"We don't have women in boxes': Channelling seasonal mobility of female farmworkers between Morocco and Andalusia
... The second element that changed the program definitively was EU funding, through the AENEAS program, implemented by the Municipality of Cartaya in 2006. With a sum of 1.4 million euros, the locality committed itself to rewarding producers to turn again their focus to Morocco, whereas ANAPEC (Moroccan Labour Agency) received 5 million Euros to guarantee the program's stability in their country (Hellio, 2014). European funding made it possible to put into practice the test that would define the future of circular or "controlled" migrations that are functional to the needs of the Union. ...
... Frédéric Décosse (2017) qualifies the situation of workers in the French program as of "voluntary servitude": workers in these situations formally choose to sell their workforce but are entirely subject to the discipline of the companies that employ them. The fact that they are hosted in the workplace, their lack of knowledge of the local language, the impossibility of changing workplaces and the compulsory return are other elements highlighted by some of the program analysts who have shown the limits imposed on the autonomy of migrants all 'inside these production relationships (Hellio, 2014). ...
... If we compare this figure with that of 2003, when 95 workers were recruited by ANAPEC as a pilot test and less than 10% of them returned, as shown in(HELLIO, 2014). ...
During the 1980s, Italy and Spain experienced several political and social changes, including an important demographic shift, passing from being emigration countries to immigration countries. The growth of their economies and their conversion into neoliberalism, structurally transformed the different productive segments, including the agricultural sector that progressively adopted the industrial Californian mode. This transformation required huge amounts of workforce at a time when nationals were abandoning the sector, so growers turned their attention to employ migrant workers, that have become nowadays a structural factor of production in the global agricultural value chains. The ways migrants have been recruited to meet production needs differ from a productive context to another, as it depended on the specific interests and demands of farms operating in each agricultural enclave. This article analyzes, through a comparative perspective, the institutional, legal and informal mechanisms envisaged and implemented in Spain and Italy to encourage the recruitment of foreign workforce, by verifying how and why circular migration programs onto the agricultural sector have been, or not, promoted. To understand how these policies have actually been implemented, three productive enclaves have been compared, Huelva and Lleida, in Spain, and Piana del Sele, in Southern Italy, in order to identify the factors that explain why some agricultural enclaves of the world-ecology have configured systems to import labour from the global periphery, while others have privileged a deregulated model.
... In the study of the 'globalization of the countryside' (Colloca and Corrado, 2013), several authors have highlighted that salary reduction and the consequent degradation of agricultural work are the structural result of a gradual compression of a farm's profit margins due to the pressure of competition from international markets and retail corporations (see the Introduction to this volume; Holmes, 2013;Gertel and Sippel, 2014). Research has shown how the agri-food sector has been increasingly shaped by successive cycles of 'ethnic and gender substitution' in order to favour salary restraints through a continuous process of segmentation and competition (Berlan, 1986(Berlan, , 2008De Bonis, 2005;Preibisch and Binford, 2007;Mannon et al., 2011;Hellio, 2014). Moreover, it has been underlined that developments in agri-food production have been flanked by migration policies or mobility regimes often based on the temporality of migration, which are a root cause of the precarious condition of foreign workers (Morice, 2008;Morice and Michalon, 2008;Morice and Potot, 2010;Corrado and Perrotta, 2012;Décosse, 2013;Hellio, 2014;Lindner and Kathmann, 2014). ...
... Research has shown how the agri-food sector has been increasingly shaped by successive cycles of 'ethnic and gender substitution' in order to favour salary restraints through a continuous process of segmentation and competition (Berlan, 1986(Berlan, , 2008De Bonis, 2005;Preibisch and Binford, 2007;Mannon et al., 2011;Hellio, 2014). Moreover, it has been underlined that developments in agri-food production have been flanked by migration policies or mobility regimes often based on the temporality of migration, which are a root cause of the precarious condition of foreign workers (Morice, 2008;Morice and Michalon, 2008;Morice and Potot, 2010;Corrado and Perrotta, 2012;Décosse, 2013;Hellio, 2014;Lindner and Kathmann, 2014). ...
... However, because of lack of employment opportunities and poverty in their countries, many of them were forced to face various risks. One example of a perceived unskilled work is domestic work, which is also unregulated, while women are also found in other sectors like agriculture (e.g., farms and in food processing), export-oriented manufacturing industries, entertainment and sex work (UN, 2015;Hellio, 2014). This means that, women's work continues to be unrecognized in relation to the work done by men; therefore, they generally obtain lower pay and viewed as less skilled than their male counterpart; for instance, women doing farm activities are expected to harvest crops than control machinery (Hellio, 2014). ...
... One example of a perceived unskilled work is domestic work, which is also unregulated, while women are also found in other sectors like agriculture (e.g., farms and in food processing), export-oriented manufacturing industries, entertainment and sex work (UN, 2015;Hellio, 2014). This means that, women's work continues to be unrecognized in relation to the work done by men; therefore, they generally obtain lower pay and viewed as less skilled than their male counterpart; for instance, women doing farm activities are expected to harvest crops than control machinery (Hellio, 2014). In the case of some Myanmar women migrant workers, their work in households comes with significant risks as they are not covered by the labour protection law in Thailand. ...
