Abstract
Outdoor markets have emerged as key nodes in cities’ attempts to revitalize downtown areas through culture and consumption. However, few studies have investigated urban markets as sites of labor, or explored work conditions from the perspective of vendors themselves. As self–employed creative workers in a seasonal industry, artisan vendors experience various forms of economic insecurity related to precarity inherent to their line of work. This article investigates the experiences of artisan craft vendors in Ottawa's popular ByWard Market. Through interviews with vendors, we explore themes such as artisan identity, relationships in the market, and economic and labor conditions. We argue that although precarity seems to be inherent in the vendors’ work conditions, it does not undermine their identities as artisans, in part because of the strong value attached to autonomous, creative work. This attachment may, however, hinder artisan vendors’ abilities to organize for structural changes that would mitigate their economic precarity.
While passing an artisan vendor in an urban market, we may stop to admire their hand–crafted products, but are unlikely to wonder about the conditions of labor under which the artisan attempts to earn a livelihood. Popular tourist attractions for many cities, outdoor markets also carry significant meanings and shape material contexts for those who rely on them as a source of income, community, and support. However, few studies have investigated work within urban markets and in particular, work conditions as seen from the perspective of vendors themselves. As self–employed creative workers in a seasonal industry, artisan vendors experience various forms of economic insecurity, many of which resemble the widespread conditions of precarity that have emerged across various occupations and industries. The concept of precarity has been taken up by scholars and activists to describe both labor and life conditions of vulnerability, risk, and uncertainty that have arisen as employment has shifted toward more casual, insecure, and flexible models in advanced global capitalist countries under neoliberalism (Ross 2008). In this paper, we consider how precarity shapes daily work and affective experiences of vending (Worth 2015) for artisan vendors in Ottawa's ByWard Market, as well as how the context of working in a public urban market interacts with and informs these conditions and experiences.
Although there has been growing academic interest in markets from urban geographers, sociologists, and planners (Griffin and Frongillo 2003; Morales and Kettles 2009; Shepherd 2007), as well as heightened attention from urban policymakers, there is little research dealing with craft and artisan markets, even in work that focuses on the role of the arts, artists, and culture in urban economic development (e.g. Markusen and Gadwa 2010). The City of Ottawa is currently putting together plans for a revitalization of the ByWard Market as it prepares to mark the 150th anniversary of Canada's confederation. Although these plans may have incorporated the perspectives of local business owners and residents (Robinson 2015), the voices of market vendors are glaringly absent (Willing 2016). This oversight means that the role of the market as a site of labor is likely not being considered. Instead, its role as a tourist attraction and economic generator will be foregrounded, rendering the needs of those who rely on the market as a workplace less visible. We suggest that urban and labor sociologists and geographers, as well as planners, have much to learn from those on the ground about the ways that precarious work conditions are experienced by artisans and craftspeople, and about the relationship among precarity, urban spaces, and neoliberal urban revitalization.
To investigate these issues and to learn more about artistic production in this context, we conducted qualitative research with vendors addressing themes such as craft production, artisan identity, relationships in the market, and economic and labor conditions. A grounded approach to understanding how vendors make sense of their own labor, identities, and interests is a necessary foundation for any scholarship, activism, or planning that seeks to improve the labor conditions in urban markets (Charmaz 2004). Such an investigation reveals a deeply nuanced and subjective understanding of precarious work conditions and identity in the context of tourism–driven, insecure, artistic employment. This understanding is founded on a passionate valuing of agency and autonomy, even though these very factors make vendors vulnerable to economic insecurity. Although precarity seems to be inherent in the vendors’ work conditions, it does not define their identities as artisans, and may in fact be productive of some of the intrinsic qualities of craft vending that keep them coming back to the market. Vendors occupy a unique space as creative artists working in a regulated and structured environment, largely influenced by business and City interests and agendas in the area. Observing the site of sale—where private, self–employed work enters the public realm—also allows us to consider how this work interacts with broader structural forces in an urban setting. These complications highlight the fraught terrain of precarious work spaces, especially for creative workers, as well as the contradictory entanglements produced by insecurity.
Although we do not seek to romanticize precarity, our research illustrates that artistic workers may have different experiences of precarity than other kinds of workers affected by the shift to casualized employment, such as retail service workers or contract academics. However, we note that for craft vendors, a strong sense of identity as proud, independent artisans and an attachment to the autonomy inherent in their work, as well as conditions of this work itself, may actually hinder their abilities and desires to work collectively or to advocate for changes that might ameliorate more negative aspects of their precarious work conditions, despite the sense of community they share. As urban markets of all kinds become increasingly popular urban revitalization tools, and the ByWard Market in particular changes its focus from vending to revitalization, we urge that the perspectives of market vendors be carefully considered if such markets are not to exacerbate the already precarious nature of artisanal craft and food production through ignoring vendors’ vulnerabilities and taking for granted their continued presence. Although precarity may be inherent to craft vending, it should not excuse decision makers from trying to limit or mitigate its effects.
