Spaces of Alienation in the Tobacco Fields: the Case of Migrant Workers

GeoJournal

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-020-10238-9 (0123456789().,-volV)( 0123456789().,-volV)

Spaces of alienation in the tobacco ﬁelds: the case of migrant workers in Ontario, Canada

Robert Michael Bridi

Ó Springer Nature B.V. 2020

Abstract In his book, Seventeen Contradictions and precarious work, and the intermediation in labor the End of Capitalism, Harvey (2014: 220 italics in markets further intensify their alienation experiences. original) identified the alienation of workers among the most ‘‘dangerous, if not potentially fatal, contra- Keywords Alienation Á Migrant worker Á dictions’’ of capitalism that generates a sense of Precariousness Á Labor geography Á SAWP powerlessness and self-estrangement. In this article, I examine the alienation of migrant workers participating in the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). I argue that conditions internal to Introduction the production process (the interaction between workers and their productive activities, the product The increasing role of temporary migrant workers in of their labor, and the character of their social the economies of countries in the global North is interactions) and external conditions associated with facilitated by international labor migration programs temporary migration (the institutional arrangements that provide vulnerable workers, willing to endure low that guide the SAWP, deregulated labor regimes, and pay, poor working conditions, and incongruous the interlocking spaces that link the movements of employment practices (Hennebry 2008). Annually, people) alienate workers. My analysis is based on approximately 40,000 temporary migrant agricultural original empirical evidence from in-depth interviews workers from Mexico and countries in the Caribbean with Mexican and Jamaican workers and farmers in arrive in Canada through the Seasonal Agricultural Ontario, Canada. My findings show that migrant Worker Program (SAWP) (Employment and Social workers in tobacco farming are alienated from the Development Canada 2016a). Most of the migrant productive activities in which they are involved, the workers participating in the SAWP have been pro- product that they produce, and their fellow workers pelled from rural areas in Mexico and Jamaica because and employers. Moreover, temporary migration, of high levels of unemployment and poverty due to losses in export markets and disinvestment in small- scale agriculture (Angelucci and Conforti 2010; Bello R. M. Bridi (&) 2009; Pechlaner and Otero 2010). The SAWP allows Geography and Urban Sustainability Department, College employers to hire migrant workers when Canadian of Humanities and Social Sciences, United Arab Emirates citizens and permanent residents are not available. The University, P. O. Box 15551, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates program operates according to bilateral agreements e-mail: [email protected] 123 GeoJournal between Canada and the participating countries. in capitalist society (the inherent contradiction Workers are at least 18 years of age, have experience between work as a process of human development in farming, are citizens of one of the participating and self-realization and its alienated form given countries, and are able to satisfy Canadian immigra- capitalist social relations), I demonstrate the interre- tion laws and the laws of their home countries. lationship between such dynamics and the contexts in Migrant workers are employed on Canadian farms which they occur (the adoption of neoliberal policies between six weeks and eight months performing tasks of deregulation, privatization, marketization, and in primary agriculture (Employment and Social attacks on labor by governments in the zones of Development Canada 2016b). precarity that comprise the reconfigured spaces of Harvey (2014: 220 italics in original) referred to the capital and work in late capitalism). Several questions alienation of workers as a ‘‘dangerous, if not poten- animate the study: what are the internal dynamics of tially fatal’’ contradiction. He asserted, ‘‘the worker is the production process more generally and tobacco estranged from his or her product as well as from other farming more specifically that alienate workers? How workers, from nature and all other aspects of social does the social interaction between workers and their life…The deprivation and dispossession are experi- productive activity, the product they produce, and enced and internalized as a sense of loss and sorrow at their fellow workers and employers produce alien- the frustration of the worker’s own creative instincts. ation? To what extent do conditions that are external to Ultimately the worker stops being melancholic and production, such as deregulated labor regimes and morose and gets angry at the immediate sources of his precarious work, competitive global markets, and or her alienation’’ (Harvey 2014: 267–268). The temporary migration intensify workers’ alienating interaction among these dynamics generates a sense experiences? of powerlesness and self-estrangement. Moreover, The study contributes to the broader literature on broader issues related to temporary migration, precar- alienation, the SAWP, and labor geography in several iousness, and intermediation in labor markets (Coe ways: first, classic works on alienation primarily 2013) intensify the alienating experiences of migrant focused on philosophical contributions with no workers. Their displacement from land, the disinte- engagement in empirical research. While such studies gration of the agricultural sectors in their home made many important theoretical interventions, they countries, the lack of civil and labor rights in the host were mostly abstract with few insights about concrete countries, the ensuing threat of deportation, and reality. The present study seeks to contribute to more cultural estrangement further reinforce their vulnera- current studies that draw on the philosophical concept bilities (Ferguson and McNally 2015). and make it operational as a research problematic thus In this article, I examine the alienation of migrant extending what previously was largely a theoretical workers participating in the SAWP. I argue that debate unto new empirical territory. conditions internal to the production