The Challenges of Women Street Vendors in Urban Spaces of Guwahati

Women street vendors represent both systemic neglect and economic necessity in contemporary urban landscapes. These women street vendors continue to be structurally marginalized regardless of their critical role in maintaining the urban informal economies; there is a conflux of economic precarity, spatial violence, systematic exclusion of gender and regulatory indifferences. This abstract tries to critically examine the ingrained power disparities that influence their everyday struggles, revealing how patriarchal norms, institutional barriers combine together to make their identities invisible as they strive to earn a livelihood. The study highlights the structural violence entrenched in urban governance practices as well as tenacity of women street vendors through an intersectional and feminist political lens. For the women working in an informal sector economy, it demands a radical re-thinking of the policy framework which goes beyond inclusion to real recognition, right-based protection, and socio-economic justice. For obtaining relevant data observation and semi-structured interview method have been used.