... Whereas most authors ignored gender for the most part in their analysis of shifting global migration patterns (Massey et al., 1999;Martin et al., 2007;Betts, 2011), women began migrating in far greater numbers as independent economic actors in the 1970's and up to the 1990's (Donato et al., 2006). Women filled a variety of openings in the domestic sphere, or 'cleaning, cooking and caring' occupations (Anderson, 2000), but also in other sectors including agriculture and manufacturing (Hellio, 2014;Ong, 2000;Piper, 2009). Based on field studies, many authors argued that women became in demand by employers because they are thought to be more obedient, more easily controlled, more 'nimble', suited to monotonous factory work, and uneducated and thus less likely to unionize or make demands (Oishi, 2005;Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1992). ...
... Based on field studies, many authors argued that women became in demand by employers because they are thought to be more obedient, more easily controlled, more 'nimble', suited to monotonous factory work, and uneducated and thus less likely to unionize or make demands (Oishi, 2005;Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1992). Women are also thought to have more at stake, particularly when they are the primary economic wage earner in the family (Hellio, 2014). As Oishi argues, the migration experience slowly became 'legitimized' or normalized in sending countries, and the practice of sending young women to major urban centres and by extension, other countries, became increasingly common. ...
This report is produced by UN Women’s Economic Empowerment Section for the ‘Promoting and Protecting Women Migrant Workers’ Labour and Human Rights’ Project, supported by the European Union. This report is the first of three designed to build on the growing body of scholarship pertaining to gender and migration, and is a resource for the creation of gender-sensitive policies and practices aimed at empowering women migrant workers. This report draws from the cases of Moldova, Philippines and Mexico to provide a comprehensive analysis that accounts for differences and similarities between migration systems. Specifically, through the use of legal reviews and legislative comparison, the report provides an analysis of existing mechanisms, frameworks, legislation and policies vis-à-vis women migrant workers, with particular attention paid to the alignment of national legislation with international frameworks, like CEDAW. Finally, the report concludes by providing a set of recommendations aimed at global and regional actors, including the ratification of international treaties, enforcement of CEDAW and the creation of a new international instrument to promote and protect the rights of women migrant workers.
... Despite this noteworthy increase, and contrary to what is the case with other Southern European countries such as Spain (e.g. Corkill, 2005;Hellio, 2008Hellio, , 2014Mannon et al., 2012) or Greece (e.g. Kasimis et al., 2003;Kasimis, 2005Kasimis, , 2009Kasimis and Papadopoulos, 2005), the incorporation of immigrant workers into Portuguese agriculture remains scarcely studied. ...
... Of these, a total of 67.3 per cent were women, which seems to point to a strong gender bias in the recruitment campaigns. This is often related to an attempt to take advantage of women's vulnerability at family, cultural and symbolic levels (Hellio, 2014;Mannon et al., 2012;Moreno, 2014). All in all, these campaigns seem to have evolved, since the second half of the 2000s, from intra-company recruitment, occun1ng in the context of a geographical expansion of businesses from northern Morocco (Kenitra) to the Algarve, to direct recruitment conducted by the largest Pmtuguese companies without any prior relations with Morocco. ...
In this chapter, we aim at filling a gap in the existent scholarship on foreign agricultural labour force in Portugal. We do so by focusing on Moroccan workers (from Al-Maghrib) in the Algarve (Al-Gharb). Although the number of Moroccans in Portugal is negligible in terms of the total immigrant population, they are one of the most representative groups working in agriculture in the Algarve region. The choice to focus the analysis on a fairly small migrant group, although one of great importance for the Portuguese agricultural sector overall, has the potential to allow us to draw an in-depth diachronic anatomy of the recruitment processes and labour incorporation of these migrants into the regional agricultural sector in the Algarve. This may constitute a benchmark for what may have occurred with other migrant agricultural workers, not only in the Portuguese case, but also in other Southern European countries. Our goal is hence to show how the recruitment processes and the labour incorporation of the Moroccan agricultural workers in the Algarve has unfolded in recent years and how these elements help explain present dynamics and anticipate future trends, particularly those imposed by the current economic crisis.
... The workers are compelled to work hard under the threat of being replaced by other migrant labourers the following year; and they are encouraged to return home with the promise that they will have another opportunity to earn money for their family (Mannon et al., 2012, p. 98). It is important to note that the labourers recruited through this programme are female migrants from Morocco who are considered more prone to succumb to the demands of the strawberry growers (Plewa and Miller, 2005;Zeneidi, 2011;Hellio, 2014;Hellio this volume). ...
... The sharecropping system in the US (Wells, 1996) and the circular migration of female labourers recruited through the contratacion en origen in Spain (Hellio, 2014 and this volume) both represent major attempts to curb labour costs and to control and discipline migrant labour in the strawberry fields. In Manolada, the goal of maintaining cheap wages and keeping migrants in their insecure places at the bottom of the social pyramid of local society have been obtained through a number of factors including: the precarious legal status of migrant labourers; the 'ethnic' segmentation in the labour market; the informal system of recruitment; the practice of delaying the payment of wages; and, in some cases, the use of physical violence by supervisors and growers against their labourers. ...