process and Second, more current studies on alienation have external conditions associated with temporary migra- focused on the industrial and service sectors, tion alienate workers. This is manifested, on the one oppressed groups of people, and the alienating expe- hand, by the interaction between workers and their riences of everyday life. This study provides a productive activities, which are necessary for their different scholarly perspective by drawing attention (re)production, the product of their labor which they to the alienation of migrant workers in the agricultural produce primarily for the benefit of the farmers, and sector of economies in the global North. Also, scholars the character of their social interactions which pit conducting research on the SAWP and labor geogra- worker against worker and worker against farmer; and phers have not adequately addressed issues related to on the other hand, by the institutional arrangements the alienation of migrant workers. This study and bureaucratic practices that guide the SAWP, addresses this gap by examining and discussing Mexico’s and Jamaica’s deregulated labor regimes, several factors related to the alienation of migrant and the interlocking spaces in the geography and agricultural workers participating in a temporary political economy of capitalism that link the move- foreign worker program. ments of people. While the study highlights the Third, the academic literature that focuses on alienation of workers in reference to the form of labor alienation, for the most part, abstracts from broader 123 GeoJournal social, economic, and political processes at the internationally recognized practices for temporary national and international scales. Although some migration programs. These studies investigated the authors discuss such processes, there is no extant ways international human rights protections may be work giving a systematic analysis of their significance extended to non-citizen migrants and the organiza- in relation to the alienation of workers. The study is a tional strategies that activists employed to ensure that preliminary exploration of this query. For this task, I labor and civil rights are afforded to migrant workers develop an understanding of alienation as the interre- (Basok and Carasco 2010; Choudry and Thomas 2013; lationship between workplace dynamics and broader Faraday et al. 2012; Gabriel and MacDonald 2011; social processes in the geography and political econ- Hennebry and Preibisch 2012). omy of capitalism. This enables one to specify what is The social oppressions of race and gender and their significantly different about the alienation of migrant implications for the SAWP have been assessed. Some agricultural workers and to understand how and why authors probed the racist Canadian immigration poli- such differences arise. It also enables us to understand cies (Perry 2012; Preibisch and Binford 2007; Walia the similarities and differences between the alienation 2010), the gendered aspects of migrant work (Grez of migrant agricultural workers and workers in 2018; Preibisch and Grez 2010), issues surrounding general. (non)citizenship and the exclusion of migrant workers The article is organized in the following way. In the from labor protection legislation (Goldring and Lan- second section, I review the relevant current literature dolt 2013; Lenard and Straehle 2012; Rajkumar et al. on alienation, the SAWP and labor geography in 2012; Faraday et al. 2012), and migrant worker which I situate the study. In particular, I explore the integration into Ontario communities (Hennebry historical development of the Marxian concept of 2012; Preibisch 2004). Also, the dynamics of migrant alienation in reference to the form of labor in capitalist agricultural work in the spheres of production and society. This provides me with the conceptual circulation have been explored. Some authors exam- resources for understanding the alienation of migrant ined the social relation between capital and labor, workers. In the third section, I turn my attention to the issues related to health and safety, the effects of labor effects that alienation has on migrant workers. I bring market dynamics and precarity on migrant workers into focus the intimate connections between various and their families, and migrant worker resistance aspects of the production process in tobacco farming, (Bridi 2013; 2015; Cohen and Hjalmarson 2018; the institutional arrangements and bureaucratic prac- Hennebry et al. 2016; Mayell 2016; McLaughlin et al. tices that guide the SAWP, and Mexico’s and 2017; Reid-Musson 2014; Wells et al. 2014). Jamaica’s deregulated labor regimes. In the fifth Geographers have made significant contributions to section, I summarize the findings and briefly relate understanding ‘‘how workers shape economic land- them to broader social and economic issues. scapes and uneven development’’ (Herod 1997:1)and ‘‘seek to make space in particular ways’’ (Herod 1997: 3). Labor is conceived as an active agent in the The SAWP, labor geography, and alienation production of economic geographies, and space is regarded as fundamental to the constitution and Numerous studies have explored various dimensions functioning of society. Much of this work has focused of the SAWP and the experiences of the workers and on trade union organization at different interlocking farmers in the program. Some authors examined the scales. Geographers have sought to understand the significance of the program in a globalized economy ways that workers struggle to address economic and and the restructuring of the agricultural sector. These political issues in relation to their lived experiences in studies focused on theorizing un-free labor, docu- place-based social contexts (see, for example, Car- menting worker migratory experiences, scrutinizing swell and De Neve 2013; Coe and Jordhus-Lier 2010; the effects of neoliberal economic policies, and Featherstone 2012; McGrath-Champ et al. 2010; gauging the impacts of temporary migration on Sweeney and Holmes 2013; Wills 2012). sending and receiving countries (Basok 2002; Binford The evolution of labor geography has been 2013; Hennebry 2008; Preibisch 2007; Reid-Musson prompted by geographers that identified research gaps 2017). Others evaluated the SAWP according to and provided future directions (see, for example, 123 GeoJournal

