The Art of Crafting Formal-Informal Linkages: On the Enduring Appeal of Belo Horizonte’s Hippie Fair

Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer explore the accelerating hybridization of formal and informal economic practices underway at one of Latin America’s largest open-air markets, Belo Horizonte’s “Hippie Fair,” officially called the Feira de Arte, Artesanato e Produtores de Variedades da Avenida Afonso Pena. Belying its uniform and ordered appearance, the fair’s multi-actor structure highlights the proliferation of formal-informal linkages that affect not only street vendors, manufacturers, and administrative bodies, but also large segments of the city’s population. The authors argue that two decades of globalization, in conjunction with the recent economic crisis and emerging forms of self-organized economies, have substantially altered the relationship between the informal and formal sectors, both conceptually and practically. They show the importance and ambivalence of the ongoing spatial transformation of informal markets in generating new economic climates that, in some cases, create alternative socioeconomic places, and in others, an expansion of capitalist markets.