This chapter focuses on the role of migrant wage labour in the town of Manolada, where the continued migrant mobilizations demanding higher wages and defending against the severe labour control exercised by local strawberry farmers, have brought the town on the spotlight. It argues that the expansion of strawberry industry in Greece and especially in Manolada, has been primarily based on the availability of numerous wage labourers which is due to the effective labour control of migrants.
The paper, which is based on rich empirical material collected at different time intervals, contains a brief theoretical discussion of the various forms of migrant integration in intensive strawberry production looking particularly at the US and the Spanish examples. This is followed by a detailed account of the evolution of ‘strawberry industry’ in Greece and a discussion of the characteristics of migrant nationalities as well as of ways their labour was controlled by farmers. Finally, a number of conclusions are drawn on the constricted opportunities of migrants integration in agriculture dependent areas.
... Although research on migrant housing across the globe has focused on farmworkers, studies in other low-wage sectors underscore similar impacts of housing on migrants' physical and mental health. In short, poor physical housing conditions, ambiguous boundaries between work and home, and weak spatial control over where one lives can undermine mental and physical health for low-wage migrant workers across a broad range of sectors and geographies (Basok and George, 2021;Bejan et al., 2023;Castillo et al., 2021;Hellio, 2014;Horgan and Liinamaa, 2017;Schwiter et al., 2018;Weiler et al., 2021;Xiuhtecutli and Shattuck, 2021). ...
... The methodology of ethnographic data collection and analysis followed the Grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss, 1967;Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Ethnographic data were also cross-referenced with socio-statistical data and re-read considering the literature on labor exploitation, processes of racialization, and gendergization of labor (Hellio, 2014). The case study presented reconstructs the working conditions and migration trajectories of this group of farm laborers of Roma origin to see how ethnicity, widespread anti-Gypsyism, and forms of extreme social exclusion accentuate the dynamics of labor exploitation. ...
This paper analyses a case of severe labour exploitation, involving a group of Bulgarian fruit and vegetable pickers of Roma origin employed in the seasonal harvest, especially of tomatoes, in the Foggia area involved in a 10-year cycle of seasonal migration between Italy and Bulgaria. The essay presents the general characteristics and factors affecting the form of extreme exploitation in farm work in Italy and reconstructs the working conditions and migration trajectories of this group of farm laborers of Roma origin to see how ethnicity, widespread anti-Gypsyism, and forms of extreme social exclusion accentuate the dynamics of labor exploitation. This group experiences the most intense forms of exploitation on the ground compared to other exploited foreign laborers. The case study is based on ethnographic that lasted about 2 years and interviews with privileged witnesses
... Weil in diesem Feld besonders deutlich wird, dass globale Machtverhältnisse und Ungleichheiten nicht an nationalstaatlichen Grenzen Halt machen, sondern in die sozialen Ordnungen der Aufnahmeländer, ebenso wie der Herkunftsländer eingeschrieben sind, besteht die Notwendigkeit auch soziologische Theoriebildung und empirische Forschung dahingehend zu reflektieren, wo die Grenzen etablierter Kategorien und Methoden liegen. Dies gilt in besonderer Weise für Forschungen zu den Wirkungsweisen von Grenzregimen und der Regierung (Governance) von Migration, die unter anderem von den Widersprüchlichkeiten von Grenzregimen vor dem Hintergrund gesellschaftlicher Differenzierung geprägt sind: So können ökonomische Erfordernisse im Widerspruch zu geltenden Einreise-und Aufenthaltsbestimmungen stehen und dazu führen, dass Migrant:innen einen wichtige Wirtschaftsfaktor darstellen, ihr Aufenthalt und die Tätigkeiten, die sie verrichten aber nicht durch das geltende Recht abgesichert sind: Die Einbindung von Migrant:innen als Arbeitskräfte, beispielsweise in die Agrarindustrien Andalusiens (Hellio, 2014) Das Buch von Tobias G. Eule, Lisa Marie Borrelli, Annika Lindberg und Anna Wyss gehört sicherlich zu den Beiträgen die mit der Überwindung des methodologischen Nationalismus am ambitioniertesten umgehen. Wiederholt greifen die Autor:innen auf eine Kritik am methodologischen Nationalismus zurück bzw. ...
... However, by the mid-2000s, after a few failed trials to recruit women from countries such as Colombia, Senegal or the Philippines, employers started to look again to Morocco. A new programme was set up with the support of European funds in order to recruit women with specific rural backgrounds from the neighbouring African country (Hellio, 2014). ...
... In Spain, seasonal production relies heavily on migrant labour composed of some migrants from the European Union (mainly from Romania) who require no legal authorization to work in Spain, temporary migrants mainly from Morocco and recruited through bilateral agreements between Spain and the sending countries who are tied to specific employers and are required to return to their home countries at the end of the season, as well as migrant farmworkers without legal status, mainly from sub-Saharan African countries and Morocco (Basok & López-Sala, 2016;Guell & Garcés, 2020;Hellio, 2014;López-Sala, 2016;Moreno-Nieto, 2012). With the exception of EU migrants, all other farmworkers find themselves in insecure status, with their presence in the country being contingent on employers or immigration authorities. ...