Castree 2007; Coe 2013; Herod 2010; Rutherford distinction between objectification and alienation. 2010; Tufts and Savage 2009). While the defining Objectification is a feature of all work, whereas feature of labor geography continues to be the agency alienation is a specific feature of work under capital- of labor, geographers have widened their thematic ism (Lukaćs 1975). Alienation, therefore, is a histor- scope to encompass some of the most significant ically specific process that is the result of capitalist debates in labor studies. Emerging theoretical and social relations in general, and the capitalist property empirical research has investigated the identities of system in particular (Gouldner 1980). workers in relation to their work, non-organized According to Ollman (1976: 131–152), Marx’s workers, temporary foreign workers, immigrant work- theory of alienation centered on the interaction ers, and the complexities of class, gender, and race in between individuals and four broad relations: their relation to the ways that workers are exploited (see, for productive activity (work), the material world (pro- example, Batnitzky and McDowell 2013; Buckley duct), their fellows (humans), and the self (species). 2014; Dyer et al. 2011; McDowell 2014; Mitchell First, workers are alienated in relation to the activity of 2011; Parks 2014; Pero and Smith 2014; Pratt 2012; labor. Their life activity, which is a central determi- Strauss 2013). nant of their essential being, does not belong to them. The Marxian conceptualization of alienation began Workers subordinate their activity to an employer for with the writings of Hegel and Feuerbach. The concept the sake of the wage. Second, the result of alienated was central in Hegel’s (1977) social philosophy and labor is alienation from the product that workers his development of ‘spirit’. For Hegel, the human self produce. The product of labor confronts the worker as is a historical and social creation, which develops an external object. The worker cannot use the product through a process of alienation (self-estrangement) for his or her own subsistence or to engage in further and its overcoming (self-recognition). Feuerbach’s productive activity. The outcome is the estrangement (1957) naturalism implied a rejection of the belief that of workers from the material basis of their existence matter was inferior to ‘spirit’ and a reversion to the and life activity. Third, workers are alienated from ‘materialist’ naturalism of antiquity. Self-alienated their human ties. Arthur (1986: 10 italics in original) humans have only an earthly habitation and thus noted, ‘‘the social character of production takes on an require a humanized world in order to feel at home. asocial quality in so far as the worker and the capitalist For Marx (1996), the solution to the theoretical both depend on each other, yet are thrown into problem of alienation lay in the practical activity of confrontation over the destiny of the product’’. Social transforming a world in which humans do not feel at alienation results from the antagonistic aspects of the home. This was the gist of his Theses on Feuerbach,in competing interests in the relation between the worker which he set out the credo of revolutionary humanism and the employer. Fourth is the relation of humans to (Lichtheim 1982). their species. Although human subsistence has always Marx (1992) applied the concept of alienation been a necessary pre-condition for engaging in mainly in reference to the form of labor in capitalist productive activity, in capitalism it becomes the society. This was based on a distinctive theory of operative motive. People work to live rather than live human productive activity, which he derived from to work (Ollman1976). Hegel (1977). For Hegel and Marx, productive activity Although much insight may be garnered from the played an essential role in distinguishing humans from philosophical contributions on alienation, these stud- other animals. While other animals are purely natural ies did not engage in empirical research. Accordingly, beings driven by instinctive desires and appetites, some authors began to chart the alienating experiences humans are self-conscious beings that preserve, work of workers in specific contexts to make the philosoph- upon, and transform objects. This Marx referred to as ical concept operational as a research problematic the process of objectification. By objectifying our- (see, for example, Archibald 1978; Blackburn and selves in our products, we come to realize our powers Mann 1979; Blauner 1964; Gallie 1978; Seeman and capabilities. Hence, work is not only a means to 1975). Despite the many insights that these studies satisfy human needs, it is also a fundamental process generated during the 1960s and 1970s, use of the of human development and self-realization (Sayers concept rapidly declined following that period. This 2011). Marx, in contrast to Hegel, made a crucial has been attributed in part to controversies regarding 123 GeoJournal

