Unionizing, mobilizing, and self-organizing against agricultural racial capitalism.

Abstract

The present contribution intends to intervene in the rich debate investigating migrant labour exploitation and resistance in the context of industrial agriculture by exploring the subject through the lens of racial capitalism. Adopting this theoretical framework appears to be particularly fruitful to better frame the experience of oppression and resistance of racialized migrant farmworkers. Indeed, while labour studies have often tended adopting a race-blind approach, considering migrant workers as a homogeneous category and race merely as a tool of class division, building on the contribution of theorists of racial capitalism allows to better grasp their experience, looking at the racial-colonial oppression not as a mere element of the superstructure but rather as integral to the oppression of racialized workers in the context of capitalism.

Building on five years of research carried out adopting a militant ethnographic approach informed by decolonial methodologies, the present contribution focuses on the experience of West African migrant farmworkers living in rural informal settlements situated in the province of Foggia, Southern Italy.

The paper argues that their oppression can be explored as being at the intersection of four processes: ghettoization, exploitation, illegalization, and racialization. These processes are central both in defining their experience of oppression and in motivating their struggle for liberation. The proposed analysis investigates how, over the past decade, the mobilization of West African migrant farmworkers has been shaped by these processes, by considering both instances of self-organization and the role played by unions and other actors active in the area. 

Speaker

Camilla Macciani, Università di Trento

Discussants

Nicola Quondamatteo, Università di Trento; 

Ester Gallo, Università di Trento

Chair

Katia Pilati, Università di Trento