The transformation of Big Issue vendors in the 21st century

The change from British men to Romani-Gypsy women, and the war against noticing

I’ve written an article in The Critic on my observations from my years of living in London of the transformation of Big Issue vendors and what this says about how institutions respond to diversity. I’ve reproduced the first paragraph below, head to The Critic to read the rest.

“Over my years of living in London, I have been fascinated with the transformation in the profile of your average Big Issue vendor from a homeless British man to a not-homeless Romani-Gypsy woman. The latter group is selling the magazine as part of an organised enterprise and is highly unlikely to be actually homeless, which always seemed to me like such an obvious perversion of the original purpose of the Big Issue that I was always astonished it was allowed to continue, and yet it has done so for over a decade.

Whilst in its practical effects this phenomenon is hardly of great importance, symbolically it is an almost perfect allegory for two important broader contemporary issues. The first one is what happens to institutions that are designed for one culture when they meet a very different one. The second one is how progressive ideology inhibits people from openly “noticing” and correcting the situation.”

Read the rest here.