Work Is Freedom : The Entrepreneurial Self Among Street Vendors

Precarious work has risen worldwide in recent decades, affecting workers' narratives about their economic activities. A key aspect of precarious work involves the combination of bad working conditions with increased autonomy and flexibility. This article examines how informal street vendors develop narratives that justify staying in their entrepreneurial pursuit despite precarious working conditions. Based on 35 ethnographic interviews and participant observation conducted with vendors in New York City, I show that vendors develop counter-narratives to standard employment based on prior working experiences and everyday experiences of autonomy in the streets. I argue that this combination leads them to reproduce narratives about the importance of autonomy and self-reliance, which strengthen an "entrepreneurial self." I find that gender and age, and daily interactions, shape the narratives they employ. While women emphasize how autonomy enables them to take care of their families, men enjoy the benefits of being their own boss. These findings contribute to our understanding of the ideological framework of informal entrepreneurs in relation to more advantaged entrepreneurs and platform workers. I show how precarious entrepreneurs develop cultural understandings of their work through daily interactions and based on their structural position in the labor market. These narratives unintendedly reproduce neoliberal ideologies.