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The rise of corporate retailing and the impacts on small‐scale retailing: the survival strategies of Kirana stores and informal street vendors in Durgapur, India
- Source :
- Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography. 41:269-283
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Wiley, 2020.
-
Abstract
- In many developing world economies in recent years, the state has been seen to encourage neoliberal economic expansion policies. This has involved both large‐scale foreign corporations and sometimes large‐scale domestic corporations. Many studies have discussed the new landscapes of economic hardship and the impacts on small businesses. The aim of this paper is to argue that the impacts on small traders are in fact more complex and varied than usually appears in the literature. The research was conducted in the industrial city of Durgapur in the Bardhaman district of West Bengal, India. First it is argued that the impact has been greatest on the ‘kirana’ owners, operating small convenience type stores with legalized trading arrangements and fixed premises. On the other hand, the street vendors (often unlicensed and having no fixed premises) seem not to be affected in terms of customer loss and indeed could be seen to be doing well against the backcloth of neoliberal expansion. In fact we argue that the growth in the number of street vendors provides as much of a threat to future livelihoods for traditional kirana owners as the growth of large corporations itself.
- Subjects :
- Economic expansion
media_common.quotation_subject
05 social sciences
Geography, Planning and Development
0211 other engineering and technologies
0507 social and economic geography
Developing country
021107 urban & regional planning
02 engineering and technology
Livelihood
Economic hardship
Market economy
State (polity)
Scale (social sciences)
Survival strategy
Industrial city
Business
050703 geography
Earth-Surface Processes
media_common
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14679493 and 01297619
- Volume :
- 41
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d2c382be7df6092be5ce84989e09445c