Work and Play in a Taipei Night Market

Lauren Hansen

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Vesperi, Maria

Keywords

Taiwan, Taipei, Market, Street Food, Street Hawking

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

This thesis deals with the ways in which illegal street-food vendors in Taipei, Taiwan negotiate the personal and professional hardships of their work. I place a strong emphasis on Taipei's shifting social and political climate and analyze the plans and enacted strategies of three neighboring vendors in Kung Kuan night market. In Chapter Three, I examine their strategies for dealing with present-day market life. I take Goffinan's notion of front and back regions, and I describe both front-stage strategies, such as manner, appearance, and use of language, and back-stage strategies for dealing with the police and other vendors and the physical demands of marketplace vending. In Chapter Four, I discuss the changing social and political context of Taipei, and I describe how these changes will affect night-market work. I pay particular attention to the plans that vendors are making now for mitigating future difficulties. I also discuss the role of the family and labor-pooling strategies in successful street-food operations and how these strategies will be affected by changing family norms and practices in Taiwan.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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