Drawing on insights from scholarship on contentious action frames, this article examines the framing of demands for social justice for migrant farmworkers in Spain, Italy and Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic. We focus particularly on how activists in each country aligned their action frames with prevalent public discourses on the essential contribution migrants make to agricultural production, the need to guarantee “health for all,” and “increased vulnerability” of migrants’ lives during the global health crisis. Using these diagnostic frames, activists in the three countries called for secure legal status for all migrants. Drawing on the literature on contentious action frames, we then analyze if action frames advanced by activists during the COVID-19 pandemic “resonated” with the understanding of these issues by policymakers. We challenge an approach to understanding resonance in binary terms as either present or absent. Instead, we introduce the notion of “ambivalent resonance” to draw attention to the fact that some frames are accepted only partially or only by some policymakers but not the others, as was the case in the three countries under study. We then situate this ambivalent resonance in the context of immigration priorities and recent trends in immigration policy development in these three countries and suggest that activists can build on ambivalences to advance migrant rights to status.
... In the European context, since the late 2000s, privatized forms of recruitment persistently have started occupying a grey zone between formal and informal labour regimes (Mésini 2014;Garrapa 2016). In France, for example, the recruitment of seasonal migrant farm labourers through so-called OMI contrats traditionally guaranteed by the state has been progressively substituted by private forms of labour mediation (Décosse 2016); since the early 2000s, Spain launched the contratacion en origen, which delegates the recruitment of farm workers to the organizations of farmers in collaboration with the regional employment offices in the countries of origin of migrants (Hellio 2014). As we will explain below, the specificity of the Italian context regards its structural linkage between state policies that enhance rather than ease migrant workers' precarious political and socio-economic status and agricultural capitalists' response to growing legal scrutiny in a context of globalized supply chain capitalism. ...
This article analyses a contemporary form of illegal labour mediation, known in Italian as caporalato, which persists in industrialized agricultural production in southern Italy despite a decade of unrelenting legal and policy reforms. Focusing on the regions of Puglia and Basilicata during the so-called Mediterranean ‘refugee crisis’ (2011-2018), this article addresses the question of how practices of caporalato remain a central infrastructure of globalized agri-food production, while segregating migrant workers in rural society. Adopting an infrastructural lens, we propose two main arguments. First, we highlight the need to shift analytical concerns from ‘criminal’ labour gangmasters and their protection business to a broader analysis of their role in the reproduction of precarious migrant labour. Second, we highlight how caporalato infrastructures contribute to adversely incorporating migrant ‘seasonal’ workers into local agricultural labour markets in a context of increasingly globalized retail agriculture and changing state policies.
... In the Morocco-Spain context, particularly under the Huelva agreement, officials primarily select married women migrants who are mothers. Women migrants must secure the consent of their male spouses to participate in the scheme 37 . Such feminized selection procedures are also based on the perception that women are docile, compliant workers with delicate hands suited for small fruit 38 . ...
... Nevertheless, the literature dealing with migrant workers in agriculture is contributing to filling this gap by coupling the interests in farm workers' labour conditions with an attention toward their living arrangements (Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014, Gertel and Sippel 2014, Corrado, de Castro and Perrotta 2016. All this research converges in describing migrants' living situations near the agricultural enclaves as problematic: shanty towns with no access to water and electricity emerge right behind the greenhouses in the Plain of Sousse, in Morocco, as well as in Andalusia, Spain (El Haiba 2018, Hellio 2014; in the Canadian countryside, farm workers live inside the farms that hire them with no possibility of leaving without losing their legal status (Castracani 2019, Perry 2018; in northern Mexico, worker encampments, located on the companies' private land, are policed by camperos paid by the employers to avoid workers escaping (Sánchez Saldaña and Flores 2019). In several countries, male and female workers experience difficulties due to their isolation and separation from the local population, with restriction in accessing hospitals, schools, trade unions, and similar services (Perry 2018, Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014. ...
... Nevertheless, the literature dealing with migrant workers in agriculture is contributing to filling this gap by coupling the interests in farm workers' labour conditions with an attention toward their living arrangements (Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014. All this research converges in describing migrants' living situations near the agricultural enclaves as problematic: shanty towns with no access to water and electricity emerge right behind the greenhouses in the Plain of Sousse, in Morocco, as well as in Andalusia, Spain (El Haiba 2018, Hellio 2014; in the Canadian countryside, farm workers live inside the farms that hire them with no possibility of leaving without losing their legal status (Castracani 2019, Perry 2018; in northern Mexico, worker encampments, located on the companies' private land, are policed by camperos paid by the employers to avoid workers escaping (Sánchez Saldaña and Flores 2019). In several countries, male and female workers experience difficulties due to their isolation and separation from the local population, with restriction in accessing hospitals, schools, trade unions, and similar services (Perry 2018, Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014. ...
