Entrepreneurial management, labor, and a disputed urban market

Abstract This article retraces the conflicts that emerged during the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee (PIC) of Feira da Madrugada to discuss the expansion of the entrepreneurial management of popular trade areas, as well as changes in workers' experiences. Considering the PIC event as an arena in which the management of this commercial area was viewed as a "public problem", it is argued that the center of the conflict was marked by tensions between two distinct perspectives on popular markets and legitimate uses of urban space: a perspective that recognizes a "social function" in these activities, and a market rationale that identifies urban popular trade areas as favorable for investment and to foster entrepreneurship.