Pervasive Precarity: Migrant Mexican Oil Workers
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Pervasive Precarity: Migrant Mexican Oil Workers’ Experiences and Tactics to Navigate Uncertainty By Rebecca J. Crosthwait © 2014 Submitted to the graduate degree program in Anthropology and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson, Donald D. Stull, Ph.D., M.P.H. ________________________________ Brent E. Metz, Ph.D. ________________________________ Ebenezer Obadare, Ph.D. ________________________________ Peter Herlihy, Ph.D. ________________________________ Ruben Flores, Ph.D. Date Defended: November 24, 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Rebecca J. Crosthwait certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Pervasive Precarity: Migrant Mexican Oil Workers’ Experiences and Tactics to Navigate Uncertainty ________________________________ Chairperson Donald D. Stull Date approved: December 10, 2014 ii Abstract An ethnographic analysis of precarity as experienced by migrant Mexican oil workers in permanently insecure work structures in the Gulf of Mexico, this study explores precarious employment situations in the oil industry and tactics workers use to navigate, cope with, and diminish uncertainty. In addition to workers’ experiences, I analyze the contexts in which individuals live and work, including: labor-market changes; the history, politics, and geography of oil; and hurricanes’ impacts on labor. To better understand the tightrope walk between precarious employment and unemployment, I conducted interviews with workers and others affiliated with the oil industry during fieldwork in the Coastal Bend of Texas, in 2008, and Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico, in 2012. Both areas are important in the Gulf of Mexico oil industry and draw workers for projects both in the fabrication of offshore vessels and drilling and production of offshore oil. I interviewed industry officials, community members, and others in Texas and Campeche, focusing on work experiences in the oil industry. As in many industries, the oil industry has transitioned to rely on a nonpermanent, contract-based workforce, a move to casualized labor. Consequently, individuals become serial contract workers. Experiences of forced idleness, corruption, and non-material precarity characterize their lives. The labor demand for repair and construction in the oil industry following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita was significant, prompting the importation of guestworkers on the H-2B visa, a problematic program. To cope within precarious work structures, workers develop tactics, including work in the informal economy or without pay and the utilization of a variety of illicit improvisations. They also use their mobility, weak social ties, and so-called traditional iii livelihoods as tactics. The exploration of workers’ situated responses to a multiplicity of uncertainties allows a fuller understanding of local-level effects of global change. iv To my grandparents, who know what work is, whose roots have always been tenacious and deep, who taught me that our horizons, like those of our prairie home, are expansive, ever changing, and dotted with people from whom we are privileged to learn. v Acknowledgments My research has benefited from the support from the National Science Foundation IGERT, the Tinker Foundation, and the University of Kansas’s Office of Graduate Studies, Department of Anthropology, and Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, as well as the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Part of this research was based on research conducted by a team of social scientists from the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Funding for the project was provided by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (Department of the Interior), agreement number 0106-CA-39750. As author of this dissertation, I wish to acknowledge all team members whose data and ideas contributed to it, especially those of Diane Austin, Tom McGuire, Ben McMahan, Sarah Ruskin, Victoria Phaneuf, Jacob Campbell, and Preetam Prakash. The team owes tremendous thanks to workers, employers, residents, and leaders of the coastal communities of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas who welcomed and participated in this project and ensured its success. KU’s National Science Foundation C-CHANGE IGERT group reenergized my doctoral studies. In the midst of interdisciplinary work, trips to the monarch butterfly overwintering site in Mexico, and ice sheets and “tuffets” in Greenland, I made a host of friends that I have come to rely on and appreciate beyond the academic sphere. I am especially thankful for the support from Dr. Joane Nagel and Natalie Parker. I feel uniquely grateful for such a supportive dissertation committee. Don Stull has been my teaching, writing, and professional mentor throughout my graduate studies. I could not have asked for an advisor more dedicated to my continued success. Thank you for countless chicken vi fried steaks, red beers, and red markings! I am forever indebted to you. Brent Metz’s commitment to students is beyond admirable, and I’ve come to rely on his readiness to run through ideas, read drafts, and empathize. Ebenezer Obadare shares my weakness for books of all types and jazz, and he has become a mentor and friend in equal measure. I am also thankful for Peter Herlihy’s and Ruben Flores’s support; they have both formed my understanding of the complexities–historical and geographical–of Mexico’s relationship with the United States. It is no wonder I was drawn to research workers living away from their homes. My family never allowed an insulated view of the world, despite living in a rural area. Rather than being isolated from the world, my formative years were filled with close family friends from Laos, Ukraine, and Mexico, among other places. During my graduate school years, and especially during the writing of this dissertation, my parents and sisters, John, Brenda, Erin, and Sara, have been beyond supportive. When I have become overwhelmed with the uncertainties in my own life, your unending encouragement and steadfast love have sustained and strengthened me. Likewise, I have been richly blessed by a rich and supportive social network in Lawrence. Meghan Farley Webb, this liminal place and time has been not merely bearable but at many times a joy because of you. I have cherished not only the happy clinks of Kir Royales but also our shared “sad desk lunches.” Thursday night Spanish group–Harriet Lerner, Emily Kofran, Stephanie Fitzgerald, Tita Soberón, Dani Lotton-Barker, Maria Ana Garza, Jen Weghorst: you have all encouraged me when I was down, laughed at my street-smart Spanish, and given me a support system in Lawrence beyond the university. Andrés Lira Noriega made all the maps in this dissertation. But he also has been a dear friend both here at KU and in Mexico, where he has shared his lovely family with me. Egemen Çetinkaya, you have forged the path ahead of me. vii You’ve spoiled me with your limitless support, smiles, and reassurances. Whereas I can be quixotic and easily taken with abstract whims, you are practical and grounded–and I’d have it no other way. Finally, this research would have been futile had workers not so graciously shared their time and stories of their experiences with me. Each time I read over an interview transcript or drink an agua de piña, your faces and stories flash through my mind. I hope my research adequately gives voice to your experiences, that, indeed, están cabron. viii Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................... vi Contents ................................................................................................................................... ix Figures, Maps, and Tables ........................................................................................................ x Chapter 1: Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Alonso’s Story ................................................................................................................................................................. 2 Research Focus .............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Research Contributions .......................................................................................................................................... 18 Organization of the Dissertation ......................................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2: Research Questions, Methods, and Data ............................................................... 21 Research Objectives and Questions ................................................................................................................... 21 Field Sites ...................................................................................................................................................................... 23 Community Entrée and Participant Observation ........................................................................................ 32