Introduction

Vietnam is one of the first countries where strict lockdown measures were enacted to mitigate the COVID-19 outbreak (Pollack et al, 2020). While such actions are vital to control the pandemic and save lives, they appear to increase the vulnerability of people working in informal sectors, such as ‘handto-mouth’ fresh food vendors, lotto sellers, hawkers, barbers, motorbike-taxi drivers, and locksmiths. In the megacity of Hanoi, strict social distancing policies have wiped countless poor street vendors out of informal workplaces in public spaces, and closed hundreds of outdoor neighborhood markets and street-front businesses deemed non-essential. These informal workers are unlikely to receive timely financial support from the government and tend to suffer food insecurity due to income loss (Wertheim-Heck, 2020). During this difficult time, they have demonstrated their resilience with an ability to self-sustain and through their various, critical roles supporting the community. Given that informal sectors have usually been considered problematic and treated unequally by the government, the experiences and initiatives of street vendors during the pandemic in Hanoi represent a form of local resilience that deserves a closer look in our work to understand and minimize urban inequality.

This chapter examines the informal livelihoods of street vendors in Hanoi, Vietnam during the COVID-19 crisis, highlighting their initiatives (employed amid public health restrictions) to generate income and provide affordable foods and critical services to others, especially low-income families (see also Volume 1, Chapter Two). We analyze data from local reports and 22 interviews with street vendors conducted in April 2020, to illuminate the survival strategies and adaptive capacity of the urban poor in Hanoi. This sheds light on the role of social capital in enhancing resilience, through community collaboration, sharing, and solidarity. Given social capital has multiple meanings and applications, this chapter refers to the capability of people to work together for mutual objectives through personal connection, communal network, and virtual platforms in societies (Burt, 1992; Ellison et al, 2007). Street vendors’ practices during the lockdown in Hanoi aligns with Fukuyama (1995), who defines social capital as the presence of a certain set of informal values or norms shared among local residents that enable collaboration and bonding; both are significant in building resilience (Agnitsch et al, 2006).