Interviews With Mexico City Market Traders Regarding the Adoption of Digital Technologies and Practices for Political Purposes

The data consist of six transcripts of semi-structured interviews conducted online with market trader leaders in Mexico City. These interviews result from complementary research conducted as part of the ESRC postdoctoral project "Popular infrastructural politics: Connecting grassroots knowledge and practice on marketplace governance." This project builds on data collected in 2018, whose analysis led to the findings published in the doctoral thesis "Popular infrastructural politics: Trader organisation and public markets in Mexico City" (https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/28209/). These exploratory interviews delve into the traders' adoption of digital technologies and practices in recent years (from the late 2000s onwards). Particular attention is given to how these technologies and practices have been mobilised in the traders' struggles to preserve and improve Mexico City's public markets as public infrastructures and services. The interviews capture the traders' opinions and experiences concerning the function and importance of these technologies and practices in their everyday life. In addition, the interviews provide insights into the role of digital technologies and practices in organising and resisting the impacts of urban regeneration and the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, this complementary research contributes to expanding the analysis of the market traders' political repertoires and diverse engagements in urban politics. Interviewees were recruited among research participants met while conducting the aforementioned doctoral project. Interview scripts were designed to explore the participants' engagement with digital technologies and practices. Because of their specificity, the interviews often rely on interviews and informal conversations previously held with the researcher. The interview transcripts are shared in their original language, Spanish. They have been anonymised and pseudonymised to ensure the participant's right to confidentiality.

The UK Data Archive has granted a dissemination embargo. The embargo will end on the 30th of September 2023 and the data will then be available to registered UKDS users. 

The projects ethics application number is 043667 and received approval by the University of Sheffield on November 25, 2021.