Migrant Farmworkers in 'Plastic Factories'

Investigating Work-Life Struggles
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-030-74508-0
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 151 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 333 g

This book provides a fine-grained ethnographic examination of the everyday negotiations and conflicts taking place in greenhouses and packinghouses in an agricultural district in south-eastern Italy (Sicily). In a highly competitive global scenario, driven by multinational corporations and large retailers, small and medium-sized farms largely rely on migrant labour to fill their demand for casualized, flexible and low-paid jobs. By taking the reader into the ‘plastic factories’ where the author was hired as a farmworker, this book sheds light on the struggles – around the employment contract, the wage and the body – which take place every day between employers and employees. 

The book contributes to broadening the understanding of the dynamics innervating food production worldwide by recognizing the pivotal role of migrant labour not only as a factor in the restructuring of global supply chains, but also as an actor shaping these processes through its own unpredictable strategies.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Piro, Valeria

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Ethnographie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Primärer Sektor Agrarökonomie, Ernährungswirtschaft
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Soziologie von Migranten und Minderheiten
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Angewandte Ethik & Soziale Verantwortung
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Wirtschaftssoziologie, Arbeitssoziologie, Organisationssoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1. Entering the workplaces.- Chapter 2. What does it mean to work by the day? Trust relationships, job contracts, formal and informal regulations.- Chapter 3. The body at work: Performativity, Weakness, Beauty.- Chapter 4. Struggling for a fair wage: negotiations and conflicts around the salary.- Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Valeria Piro is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in labour sociology at the University of Padova and a teaching fellow in Sociology of Migration at the University of Bologna, Italy.