Situating the Byward Market
In recent decades, markets of all kinds—farmers, craft, ethnic, etc.—have become highly attractive as urban third spaces (Balkin and Mier 2001) where “traditional values and the quest for novel experiences” (Tunbridge 1992:280) operate in conjunction with gentrification's call to consume authenticity (Zukin 2008). Local governments may see markets as vehicles for promoting everything from safety, commerce, tourism, heritage preservation, and economic development, to community integration, physical and emotional health, food security, and the arts (Morales 2011; Murphy 2011).
With all of this ambitious potential attributed to markets, urban and planning scholars have asked critical questions about their role and function as public spaces. Zukin (2008) for example has noted the rise to dominance of gentrifier practices and aesthetics at markets that may create a sense of exclusion for minority and low–income city dwellers. Others have explored gender and race dynamics in more detail, noting the gendered labor of provisioning for the city (Wekerle 2005) and the challenges of relating across racial differences in market spaces (Alkon and McCullen 2011; Slocum 2008). The potential importance of urban markets in providing food security to underserved communities, and in making cities more sustainable in an era of climate change, has also been considered (Bentley and Barker 2005; Brown and Miller 2008; Morales 2010). These research trajectories suggest that a key debate revolves around the role of markets as sites that may foster a sense of community across difference among consumers or mitigate urban inequalities such as food insecurity, but that gentrification and the take–up of markets as tourist sites may work against these objectives.
Within this debate, the market as a site of consumption is highlighted, whereas the market as a site of labor remains shadowed, even though market vendors are vital to the creation of the market as a place for community, resilience, and social justice. Responding to calls in the literature to examine the working conditions of those employed in/by markets (Griffin and Frongillo 2003; Morales 2011) to understand markets as sites of urban labor, this article addresses a significant gap by focusing on the day–to–day work lives of artisan craft vendors in the Ottawa ByWard Market.
Ottawa, Ontario (population 883,391 as of the last census in 2011), is a “government town” that draws some eight million visitors per year, 700,000 of whom come from outside of the country (CTV News Ottawa 2012). The ByWard Market, one of Canada's oldest public markets, was founded in 1826 and has evolved from a central distribution center to the well–known produce and craft market of today which remains open 363 days a year (Tunbridge 1992; ByWard Market n.d.). The surrounding neighborhood is also a popular destination for shopping, dining, and nightlife. Adjacent to tourist attractions like Parliament Hill (the seat of the federal government), approximately 50,000 visitors attend the market in the summer months, although vendors have observed declining numbers frequenting the area each year, and many believe that the outdoor market is not well promoted by the City.
The City of Ottawa has been responsible for the management of the outdoor market since its inception through Markets Management, although the ByWard Market Building is managed by the ByWard Market Revitalization Group through a lease that is due to expire in 2017 (ByWard Market n.d.; ByWard Market Square n.d.). There is also a ByWard Market Business Improvement Area (BMBIA), which represents the businesses in the market area, conducts promotion of the market, and puts on special events (Project for Public Spaces 2013). The ByWard Market Standholders Association (BMSA) is a group composed of representatives of all categories of vendors that is dedicated to representing the interests of vendors at large.
Artists and craftspersons, or AC1 vendors, make one hundred per cent of their products, whereas other vendor categorizations such as AC2s, AC3s, and AC4s produce a lesser portion of their products or simply resell products made elsewhere (City of Ottawa Markets Management 2008). AC1 vendors create and sell products ranging from handmade jewelry, to clothing, to fine art. In the summer of 2015 there were sixty registered AC1 vendors, although less than 10 regularly attended the market. AC1 vendors have special privileges that acknowledge the artistic value of their work. For example, they pay the least of any vendors for their daily or monthly permits, and get the first pick of both daily and monthly spots. To vend and determine what products they are allowed to sell, vendors must submit an application to the Art and Craft Selection Committee. This committee is made up of three members selected by the Ottawa Arts Council but includes no current vendors (Personal communication, Markets Management 2015).
Artistic Work in the New Economy
The working conditions and experiences of the artisan craft vendors must be understood within both the contexts of the changing nature of work in advanced capitalist societies, as well as the specific nature of creative or artistic work. It is widely recognized that work arrangements are becoming increasingly diverse as the age of standard, secure, full–time salaried employment declines and is replaced by “insecure, casualized, or irregular” jobs (Edgell 2006: Gill and Pratt 2008:2). Nonstandard work, also known as flexible work, includes part–time work, self–employment, and temporary work. Flexible work makes up an increasing share of the labor force. In particular, self–employment—a form of unregulated labor defined as working for oneself with or without employees—has been increasing since the 1980s (Arnold and Bongiovi 2013; Vallas et al. 2009; Edgell 2006).
