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A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
‘There is no time’: Agri-food internal migrant workers in Morocco's tomato industry
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0168-0688
Abstract 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.
Highlights EP Thompson's theory of time and work-discipline is developed to include social reproductive time. In Morocco, tomatoes are produced intensively by internal migrant workers for the out of season market in the Global North. Agri-food workers simultaneously face time pressures from industry, from nature and from the social reproductive sphere. Women workers form the majority of the labour force and are disproportionately affected by time pressures. A connection is established between retailer ‘demands’ and time pressures experienced by workers.
‘There is no time’: Agri-food internal migrant workers in Morocco's tomato industry
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0168-0688
Abstract 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.
Highlights EP Thompson's theory of time and work-discipline is developed to include social reproductive time. In Morocco, tomatoes are produced intensively by internal migrant workers for the out of season market in the Global North. Agri-food workers simultaneously face time pressures from industry, from nature and from the social reproductive sphere. Women workers form the majority of the labour force and are disproportionately affected by time pressures. A connection is established between retailer ‘demands’ and time pressures experienced by workers.
‘There is no time’: Agri-food internal migrant workers in Morocco's tomato industry
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0168-0688
Abstract 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.
Highlights EP Thompson's theory of time and work-discipline is developed to include social reproductive time. In Morocco, tomatoes are produced intensively by internal migrant workers for the out of season market in the Global North. Agri-food workers simultaneously face time pressures from industry, from nature and from the social reproductive sphere. Women workers form the majority of the labour force and are disproportionately affected by time pressures. A connection is established between retailer ‘demands’ and time pressures experienced by workers.
‘There is no time’: Agri-food internal migrant workers in Morocco's tomato industry
Medland, Lydia (author)
Journal of Rural Studies ; 88 ; 482-490
2021-04-29
9 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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