Space, gentrification and traditional open-air markets: how do vendors in the Carmel market in Tel Aviv interpret changes?

ABSTRACT

Space is often believed to lose its importance in the global era as individuals cease to interact face-to-face in favor of online communication. Studying the Carmel market located in city center Tel Aviv, Israel aims to show how space, in a global city, is constantly produced, reproduced, and transformed in reaction to the changes in the community that uses the space and remains an invaluable resource for its users. By specifying the vendors’ perspective on the changes the market undergoes, this article offers an often missing aspect of the study of space, gentrification, and human action. It argues that public spaces in gentrified areas provide the vendors with means to instill their actions, traditional values which often lose their primacy in a global era and gain social recognition. I spent two years of participant observation and detailed ethnographic interviews with vendors. These have led me to conclude that in addition to a steady income that access to space provides, the vendors claim access to space to enable them to sustain familial values and offer to members of the community the opportunity of face-to-face interaction. Also they interpret their interaction with the new clients as a means of compensating for lack of social upward mobility.

RÉSUMÉ

On croit souvent que l'espace perd de son importance dans l'ère de la mondialisation vu que les individus privilégient la communication en ligne et cessent d'interagir face-à-face. L’étude du marché Carmel, situé dans le centre-ville de Tel Aviv (Israël) vise à montrer comment l'espace, dans une ville mondiale, est constamment produit, reproduit et transformé en réaction aux changements de la communauté qui utilise l'espace, ce dernier restant une ressource inestimable pour ses utilisateurs. Par la spécification de la perspective des vendeurs sur les changements que subit le marché, cet article offre un aspect souvent absent de l’étude de l'espace, de la gentrification et de l'action humaine. L'article soutient que les espaces publics dans les aires gentrifiées fournissent aux vendeurs des moyens de faire admettre leurs actions et leurs valeurs traditionnelles, qui ont souvent perdu leur primauté en une ère globale, gagnant leur reconnaissance par la société. J'ai passé deux années d'observation « participante » et j'ai eu des entretiens ethnographiques détaillés avec les vendeurs. Ceci m'a permis de conclure qu'en sus d'un revenu régulier, leur ouvrant des accès à l'espace, les vendeurs réclament un accès à l'espace, leur permettant de renforcer les valeurs familiales et d'offrir aux membres de la communauté la possibilité d'interaction en face-à-face. Par ailleurs, ils interprètent leur interaction avec les nouveaux clients comme un moyen de compenser le manque de mobilité sociale ascendante.

KEYWORDS:

• Open-air markets
• public spaces
• vendors
• work ethos
• familial feelings

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Análisis fenomenológico interpretativo
• enfermedad mental parental
• trauma infantil acumulativo
• crecimiento postraumático
• consecuencias positivas y negativas

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep gratitude to Rafi Grosglik and two anonymous reviewers for their detailed reading of previous versions of this manuscript and to Dina Haruvi for helping me out by translating the abstract to French.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Liora Gvion is a professor of Sociology at the kibbutzim college of education, Tel Aviv, Israel. Her work revolves around the sociology of food and the body.

Notes

1. Wives, unlike sons, are not paid but are perceived instead as ‘helpers’. Men's labor and women's assistance are seen by the vendors as reinforcing a value system that positions the men as breadwinners.

2. The Israeli version of butternut squash.

3. A type of tangelo (a citrus fruit hybrid of tangerine and pomelo or grapefruit).

4. A cross between an apple and a pear.

5. A well-known television news anchor.

6. About 122$ at that time.