Curating and co-producing atmospheres in street food markets: Exploring the roles and interplay between people, food and spaces

Street food markets are increasingly popular in cities around the world. While their size, formality and success differ, each market offers an affective atmosphere consisting of material and immaterial elements including the food, traders, consumers, aesthetics, sights, smells, sounds and connections to places and heritage. Studies assert that affective atmospheres are staged, yet the actors and activities involved in these processes remain poorly understood. Drawing on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this paper applies the concept of curation to affective atmospheres and examines the curatorial practices of street food market organisers in London. Rather than promoting ‘good’ food, it demonstrates that these commercially motivated curators match demand with ‘appropriate’ (1) spaces, (2) food and (3) people. The paper argues that affective atmospheres are partially staged, in advance, by market organisers but also co-produced by the performances and interactions of traders, consumers, food and other non-human elements during market events. It also asserts that spaces contain and shape affective atmospheres and highlights how specific motivations shape the nature of curation and affective atmospheres.