... Nevertheless, the literature dealing with migrant workers in agriculture is contributing to filling this gap by coupling the interests in farm workers' labour conditions with an attention toward their living arrangements (Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014. All this research converges in describing migrants' living situations near the agricultural enclaves as problematic: shanty towns with no access to water and electricity emerge right behind the greenhouses in the Plain of Sousse, in Morocco, as well as in Andalusia, Spain (El Haiba 2018, Hellio 2014; in the Canadian countryside, farm workers live inside the farms that hire them with no possibility of leaving without losing their legal status (Castracani 2019, Perry 2018; in northern Mexico, worker encampments, located on the companies' private land, are policed by camperos paid by the employers to avoid workers escaping (Sánchez Saldaña and Flores 2019). In several countries, male and female workers experience difficulties due to their isolation and separation from the local population, with restriction in accessing hospitals, schools, trade unions, and similar services (Perry 2018, Torres Pérez 2011, Gadea, Ramírez and Sánchez 2014. ...
Since the collapse of the socialist regime in 1989, Romanian migration to Greece has been an increasingly important flow connected to the geographical and cultural proximity of the two countries. But while Romanians have been among the top immigrant nationalities in Greece, their integration pathways in urban and rural areas remain under-researched. While, initially, Romanian migrants worked mainly in agriculture and filled less prestigious occupational positions, they have moved up the occupational ladder while also increasing their spatial mobility both within Greece and between Greece and Romania. Romania’s accession to the EU and the recent economic recession triggered new forms of geographical movement, while Romanian migrants developed individual and family strategies for social upgrading, improving their quality of life, and becoming resilient during the economic crisis. This chapter analyses Romanian migrants’ agency in shaping their social and spatial mobility trajectories. Romanians’ active engagement with practices and strategies for social mobility is connected with their perception of existing inequalities, which mobilizes them to develop new aspirations for moving ahead. This chapter draws upon consecutive qualitative studies in the wider area of the Western Peloponnese. First, a theoretical discussion is developed, based on a review of key works addressing the concepts of migrant agency and mobility. This is followed by a brief account of Romanian migration to Greece and of migrants’ spatial mobility patterns between the two countries and within Greece. The empirical part of the chapter analyses the social and spatial mobility strategies of Romanian migrants in the Western Peloponnese and their attempts to improve their wellbeing and social standing. The concluding part summarizes the main empirical findings and articulates some interesting insights into the relationship between migrant agency and mobility.
... Conditions of work, such as social isolation, co-existence and proximity with employers, expose these women to increased risks to sexual violence, abuse and harassment in the workplace (Edmunds et al., 2011;McLaughlin, 2008;Villarejo, 2003). Numerous studies have documented the health risks, barriers to accessing health care and insurance systems (from basic care needs to sexual and reproductive health care, workplace safety insurance, supplemental and long-term care needs) and adverse living conditions of WMWs across a range of sectors, from agriculture (Encalada Grez, 2011;Hellio, 2008Hellio, , 2014Hennebry et al., 2010;McLaughlin, 2009;Preibisch and Encalada Grez, 2010) to manufacturing (Livingston, 2004;Sassen, 2000) and care work (Parreñas, 2001;Villarejo, 2003). The conditions that structure WMWs' experiences have impacts for their mental and physical health, with many experiencing long-term mental health challenges stemming from abuse and/ or isolation and family separation; sexual and reproductive health issues stemming from sexual or reproductive violence (such as forced abortion or forced work while pregnant) and/or lack of sufficient access to reproductive health care; and other physical injuries or illnesses due to workplace hazards (such as burns from cooking, exposure to harsh chemicals used while cleaning without personal protective equipment (PPE) or musculoskeletal strain from general workplace hazards, exhaustion or other impacts from physical labour or physical abuse). ...
Using a gendered lens, we examine the balance between the contribution that migrant women make to global economic and social development through their labour, especially in the care and global service economy, with the health impacts and costs incurred by this group of migrants.
... These stereotypes go beyond nationality and relate also to gender, for example. The preference for hiring women, especially in the strawberry sector, stems from the perception of female workers as more obedient, competent and with more qualities to work in this kind of harvest (Moreno, 2012;Reigada, 2012;Mannon, et al., 2012;Redondo and Miedes, 2007;Hellio, 2014). Bilateral agreements also establish the procedures to recruit seasonal workers (Ferrero andLópez-Sala, 2009 and, explaining the protocol to be followed in order to guarantee the participation of the authorities of the countries of origin, which will have to receive the job offers and pre-select the candidates 19 , as well as the compulsory creation of a bi-national committee, including representatives of (Mejia, 2008;Sánchez and Faúndez, 2011). ...
Programmes aimed at channelling seasonal workers to the labour market of European countries have a long tradition. Many of them started in the decades following World War II, but have changed a great deal over time, although the majority are aimed seasonal economic sectors, such as agriculture or tourism. Over the past few years reforms to these programmes have directly or indirectly promoted forms of circular migration among this kind of migrant worker. The aim of this comparative paper is to provide a detailed report outlining the policies, programs and demographic factors that drive seasonal work flows in France, the UK, Spain and Italy in the period between 2000 and 2015. This report was based on the analysis of legislation, diverse official documents produced by various agencies and institutions, as well as a review of academic literature. All available data were used to characterize the seasonal migrant workers in each country.
