“Strive to Make a Living” in the Era of Urbanization and Modernization: The Story of Petty Traders in a Hanoi Peri-urban Community

This chapter explores the dynamics of petty trade in a Hanoi peri-urban community under the impact of an assemblage of recent urbanization and modernization policies. Drawing on material from fieldwork in both the village and marketplaces in Hanoi in 2014, it examines the continuity of petty trade in the livelihoods of peri-urban villagers during the process of urbanization and the new patterns they have adopted to strive for a living. The chapter argues that the recent pattern of rapid urbanization through the top-down urban integration of Hanoi city had the unintended effect of pushing people into the informal economy, while the modernization of the city has pushed their informal status to become even more vulnerable.