Although some self–employed workers choose this type of employment of their own accord, others end up in it as a result of a recession or unemployment (Edgell 2006; Vallas et al. 2009). Some have called nonstandard work “flexploitation” (Waite 2009: 416), pointing to the seductive but exploitive trade–off of security for autonomy (Edgell 2006). Self–employed workers who work alone often have lower incomes and benefits, and are less likely to belong to an association, than those who do not (Wall 2015). Without fixed work hours, self–employed workers tend to log longer hours than other workers through a process that some call “self–exploitation” (Gill and Pratt 2008: 17). Nonstandard work is also associated with negative health outcomes and well–being, and has been linked to sleep disorders, stress, and depression (Scott–Marshall and Tompa, 2011; Vallas et al. 2009).
Despite these drawbacks, research has found there is a high level of satisfaction among self–employed workers due to their increased autonomy and opportunities to exercise their unique abilities (Tremblay 2008). Benz and Frey (2008) demonstrate that this satisfaction exceeds that of workers who are not self–employed, even regardless of income. Individuals may feel a strong attachment to work that is either demanding or highly skilled. Economists have found that self–employment provides significant procedural utility, meaning that workers value both outcomes, and the processes leading to them (Benz & Frey 2008; Edgell 2006) these values are also related to identity maintenance, wherein individuals believe that the ideals of self–reliance, self–determination, initiative, risk–taking, and hard work associated with “being one's own boss” in an enterprise culture compensate for some of downsides of their self–employment (Mallett and Wapshott 2015).
Scholars and activists have latched onto the term “precarity,” first coined by Bourdieu in the 1960s (Waite 2009), to describe this condition of “material and existential” insecurity, instability, and uncertainty (Bain and McLean 2012: 97). Although technically present throughout history and most especially in the global south (Waite 2009), precarity usually refers to labor market relations and a general condition of life in advanced capitalist post–Fordist societies (Waite 2009). Precarity is disproportionately experienced by youth, women, and immigrants (Ross 2008) and implies a lack of “income–earning opportunities; protection against arbitrary dismissal; opportunities for advancement; protection against accidents and illness; a chance to build skills; assurance of a stable wage; and a collective voice” (Bain and McLean 2012:97). Because of its increasing prevalence, many are hopeful that precarity may be an entry point to political mobilization and solidarity between “disparate neo–liberal workers” who range in pay and status from construction workers, to domestic laborers, to adjunct professors, to artists (Waite 2009:413). However, it is important to note that as diverse as these occupations are the ways people experience precarity. Not every worker in a precarious job actually identifies as being in a precarious position (Waite 2009). Self–employment in particular may engender feelings of pride, self–reliance, and initiative rather than vulnerability and dependency (Edgell 2006). As Worth's (2015) study suggests, the affective experiences of precarious work are important to investigate alongside the material conditions.
Artistic labor exemplifies many aspects of nonstandard work and self–employment. A form of cultural labor, artistic labor can be defined as “individual, project–based activity that demands originality of expression, sensitivity, intuition, and self–organization” (Bain and McLean 2012: 98). Artists and craftspeople tend to be self–employed, unemployed, underemployed, or hold multiple jobs, lack benefits, must pay for their own training and professional development, and often earn less than their counterparts of comparable age, education, and training (Bain and McLean 2012). Intrinsic to creative labor, like other forms of non–standard work, are “long hours and bulimic patterns of working; the collapse or erasure of the boundaries between work and play; poor pay; high levels of mobility…and profound experiences of insecurity and anxiety about finding work, earning enough money and ‘keeping up’ in rapidly changing fields” (Gill and Pratt 2008: 14; Christopherson 2008). Still, many artists claim they find their work deeply pleasurable and gratifying due to the opportunity to exercise self–expression and self–actualization and thus remain in it intentionally (Gill and Pratt 2008). Some believe that cultural workers continue to work in these conditions because they have internalized the powerful norm of the self–sacrificing cultural laborer, or have bought into the “logic of self–fulfilling labour” (Dawkins 2011: 273; Ross 2008). Bain (2005; see also Christopherson 2008) notes the conflicting identities of the artist who is expected to be a symbolically marginalized, experimental, and innovative creator while also being an entrepreneurial, market–savvy businessperson.
In the urban context, artists and craftspeople are increasingly expected to justify their work (and their funding) by contributing in some way to broader culture–led urban revitalization schemes, such as the “creative city” (Florida 2002; Leslie and Catungal 2012). McLean (2014) notes that high–profile arts festivals and festival markets attempt to co–opt artists and artisans into becoming what Lange (2006) calls “culturepreneurs”: branded, market–savvy creative workers who also work to produce urban places that are distinctive, attractive, and lively for residents and tourists as part of the culture–based “experience economy” (Finkel 2009; Johansson and Kociatkiewicz 2011; Quinn 2005). This experience economy relies on the symbolic value attached to unique cultural experiences in cities. As artisans who sell their arts and crafts literally in the public realm as part of a distinctive local experience, market vendors play an important role in allowing people to take home a locally–produced symbol of their time in the city. As Koch and Latham (2012) point out, the specific material role of public space in creating such experiences has been left out of many geographic studies. Attending to markets and the labor conditions of market vendors is one way of gaining some insights into how particular actors and environments foster (or hinder) the desired experiences of residents, tourists, and workers.