... These stereotypes go beyond nationality and relate also to gender, for example. The preference for hiring women, especially in the strawberry sector, stems from the perception of female workers as more obedient, competent and with more qualities to work in this kind of harvest (Moreno, 2012;Reigada, 2012;Mannon, et al., 2012;Redondo and Miedes, 2007;Hellio, 2014). Bilateral agreements also establish the procedures to recruit seasonal workers (Ferrero andLópez-Sala, 2009 and, explaining the protocol to be followed in order to guarantee the participation of the authorities of the countries of origin, which will have to receive the job offers and pre-select the candidates 19 , as well as the compulsory creation of a bi-national committee, including representatives of (Mejia, 2008;Sánchez and Faúndez, 2011). ...
... These stereotypes go beyond nationality and relate also to gender, for example. The preference for hiring women, especially in the strawberry sector, stems from the perception of female workers as more obedient, competent and with more qualities to work in this kind of harvest (Moreno, 2012;Reigada, 2012;Mannon, et al., 2012;Redondo and Miedes, 2007;Hellio, 2014). Bilateral agreements also establish the procedures to recruit seasonal workers (Ferrero andLópez-Sala, 2009 and, explaining the protocol to be followed in order to guarantee the participation of the authorities of the countries of origin, which will have to receive the job offers and pre-select the candidates 19 , as well as the compulsory creation of a bi-national committee, including representatives of (Mejia, 2008;Sánchez and Faúndez, 2011). ...
... Their obligation to cover part of the travel costs of the workers has favored selection from nearby countries, at first from Eastern Europe, such as Poland, Ro-mania and Bulgaria, and later from Morocco 6 . Research, including our own field work, has shown that in the Andalusian province of Huelva women were preferentially recruited, and in second place, workers with experience in the agricultural sector, a factor that the growers claim favors their incorporation into this type of work (Gordo, 2009a;Gualda, 2012;Moreno-Nieto, 2012;Mannon et al., 2012;Hellio, 2014). The effectiveness of the institutional agencies taking part in selection processes in the different countries of origin has also been a factor in deciding where recruitment programs were consolidated. ...
At the end of the 1990s Spain began to design programs directed at recruiting seasonal workers for the agriculture sector. During the past decade, coinciding with a period of intense economic growth, these programs were applied in certain Spanish provinces with the objective of promoting forms of temporary and circular migration. The implementation of these programs, in which a broad number of public and private actors participated, was an exception to the traditionally reactive Spanish policy on labor immigration. In addition, these programs gave seasonal migrant workers an anomalous legal status by blocking them from obtaining permanent residence permits and limiting their right to settle in Spain. This article analyzes the design and implementation of these programs in Spain, the involvement of various actors, and the way they were managed in two provinces where they had the greatest volume and continuity, Huelva, in region of Andalusia and Lleida in Catalonia.
... While in theory, it is possible for migrant workers in Canada and Spain to request a transfer to another employer, in practice, such requests are rarely approved: the approval process is too lengthy, and/or it occurs only when a current employer requests it (Hennebry and Preibisch 2010;Nakache 2013: 78). As widely documented, the lack of mobility in the labour force and the dependence on employers' approval for future participation shape migrants' vulnerability to overexploitation and exposure to occupational hazards (Basok 2002;Preibisch 2007a;Binford 2013;Hennebry and McLaughlin 2012;Mannon et al. 2012;Hellio 2014;Moreno 2009;FIDH 2012). Under these conditions, migrants are unwilling to claim even the rights that they have. ...
In the last two decades, temporary worker programs have experienced an unprecedented expansion as instruments of what is defined as the migration management approach. Various migrant rights activists have voiced concerns about the treatment of temporary migrants in these programs and taken initiative to advance their rights. For some migrant rights advocates, it is the temporary nature of migration that is primarily responsible for the rights deficit. Yet, other migrant rights activists accept the temporariness of labour migration while trying to ensure that migrants receive legal protections for their work rights and that these protections are enforced. Trade unions are among the actors who try to protect and advance temporary migrants’ labour rights, but their role in supporting or challenging the principles of temporary migration governance has been neglected in the scholarly literature. The article addresses this gap by highlighting the divergent position of Canadian and Spanish Unions on temporariness of this type of migration. As the article argues, the difference is related to the following four factors: (1) the degree to which the unions in question are institutionally embedded in immigration policy-making, (2) the social environment (that is, discourses on temporariness advanced by other unions and grassroots organizations), (3) the degree of protectionism unions express vis-à-vis new immigrant flows and (4) whether regulated temporary migration is contrasted with permanent or unauthorized migration.
In recent decades, the female Purépecha population has been drawn into wage work as a day labourer in berry fields in Michoacán, Mexico. This manifestation of globalization and the international division of labour is the reason for local economic,
social, and cultural changes. The research was conducted between 2018 and 2021 using sociological and ethnographic methods.
