Hidden tactics. Senegalese street vendors in Barcelona by street vendors includes gestures and materials often located in the religious sphere. This body of secret practices and knowledge, known as the mystique, is key to the daily relationship with the state, appealing to alternative powers to those mobilised by the state, as well as a

Abstract

This article shares the findings of a five-year investigation into the activities of street vendors engaged in informal street vending in Barcelona. After contextualising the political, media and police treatment they receive, it describes and analyses the techniques they use to escape the harassment to which they are subjected. These procedures are seen as what Michel de Certeau called tactics, tricks of the weak against the strong. The range of tactics deployed by street vendors includes gestures and materials often located in the religious sphere. This body of secret practices and knowledge, known as the mystique, is key to the daily relationship with the state, appealing to alternative powers to those mobilised by the state, as well as a means of defense against the exclusion and stigma to which the capitalist city condemns them.