Market vendors are self–employed workers whose labor conditions seem to illustrate many of the tensions of precarious artistic work in new urban economies. In spite of the much–hyped role of the artist and craftsperson in urban regeneration, craftspeople tend to have lower incomes (Peartree Solutions Inc., 2001), and some do not meet the local minimum wage when their working hours (which represent time spent both making their products and working in the market) are calculated in relation to what they pay for “market fees, taxes, material and equipment costs, studio rentals, transportation etc.” (Jakob 2012: 133). However, markets do provide vendors with the opportunity to begin small businesses and experiment with new products (Griffin and Frongillo 2003). Ethnographic studies with market vendors (primarily farmers) note that many enjoy the social aspects of their work, being outside, and working without a boss (Griffin and Frongillo 2003; Shepherd 2007). However, challenges such as contending with external factors like weather, seasonal attendance, and market reputation mean that vendors deal with constant uncertainty about their sales (Griffin and Frongillo 2003). Our research with the ByWard Market craft vendors ties together concerns about the precarious nature of artistic self–employment with the particular conditions of urban market vending, offering a nuanced understanding of the fraught relationship between autonomy and precarity.
Methods
Caroline, who is originally from Ottawa, first worked in the ByWard Market at an ice cream hut in the summer of 2013, before selling products for a local shop as an AC1 summer craft vendor the following year. During this time, she noticed strained communication between vendors and Markets Management, and was surprised by the apparent under–utilization and consultation of vendors in shaping the market as a workplace and tourist destination. She conducted interviews and participant observation in the summer of 2015, which proved timely given the pending expiry of the ByWard Market Building lease and revitalization plans for the market in 2017. Caroline occupied both an insider and outsider position, as a former vendor but returning researcher and student, which may have influenced both how the participants interacted with her and how she analyzed the data (Ley and Mountz 2001; Mohammad 2001). Her experience with the market facilitated a more grounded approach to this study, whereby her familiarity with the concerns and desires of the vendors allowed us to develop a framework that was responsive to issues emerging on the ground, rather than one that emerged from a particular theoretical standpoint. Our collaborative process and analytic methods reflect our feminist commitments to build knowledge relationally, to see subjects as legitimate knowers and experts through experience, and to orient knowledge production towards social and economic justice (Kirby et al. 2010).
Caroline interviewed 20 AC1 summer craft vendors using a semistructured interview guide developed by herself and Leslie. It was framed around Caroline's previous knowledge of market issues, and designed to allow space for vendors to share new or different concerns and experiences (Dunn, 2010). She recruited participants by attending the market for two months on weekdays and weekends asking all AC1 vendors present if they wanted to participate. Seven vendors declined the invitation, as did Markets Management. Consent forms explicitly stated that a main research goal was to share results with key stakeholders in the market, and potentially with news media as well, to draw attention to ways in which the market could be improved. Some vendors had previously requested that this be included in the research project.
The majority of participants were white, and most spoke either English or French as their first language. Nine identified as male, whereas eleven identified as female. Ages ranged from 31 to 70, with half of the participants falling between 51 and 60. Vendors’ years of experience at the market ranged from one to nineteen years, averaging 5.3 years. Thirteen reported vending made up their primary income. Only five of the participants had studied art formally.
Interviews were audio–recorded and transcribed verbatim with participants’ permission. All of the participants chose their own pseudonyms, and most also decided to be interviewed at their stands, in plain sight. Although we did our best to ensure anonymity by removing as many potentially identifiable characteristics as possible, the participants may be identifiable to one another and to Markets Management, although not to the broader public. Caroline conducted the initial coding of the transcripts across topics such as identity, workplace culture, work conditions, relationships among vendors, conflict in the market, community, and craft production. Together, we analyzed the emerging themes as they coalesced around concerns with agency, autonomy, power, and insecurity. A separate report was also produced and distributed to a local city councilor, with the hope that the councilor would share it more widely with Ottawa's City Council (Kovesi 2015).
Precarious Autonomy: Listening to Vendors’ Voices
Laboring with Hand and Heart
The individualized and time–intensive nature of artistic production was an intrinsic source of precarity for the vendors. Primarily responsible for both creating and selling their products, AC1 vendors worked long hours to make a living from their art. Because the majority of the craft vendors only worked in the market during the summer, they had to ensure a stockpile of products. For some, any shortfall was made up by crafting at night, or during quieter times at the market itself, leaving them with little leisure time. Esther Sage commented on the exorbitant amount of time she spends creating her products, compared to those who can order them from elsewhere: “If you can go home at the end of the day and say, ‘Send me six dozen of this and four dozen of something else,’ and then go have time with your family, [it's different from] most of the artisans out here [who] don't have a life during the summer.” The intensity of this work schedule was also noted by farmers in Griffin and Frongillo's study (2003:194), one of whom explained, “The end of a market day is just the beginning of more farm work.”