Over 50 informal interviews were conducted with indigenous women fieldworkers, their family members, intermediaries,
small farmers, and migrants to get to know the context and gain views from different angles. Twenty-six in-depth semi-structured
interviews aimed to find out how the living conditions had changed after women started working. The study captures
the current process of transformation of the socio-cultural system with rapid changes in family organization and positive economic
impacts. However, deficiencies in the areas of healthcare and social justice are also pointed out.
This chapter aims to summarize the main findings in the field of agri-food studies and labour mobility by singling out four streams within the debate: (1) food supply-chain restructuring; (2) migration regimes and the recruitment of a transnational workforce in agriculture; (3) current transformations in rural areas; (4) farmworkers’ collective organization and mobilization. Within this lively debate, the agency of unorganized migrant farmworkers has remained so far largely overlooked. This book aims to fill this gap by studying, through an extensive ethnography, the labour process dynamics and the workplace struggles in the biggest greenhouse area in South-eastern Sicily (Italy), known widely as the Transformed Littoral Strip (TLS).
Agri-industrial production is supported by the agriculture–migration nexus, in which industrial-scale horticultural production relies on migrant workers. In this article I consider the time-related pressures on workers who are internal migrants from rural regions of Morocco. My account illustrates how workers are impacted by the demands from consumers for fresh food, year round, as well as by the rhythms of nature, and of social reproduction. I use concepts from EP Thompson's depiction of the transition from rural to factory work to describe the tensions in agricultural production at industrial scale for foreign markets. The concepts used are nature's time (related to seasonality, weather, daylight) and industrial time (of the market), and I adjoin to this the category of social-reproductive time in order to show these three time-related pressures function together. The identification of this threefold time-pressure on migrant workers in agri-food production builds on the recent attention of scholars to seasonality as a conceptual lens, and the identification of rhythms to highlight intersectional inequalities in the everyday. The paper is based on ethnographic and interview data from the Moroccan region of Chtouka Aït Baha, from which tomatoes and other crops are produced at industrial scale for export. I find that, together, the three temporal pressures lead to workers suffering exhaustion and finding themselves far from mobile and available to move with the seasons; rather, they are ‘locked in’ to this low-wage sector.
This article analyses the skills and competence acquisition of migration entrepreneurs in the H-2 visa programme, a U.S. temporary worker scheme. This programme, which nowadays largely recruits Mexicans, is managed by a migration industry of labour contracting agencies, recruiters, document processors, and transporters. This article focuses on recruiters, in charge of selecting workers, and document processors, responsible for completing visa application forms. Hailing mostly from the rural working class, recruiters derive expertise from membership in the social world of the migrant. The competences of document processors closely track their belonging in the urban middle class, reflecting experiences of formal education which prepare them to deal with the bureaucratic interface of the programme. These migration entrepreneurs also acquire skills by cooperating and competing with colleagues, migrants, contracting firms, employers, advocates, and government officials – interactions that expose them the risks and benefits of a more expansive role in the brokerage apparatus.
Based on the evidence found in two case studies of intensive agriculture in Southern Spain, this article analyses the impact of business strategies aimed at devaluing packaging plant work in the competitive integration processes currently taking place in the global agri-food value chain. The article explores three business strategies: the feminisation, segmentation and deskilling of labour, along with ethnic substitution and labour recruitment outsourcing mechanisms. Although it acknowledges the importance of the dynamics of global competition, the article focuses mainly on how firms articulate their strategies in packaging plants within the political, family and sociocultural frameworks of specific local contexts. The analysis uses a qualitative methodology based on in-depth interviews and participant observations.
This paper analyses the profound structural transformations that took place in Norway's horticulture industry between 1999 and 2010. The aggregate industrial outputs from the industry remained stable in this period. However, the number of horticulture farms dropped by 40.5% and the remaining farms became accordingly larger. We analyse how this development was related to changing labour strategies on Norwegian farms during this period, in part affected by labour market deregulation following the EU enlargements in 2004 and 2007. The analysis utilises Agricultural Census data covering the full population of horticulture farms in Norway in 1999 (N=5,105) and all farms in the country in 2010 (N=46,624, of which 3036 now were horticulture farms). Results suggest that the enhanced availability of inexpensive and flexible global labour is strongly associated with a stepwise proletarisation of Norwegian horticulture. Family labour is being systematically replaced by wage labour and domestic workers are being replaced by lowwage migrant workers.
