Waiting for welfare: experiences of street traders from Delhi, India

This article explores the nuances of the experiences of waiting for state-issued documents and state welfare. Waiting as an everyday experience
forms an important aspect of the relationship between socioeconomically marginalised groups and the state institutions. In order to
examine this relationship, this paper draws upon eight interviews,
conducted during December 2017 to February 2018 and in January
2019, among pheriwale. Pheriwale are self-employed traders, in Delhi,
India, who collect huge amounts of second-hand/used-clothes and sell
them forward to make a living. They largely work in highly precarious
informal work environments, lack social security and depend on
irregular income. However, as residents of India, they are also regulated
through various state measures such as being registered within the
national biometric database, as bank account holders and as recipients
of public welfare provisions. By focusing on the experiences of
pheriwale, findings show that waiting is shaped through intersecting
hierarchies of gender, class and caste in the context of India. This article
elucidates that a conceptualisation of waiting cannot overlook how the
act of waiting for state-issued documents is tied into politics of
recognition and redistribution.