Because AC1 vendors are the designers and most often the sole producers of their products as well, they rarely have employees to carry out their work if they are unable to do so themselves, and cannot replenish their stock through a quick online order. Although a few hired assistants to do the actual vending in the market, it is likely many artisans could not afford this accommodation. Thus if they could not attend the market on a particular day, they could not sell their products. Further, even when they were able to work in the market, vendors were dependent on customer attendance (Griffin and Frongillo 2003), which was affected by variables outside of their control like weather, temperature, or the general strength of the tourist industry in any given year. Vending outdoors is also risky; for example, Jeanne remarked, “Like this one table for me is hundreds of hours worth of work, it's thousands of dollars worth of stock, and it's everything I have, right? So if the weather goes to shit one day and my table falls over or something like that, I'm ruined.” These factors create conditions where high levels of stress, worry, and fatigue can flourish, as research with other kinds of cultural workers as well as market vendors has illustrated (Gill and Pratt 2008; Griffin and Frongillo 2003).
Despite the challenges they faced, all of the vendors were emphatic about loving their jobs and were adamant that they remained in them by choice. Vendors took pride in making and selling their own products and in being located at the ByWard Market. Stéphane put it simply: “If I would not be happy, I would not be here. So if I'm here it's because it please[s] me.” Even though the responsibility for making her own products was sometimes onerous, Esther Sage still felt that “It's nice to be a master of your own destiny.” Samyso agreed: “I love the people here, I love being outside, I love knowing that I'm making my money because I'm selling things that I've made with my hands.” Joey said, “Being in the market I like it because it show[s] me the reaction of people when they look at my art and they show appreciation.…So that give me a push to do more, and to produce more work.” Mia noted, “I like to know that my art is going far from here. That somebody has a little piece of me in their place.” Vendors knew that they played an important role in representing both Canada and its capital at home and abroad, and in transforming the market from just another place to a high–profile destination, and a part of the “experience economy.” As Butchy explained, “We often say [to the market], ‘Well if we don't come here, you don't exist.’”
Wall (2015: 224) notes that intrinsic qualities of work, like “autonomy, challenge, recognition, accomplishment, and positive work relationships” can compensate for poor extrinsic work characteristics. Jakob (2012: 134) confirms that, “any sale carries an emotional reward of finding an audience that regards, respects and rewards the crafter's skills, creativity, time and efforts.” The artisans here had autonomy through having the freedom to create their own crafts. The skilled work required for most products was a source of challenge that resulted in pride when rewarded with a sale or customer appreciation. However, autonomy was also a source of vulnerability in that responsibility for designing, making, and selling fell largely on individual vendors’ shoulders with few alternative sources of labor upon which they could rely. Furthermore, working in an outdoor tourist–oriented market meant that conditions could change day by day, or even hour by hour. It seems that although precarity is a structural component of artisan vending, it is also generative of pride and a sense of accomplishment. We are not arguing that precarity was a positive motivational factor for the vendors, but rather that for artistic workers it may be impossible to pry apart the frustrations of precarious conditions from the value attached to this particular kind of autonomous labor.
(Contentious) Community in the Market
Although the work of making craft products is largely individual, the market itself is a communal space. Most vendors felt close to one another, often describing themselves as family. This is especially noteworthy considering they compete for the attention of the same customers. A similar phenomenon—valuing the social experiences embedded in vending more than financial reward—was also noted by vendors and farmers in other studies (Griffin and Frongillo 2003; Shepherd 2007). As Joey explained: “We are like very close friends because we see each other eight hours a day, give or take. So some of us see each other more than we see our family.” Unlike many self–employed workers, artists, and craftspeople, the vendors share the same workspace, and thus also share many of the same risks, such as theft or poor weather. Vendors often asked one another to watch their respective products when they went to the washroom, grabbed lunch, or parked their cars. Despite the possible risk, vendors readily placed their trust in one another. As Jeanne stated, “This is my livelihood here [and] I have no problem asking my neighbor to watch it for half an hour while I run an errand or what have you, like because I do feel like we're all family here.” Although the community–forming potential of markets for diverse consumers has been noted in the literature, the community–making efforts of (and between) vendors have thus far been overlooked, despite the fact that these same efforts may impact the potential of the market to become a welcoming space for diverse users.
