Strengthening Vendor Voices: Participatory Action Research for Inclusive Urban Governance
Workers who earn a living in public space, including street vendors and market traders, face major barriers to securing permits, accessing trading sites and engaging with local authorities, reflecting deeper problems of exclusionary urban governance. Since 2018, WIEGO has developed a legal‑empowerment approach to administrative justice that combines legal research, worker education, alliance building and Participatory Action Research to strengthen collective organizing among self‑employed workers in public spaces. This brief shows how integrating PAR has shifted the work toward relationship‑building and worker‑led knowledge production, enabling workers to better understand their rights, exercise agency and build collective power. It argues that where informality is produced by restrictive or poorly designed regulatory systems, legal empowerment must be understood as a collective process through which workers identify systemic injustices, claim their rights and shape the rules that govern their livelihoods.
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