefinition of public spaces in relation to the logic of appropriation of these spaces by street workers in Fortaleza as a form of “counter-use”. It focuses in particular on the tensions that arise from the different possibilities for use and the different meanings attributed to public spaces by residents, workers, shop owners and those who frequent the city’s historic center. The paper sought to contextualize the intervention of the Fortaleza municipal government and the political struggle of formal and informal workers to assure their work, and as a consequence, their survival. The research results indicate that survival in the street subverts the laws and formal market standards of capitalist society, which is based on salaried work. Na important conclusion is that by appropriating public spaces, the street workers alter the expected uses with a counter-use that is established by disputes and challenges to the right to work.