Solidarity and a sense of interdependency among the vendors, born from working within and against the same (at times) adverse conditions, helped to mitigate these vulnerabilities. Esther Sage stated, “We are a community. We all know what we're up against,” adding, “Even if it's somebody that you don't particularly like, if their stand falls down for whatever reason, even people that you don't like will come over and help you pick it up.” Jeanne explained, “Well we're all in the same boat. We're all doing the same thing. We're all pouring our heart and souls into these small tents and that unifies us, you know? We know what we're going through, we know the hardships, we're the same.…And I think that really brings us together.” Worth (2015:2) positions “interdependency as a ‘shared condition’ of precarity,” and asserts that reliance on others (relational autonomy) is an important method of managing the insecurity of nonstandard work. As she notes, however, interdependency does not necessarily translate into meaningful opportunities for collective action. Nor does it mean that there cannot be tension among similarly–positioned workers. For the craft vendors, this solidarity, which likely played a role in the vendors’ mutual support, represents one way that they mitigated their precarity.
Vendors’ solidarity was jeopardized however by others who claimed to be AC1 vendors but were actually reselling products they had bought elsewhere. Genuine AC1 vendors worried that they would all be affected if the market's reputation was tainted by the resellers’ dishonesty (Morales 2011), a suspicion shared by the farmers in Griffin and Frongillo's (2003) study. They also thought it ethically wrong to mislead customers, and resented the unfair competition, since the reselling AC1 vendors could afford to sell their products much more cheaply than the genuine artisans. Already in a structurally insecure position, vendors were dependent on one another and those who abused that trust added to the precarity of vending. As we will discuss below, vendors relied on the market's management structure to uphold rules—such as those that are supposed to prevent reselling vendors from being designated AC1s—but they were also limited in their power to hold management accountable.
Managed Precarity: Forces beyond Vendor Control
The vendors’ sense of autonomy was complicated by their experiences of working within the hierarchical structure of the city–run market. The city determines the various rates of rent, along with market bylaws, and the Art and Craft Selection Committee, which does not include current vendors, decides which products vendors can and cannot sell, and even whether they can vend at all. Charlie Boy clearly recognized she had limited control: “Well I can control within my tiny little space. I can control [what] I sell…that's been accepted.…Yeah we can put up our stuff the way we want within the lines.” Star Buck described how Management could determine both what she sold and how she sold it. She recalled not being allowed to put up signs above a certain height in her stand. Esther Sage summed up the situation: “The vision of our own businesses [are] shaped by strangers that [don't] have a stake in our futures. Like we should be able to decide what's on our stand and what's not on our stand.” This perspective reveals the tension she feels between her desire to be the “master” of her own destiny and the rules by which she must abide. However, other vendors did not acknowledge this tension, and maintained that they were primarily in control. As The Cat asserted, “I have control because I'm selling my own stuff. It's my own place, my own spot that I pay for, and the spot that I'm occupying is my spot, and I have full control over it.”
Beyond the space of their individual stands, vendors were relatively powerless with respect to the decisions made by those above them. Samyso explained, “Nobody is secure. [The] city can do whatever they want. They definitely have the authority to take our license away,” adding, “They have always the upper hand on us and, you know, [we] always have to deal with their decisions that sometimes they are very stupid.” Marco felt similarly powerless in relation to the city: “I think it's what the city really wants in the long term really what they see happening.…And of course we're not too much involved.” Several vendors had also heard rumors about the BMBIA wanting to shut them down, and, understandably, felt threatened. These fears were heightened by the anticipated expiry of the ByWard Market Building lease in 2017, which will allow the City to reclaim the building and possibly change its function. Vendors actively felt their insecurity and knew that they could not take their positions in the market for granted. Moreover, the fact that these fears remained unaddressed and were neither confirmed nor denied by key decision makers showed a disregard among them for vendors’ sense of security and need to plan for the future.
Although the power of the city and Markets Management contributed to dependency and precarity among the vendors, the vendors also expressed a distinctive appreciation for processes, rules, and regulations. Paradoxically, the same rules that bounded their agency also introduced a measure of predictability and standardization into their work, which helped to moderate their precarity. For example, the Art and Craft Selection Committee is supposed to ensure a vendor's designation reflects the type of artist or worker they are, and a rotating allocation system gives each vendor an equal chance to choose what they consider to be the best stands. Trillium explained, “Process means that you know what to expect from day to day and you can predict and plan for it.” Evidently, this predictability helped Trillium mitigate the uncertainty inherent in her work. Vendors felt strongly that bylaws should be better enforced, demonstrating their appreciation for, and reliance on, these rules. Vendors like Butchy disliked that “they [ie. Markets Management] do have structures that they don't use. They do have bylaws that they don't reinforce which gives people opportunities to abuse those different situations.” Some of the newer vendors also felt that rules were unevenly applied, and that they were more apt to follow them than older vendors. Structures of equality are of little use unless reinforced, leaving vendors vulnerable when they are not.
