Traders and Tinkers ethnographically explores Delhi’s electronic bazaars and, using examples from similar marketplaces worldwide, presents street-level economies as distinct from capitalism. It argues rather than capitalist structure, bazaars share much more with the commons of everyday life, ethics, extra juridical infrastructure, and waste. By doing so, bazaars emerge as a critical space that can be political by engaging with the ruins and excess of capitalism without partaking in its ruthless extractive logic.

Drawing on historical, anthropological, theoretical literature and field insights, this book reviews the category bazaar from colonial imagery to postcolonial and urban bazaars. It speculates their recent transformations via encounters with e-commerce platforms, mainly focusing on what the gradual disappearance would do to collective urban living and the non-elites that depend on these places for their survival.