Sommario: Durante gli anni '80 Italia e Spagna hanno iniziato a divenire paesi di immigrazione, con un processo che, dal punto di vista economico e del lavoro, ha interessato alcune settori in modo particolare, tra i quali quello agricolo. L'occupazione delle lavoratrici e dei lavoratori stranieri in agricoltura ha permesso al settore di incrementare i livelli di profittabilità in entrambi i paesi, contribuendo, più in generale, alla funzione sistemica di produzione di cibo a basso costo, che costituisce uno dei quattro pilastri essenziali del processo globale di accumulazione, insieme alla disponibilità di lavoro, energia ed altre materie prime a buon mercato. Il reclutamento della manodopera straniera non si è realizzato in modo omogeneo nei diversi contesti produttivi, ma è stato differenziato in base alle esigenze e richieste delle imprese operanti nelle singole enclave agricole. Nel presente articolo si analizzano, attraverso una prospettiva comparata, i meccanismi istituzionali, legali ed informali previsti ed implementati in Spagna e Italia per favorire l'assunzione di forza lavoro straniera, verificando come e perché sono stati promossi o meno programmi di migrazione circolare verso il settore agricolo. Per comprendere come queste politiche si sono concretamente realizzate sono state comparate due enclave produttive, quella di Huelva, in Spagna, e quella della Piana del Sele, nel Sud Italia, in modo da individuare i fattori che permettono di spiegare perché alcune enclave agricole dell'ecologia-mondo hanno configurato sistemi di importazione del lavoro dalla periferia globale, mentre altre hanno privilegiato un modello che deregolamentato.
This paper seeks to discuss the issues relating to temporary migrant labour in Greek agri¬culture within the current context of continued economic recession and taking into consid¬eration the evolution of the migratory phenomenon in Southern Europe.
Within the complexity induced by EU migration policy, the refugee quotas assigned to each country, vested interests and inconsistencies, and migrant trajectories/strategies, the role of temporary migrant labour appears to be highly volatile. Moreover, temporary migrant labour may well be seen as a catch-all term, which can accommodate different migrant populations or categories of movers at different times, depending on migrants' needs and objectives, the preconditions of the local/regional labour markets, and the policy context.
Strawberry production has been selected as an exemplary case that illustrates the complex¬ities of how migrant labour is employed, controlled and integrated in rural Greece; season¬al labour retains its role in the local production system. Moreover, the Greek strawberry industry has developed a model distinct from that of other countries (such as the US and Spain), which produce significant volumes of strawberries.
The paper is divided into five sections: Firstly, the Greek experience is presented briefly in an attempt to contextualize the case of «Manolada». Secondly, the basic characteristics of Greek agriculture are discussed and the evolution of the various types of agricultural employment analyzed. Thirdly, there is a thorough treatment of the various agricultural production systems that exist in the Region of Western Greece, with a particular emphasis on intensive strawberry production and migrant populations in relation to those production systems. Fourthly, the specific case of «Manolada» is discussed in detail and the issues arising from migrant labour control are raised. Finally, the conclusion sheds light on cen¬tral themes regarding temporary / seasonal migrant labour in Greece.
The paper analyses the role of "reproductive labour", and particularly of sexual labour, in relation to global agro-industrial commodity chains, with specific reference to the district of Foggia, in southeastern Italy. Drawing on a critical appraisal of world-system theory through the lens of gender, the article looks at different arrangements in the sexual division of labour and in (transnational) household management. In particular, it contrasts the organisation of West-African shantytowns to eastern-European settlements. The paper also points to the potential for non-commodified forms of care labour to foster solidarity among workers and support their struggles for better working and living conditions, which however are usually blind to the gendered dimensions of exploitation. Given this ambivalence of care labour, as both a form of exploitation and as a potentially subversive practice, and the importance of acknowledging the interrelation between global care chains and the production of agricultural commodities, the article suggests it is more appropriate to speak of "care-commodity chains". The article also argues that such relationships and ambivalences question any straightforward distinction between "productive" and "reproductive" spheres.
‘International migration management’ has become a popular catchphrase for a wide range of initiatives that aim at renewing the policies pertaining to the cross-border movements of people. It is used by numerous actors, both within and outside governments. At the international level, the term is intensively used by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) (whose motto is ‘Managing migration for the benefit of all’), the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Council of Europe and other international agencies. At the national level, the approach in terms of ‘management’ pervades, for example, the British government’s White Paper on immigration, ‘Secure Borders, Safe Haven’.
Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on circular migration and mobility partnerships between the European Union and third countries. COM (2007) 248 final
European Commission (2007): Communication from the Commission to the European
Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the
Committee of the Regions on circular migration and mobility partnerships between the
European Union and third countries. COM (2007) 248 final. Brussels. Available from:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex:52007DC0248
Développement capitaliste et perceptions des femmes dans la société arabo-musulmane: une illustration des paysannes du Gharb, Maroc, ILO Tripartite African Regional Seminar on Rural Development and Women
- Mernissi Fatima
Mernissi Fatima (1981), Développement capitaliste et perceptions des femmes dans la
société arabo-musulmane: une illustration des paysannes du Gharb, Maroc, ILO Tripartite
African Regional Seminar on Rural Development and Women, Geneve, 92 p.
Las nuevas temporeras de la fresa en Huelva: flexibilidad productiva, contratación en origen y feminización del trabajo en una agricultura globalizada
- Alicia Reigada Olaizola
Reigada Olaizola Alicia (2009), Las nuevas temporeras de la fresa en Huelva: flexibilidad
productiva, contratación en origen y feminización del trabajo en una agricultura
globalizada, Thèse de doctorat, Universidad de Sevilla, 675 p.