Unfortunately, vendors often felt constrained in terms of voicing their concerns. Some believed that even if they did, their opinions would be overpowered by “elites” like the BMBIA and local businesses that vendors believed held significantly more political power and sway. Others found previous efforts to share feedback futile. For example, when Joey tried attending BMSA meetings, he felt, “We suggest things…but nothing happen. And we talk to the office and tell them, ‘Please like make like give our voice also to the city councillors who's responsible for this’ but still nothing happen[ed].” Numerous vendors said they had complained about the reselling AC1 vendor problem to Markets Management to no avail. There was a general sense that they had few opportunities to offer input, although it is worth noting Markets Management does periodically solicit their feedback. Jeanne shared, “No like I feel like if I personally wanted to talk to somebody I don't even know who I would talk to.…I don't feel like, like I don't feel like I've ever been given the opportunity to share my voice, or to share my concern.”
These tensions with market managers and other powerful bodies illustrate more complexities in the relationship between autonomy and precarity. Although having some governing structures and regulations can mitigate unpredictability and (ideally) prevent conflict, it also erects limits on the vendors’ direct control of their products and stands. Although some vendors were cognizant of structural limits to their agency, others did not acknowledge, or feel threatened by, the power of management at all, and most were very fond of them. Perhaps this was because they did not see Management as being actively implicated in their work as craft vendors, or because, as we will discuss below, they simply accepted the terms of working in the market. Others may have preferred to identify as completely autonomous, self–employed artisans out of pride or because they were already content with the level of control provided. For all of the vendors, these tensions in their relationships with managing groups and other market stakeholders contributed to difficulty in working together as a community for change.
Accepting Insecurity
One of the questions we asked the vendors was: “If you could change three things about the market what would they be?” Not surprisingly, vendors were full of ideas about how to improve the ByWard Market and were often in consensus about them. These ideas would benefit not only the vendors themselves, but also the market as a whole (see Kovesi 2015). What did surprise us was the reticence of the vendors to become directly involved in market politics, or to collectively organize to push for the changes they saw as critical to the success of the market. This contrasts with artists’ broad reputation for being politically active and generally opposing the status quo (Markusen 2006), and with scholars’ predictions that precarity may form a new basis for solidarity and political mobilization (Waite 2009). Most of the vendors showed little interest in involving themselves with or even providing feedback to Markets Management, the BMBIA, or the BMSA, either independently or collectively.
Notably, although the BMSA has the ability to advocate on the vendors’ behalf, most knew little about what they were working on, and held reservations about what they could accomplish. Some felt that the group was ineffective, whereas others worried that if they attended BMSA meetings, it would affect their positive relations with other vendors. Anna also noted few vendors participate in electing their representatives for the BMSA, and Ellie felt that those who decided to run for the association did so with personal agendas rather than with the altruistic intention to improve conditions for everyone. Not everyone felt similarly, though, and some believed the BMSA was becoming more responsive to their needs. Depending on how it develops connections and solidarity within the vendor community and between its divisions (i.e., AC1s, AC2s, AC3s, AC4s, and agri–food vendors) and on how it is received by the city and other market stakeholders, the BMSA holds potential to instigate change from the ground up in the future.
Others may have feared repercussions if they got involved; many seemed wary of criticizing management, and were quick to insist that they had few complaints. For example, after sharing some of his concerns, Lucho immediately added, “But I am happy because it's like that and I must respect the market because I sell something and I can buy some food for my family. I have no problem. It's only a question.” Vendors rationalized that since they “chose” to be at the Market, a particular work environment, they should also be willing to accept or adapt to its present conditions, which, although sometimes experienced as frustrating, were not perceived as exploitative. This sentiment was expressed by Trillium, who said, “I'm not sure that anything needs to be changed…at this point I'm really adaptive and…the situation that's set up for us here seems easy to manage.” Marco insisted, “Up to a certain point you have to accept what the environment is.…If you accept the conditions that the market is operating in, well uh, it's okay.” The intrinsic precarity of artisan vending may be accepted as a norm, and since working at the market is seen to be an individual choice—in theory, if the vendors are discontent, they can choose to work elsewhere—they may be discouraged from actively advocating for and pursuing change. There were also more direct concerns about power, because vendors knew that they could easily be denied a permit renewal, or be demoted from an AC1 designation to AC2 by the management.
Moreover, due to the nature of their work, vendors may have had little time to spare for attending BMSA meetings, or returning feedback to Markets Management. Marco explained, “First of all I don't have too much time for that and I don't have too much energy to spend on that.” Here political engagement may be a privilege as much as it is a personal choice. Many vendors also attend the market sporadically, or for a short period of time, making them less likely to invest in the politics of the space. As art is an individual pursuit, vendors may have been accustomed to working alone and be less inclined to join a union–type of organization. Jeanne evidenced this individual outlook when she said, “Again I'm not really involved like even though I've been doing this for years I don't really talk to anybody there. Like I set up, I come, I do my thing, and that's it.” Rocky had a similar outlook: “As far as the politics of how the market's run I don't really let it affect me. I focus more on doing the best work.” For other vendors, neither English nor French (Canada's official languages) was their first language, a situation that may have made direct, individual communication with management intimidating. These barriers to engagement are not insurmountable, but illustrate that engagement would add to the already–heavy labor of the artisans.
