Integration of an Informal Economy with the Globalization Process: A Study on Street Hawkers of Kolkata

Abstract

A survey on Kolkata street hawkers, spread over three different zones of KMC, was done, around 2004, by a group of social activists. Using a structured questionnaire, feedback on twenty one socio economic parameters were collected from a convenient sample of 2306 stationary hawkers. This paper presents and tries to analyze the findings of the survey in the broader perspective of a changing global economy, especially in the context of the mounting power of transnational retailing activities. The study concludes with the observation that the global capital, searching desperately for new avenues to get out of recession, has realized that fortune lie ‘at the bottom of the pyramid’. Capital, for its own survival, has become very aggressive and every economic space, however small and informal it might be, is being invaded by it. The process of integration of local informal economies, like the hawker economy, with the global monopoly capital has been started in a well planned manner.