Enforced informalisation: The case of liquor retailers in South Africa

Charman, Andrew; Petersen, Leif; Piper, Laurence

doi:10.1080/0376835x.2013.817306

Cited by 20 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Availability is the most cited theme in our analysis ( n = 31). Issues raised around this theme include the easy access and low prices of traditional alcoholic beverages, the inability to regulate informal outlets , taste improvements and the introduction of new product lines, using locally produced beverages and agreements between the alcohol industry and some African governments to give tax breaks for beverages made from locally grown products, making them cheaper . Several studies report that marketing expenditures are associated with increased social acceptance of drinking and the recruitment of new drinkers, particularly women, from former abstainers .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alcohol and public health in Africa: can we prevent alcohol-related harm from increasing?

et al. 2015

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To address the emerging risk factors associated with increased alcohol consumption, African governments need to take a more active role in protecting the public's health. In particular, important strategic shifts are needed to increase implementation of intersectoral strategies, community involvement in the policy dialogue, health services re-orientation and better regulation of the alcohol beverage industry.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alcohol and public health in Africa: can we prevent alcohol-related harm from increasing?

et al. 2015

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“…We now consider some examples to help illustrate these points. In terms of the nature of the informal economy, the small-area census outcome and mapping results for particular sectors like grocery and liquor retail identified the localized nature of the market, especially for enterprise sectors that were spatially distributed evenly across the map in contrast to the high-street phenomenon of others sectors like street traders (Charman, Petersen, & Piper, 2013). These findings are important because much of the qualitative research on the informal economy in South African townships has focused on the ''high street'' and street trade (Wills, 2009), neglecting home-based enterprises.…”

Section: Research Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Small Area Census Approach to Measure the Township Informal Economy in South Africa

Charman

Petersen

Piper

et al. 2016

Journal of Mixed Methods Research

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In this article, we describe a research approach to undertaking a small area census to identify informal economy activity, using a mixture of quantitative and qualitative tools. The method focuses on enterprise activity. The approach enables the researcher to record a broader spectrum of informal micro-enterprises through identifying businesses in situ within an area of sufficient scale to broadly reflect area-level market conditions and business dynamics. The approach comprises an enterprise census, a survey of all identified micro-enterprises in key sectors, indepth interviews, and participatory research techniques. The article reports on the application of this method in eight case sites, located in township settlements within five major cities in South Africa. The research identified 9,400 individual enterprises, entailing 10,220 primary and secondary activities, distributed within a population of 325,000 and comprising 97,000 households. The approach permits significant advances to our understanding of the spatial dynamics of the informal sector. The research data has enabled the researcher to make original contributions to understanding informal enterprise activities in grocery retailing, liquor trade, and traditional medicine sectors.

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“…Our research identified a pattern in the spatial distribution of shebeens: each venue is positioned within the residential portion of the settlement, but evenly spread across the area (for a map of this distribution, see Charman et al, 2013). In this manner, township shebeen drinking differs fundamentally from the inner‐city drinkatainment areas, where concentration of venues along the high streets, such as Long Street, is characteristic.…”

Section: Informal Drinking Venuesmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The survey found 841 informal liquor retail outlets, equivalent to one outlet for every 61 households. Businesses that sell alcohol dominate the informal economy, equating to 19.6% of identified business activities across the sites (see Charman et al ., 2013, for further details). Our research revealed that public drinking is accommodated through a diverse range of enterprise forms, including house venues, pool bars, taverns (these are licensed venues, of which only 33 exist across all sites), restaurants and takeaway outlets.…”

Section: Informal Drinking Venuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Creative Night‐Time Leisure Economy of Informal Drinking Venues

Charman¹,

Govender²

2020

Int J Urban Regional Res

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In response to debates on emergent and rogue forms of urbanism that are reshaping the African city, this article examines the night‐time leisure economy as one particular social context in which the tensions and opposition between regulation/deregulation and informality play out. This article shows how ideas that centre on Northern entertainment spaces and drinking venues (bound with policy initiatives to reposition the city) have come to inform policy initiatives to regulate working‐class public spaces in South African cities with the objective of controlling unruliness. Through a case study of informal and illegal drinking venues in Sweet Home Farm, a slum settlement in Cape Town, we provide an insight into the ways in which people seek to reclaim social space and impose their own vision of the creative city. The article demonstrates that while illegal drinking venues can be imagined as ‘unruly, unpredictable, surprising [and] confounding’, they are characterized by a responsive agility to the social, cultural and physical environment. We argue that the capacity and tenacity of informal drinking venues to adapt to regulatory pressures present a range of possibilities for reimaging the night‐time leisure economy in ways that are inclusive of the poor and conducive to negotiation.

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Enforced informalisation: The case of liquor retailers in South Africa

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

Alcohol and public health in Africa: can we prevent alcohol-related harm from increasing?

Alcohol and public health in Africa: can we prevent alcohol-related harm from increasing?

Small Area Census Approach to Measure the Township Informal Economy in South Africa

The Creative Night‐Time Leisure Economy of Informal Drinking Venues

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