Conclusions
For many, the major draws of artistic labor and self–employment are autonomy, freedom, and flexibility. Vending at the craft market offered a relatively low–cost and low–commitment opportunity for artisans to sell their own products and reach a large customer base without having to invest in retail space or commit to set days and hours of work. However, as scholarly research on flexible, creative, non–standard self–employment shows, these qualities almost invariably come at the expense of security, income, benefits, unionization, and stability. Stress, long hours, and self–sacrifice may become an accepted standard in casualized creative labor, as the individual “autonomous” worker bears the brunt of labor risk, uncertainty, and vulnerability. Such precarity has been described as the new norm of modern labor, and the working conditions of artisan vendors at the ByWard Market are no exception. Here, we have tried to pay careful attention to vendors’ lived understandings of their own work. As Penelope told us, “I think…the people who call the shots need to be really aware of down on the street where we all are, what's really going on.” In trying to make sense of knowledge produced “down on the street,” we offer some insights on the relationship between autonomy and precarity for creative workers, with the intention of learning how we might better their working conditions, without compromising what they value most about their work.
The vendors’ experiences lend empirical validation to the notion that autonomy does not map neatly onto control in the world of precarious labor. Although the vendors valued the freedom and flexibility of creative work, the down–on–the–street reality of market vending is that there are many factors beyond their control, including people and institutions that hold greater power and authority. This does not mean that vendors are somehow deluded about their autonomy. Rather, we find that it points to the importance of autonomy and indeed elements of precarity for shaping their identity as creative workers, and to the nuanced ways in which they reconcile their work identities with working conditions. Although precarious work conditions may deeply undermine the identities of some groups of workers, like contract and part–time academic workers, various aspects of what we now call precarity have long been valued by artists as inherent aspects of their work and even productive of some of the conditions that allow them to be creative. For example, Bain highlights how artists in Toronto take pride in their perseverance, fearlessness, and tenacity despite working in conditions such as isolation and poverty (2003). In this context, the precarious work conditions at the ByWard Market may fit within artisans’ own expectations of their work conditions.
Given the tension here between valuing autonomy but simultaneously being subjected to very real material conditions of precarity such as income insecurity and over–work, it is not so surprising that many of the craft vendors were hesitant to actively advocate for change. In terms of organizing collectively, it may not be immediately clear to self–employed workers—many of whom may lack experience in unions—how political action will benefit them if this action will not obviously translate into tangible improvements. Bain and McLean (2012:98) corroborate these theories, noting “individuals [i.e. cultural workers] have little time or resources to build political awareness” in the context of a “lack of socio–structural support, the relentless pace of work and the prevalence of ‘pathologies of precariousness’.” Furthermore, vendors and artists more generally may not identify as precarious. If vendors value their independence, and take pride in their tenaciousness as self–employed workers, they are unlikely to seek change based on either a precarious identity or their concerns with insecurity. This clearly has implications for vendors seeking economic justice in terms of attempting to optimize working conditions to reduce the precarity they experience. For other precarious workers, economic justice may also involve receiving fair remuneration for their work, greater income security, and benefits. As the literature on precarity points out, both the conditions of precarity and the symbolic meaning attached to elements of precarity limit the abilities and desires of precarious workers to become politically active or collectively organize.
This does not mean, however, that urban markets should not endeavor to understand and improve the working conditions of their vendors. The wealth of ideas vendors shared for ways to improve the market evidence their creativity and recognition for room for improvement in the structural conditions of their work. This is foremost an economic justice issue, but it is also important for the long–term sustainability of the market. Already, farmers are leaving the ByWard Market for other markets in the city they feel provide them with greater chances of success (Project for Public Spaces, 2013). When their ability to make a living from craft vending is supported, artisans can afford to return to a market and maintain it as a viable economic and cultural space in the face of other kinds of development pressures on valuable downtown lands. Ironically, though it is vendors, and particularly craft vendors with their unique and colorful wares, who help form the public's place–image of the market (Bain, 2006), they are not reciprocally valued as creators of the market.
Markets are often touted as vehicles for community integration, food justice, entrepreneurship, and more by groups as disparate as planners, city boosters, and social justice activists, but it is easy to forget that they also represent the workplaces and livelihoods of vendors. As this work has shown, the structure of markets can exacerbate the already precarious nature of artisan craft production. To address the negative aspects of precarity while respecting the pride that artisans derive from independent creative work, we urge scholars, planners, and policymakers to heed the voices of market vendors who can offer valuable insights into the conditions that would allow them, and their markets, to flourish.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Heather McLean and Robyn LeBlanc for feedback on a draft of this article. We also thank all of the participants for offering their time to this study. Two anonymous reviewers provided valuable commentary that helped us to strengthen this paper. This research was supported by an Independent Student Research Grant from Mount Allison University.