Middle-low Income and Nationalism: View from Street Vendors as Informal Workers

Abstract

Currently the formal sectors are not able to accommodate the workers; for them the informal sector exists as a safety valve for the employment in common unstable Indonesian economic. One of the most famous informal sectors in Indonesia is street vendors. Street vendors is the informal sector which plays accommodate formal sector workers who experienced lay-offs or who was thrown from the formal sector. This paper aims to capture how the city of Semarang government policy in regulating and organizing street vendors. In the article, analyzed whether the policy of Semarang city government more pro-neoliberalism or reflect nationalism, which has a marginal bias to community groups. This research based on in-depth interview by state government and the people who work in street vendors. It is focus in how the workers construct the nationalism based on their participation in developing the city, especially in this research, Semarang City-Indonesia.