Marx’s perspective (see, for example, Anderson 1980; Canada’s tobacco growing region and industry Arthur 1986; Gregory 2009; Sayers 2011). In addition, the embrace of post-modernism, post-structuralism, The physiographic characteristics of Canada’s tobacco and post-colonialism in the early 1980s further growing region on the northern shore of Lake Erie in sidelined alienation as a mainstream concept (Hiebert the Norfolk Sand Plain (Fig. 1) are the product of 2000). More recently, however, there has been a Pleistocene glaciations, and deposits of deltaic sedi- resurgence of interest in the study of alienation. ments that cover an area of approximately 3,150 km2. Schmitt (1994) drew on the concept to understand the To the west, Norfolk County terminates with 30 m conditions of oppressed groups of people. Alienation, high cliffs at Lake Erie. The pounding of waves he argued, is the result of social processes that against the cliffs produced the sand that was trans- preclude people from becoming fully human, limits ported eastward by lake current to form the 40 km the achievement of their full potential, deprives them Long Point peninsula that juts out into Lake Erie. The of economic, political, social, and cultural rights, and western and central portions of Norfolk County are subverts their power to control their lives and affirm dominated by sandy soils, which are ideal for growing their identities. Lefebvre (2008a, b, c) produced many Bright Leaf tobacco (Niewo´jt 2007). new insights that widened the study of alienation to More than 90 percent of the tobacco produced in incorporate the use of space and the built environment. Canada is grown in this region. At its peak, Ontario’s The core of Lefebvre’s humanism was his critique of tobacco industry was comprised of more than 4,500 the alienating conditions of everyday life (Elden farms; however, since the 1980s there have been fewer 2001). Mundane landscapes of work, production, and larger farms. By the early 1990s, there were consumption, and residence are frequently thought approximately 1,650 tobacco farms, and in 2005 that of as bland. Their design and architecture are often number declined further to approximately 650 (Wyatt associated with sameness, homogeneity, or a sense of 2005). The reasons for these changes include the more placelessness, rendering such urban spaces as alienat- general restructuring of agricultural production in ing (Crouch 2001; Jackson et al. 2000). developed economies since the late 1950s that was Other research focused on deteriorating work marked by mechanization, intensification, and inelas- conditions and the alienating effects this has had on tic market conditions followed by the more specific individuals in the workplace. Crinson and Yuill (2008) decline in the domestic consumption of tobacco since and Yuill (2005) drew on the concept to examine the the 1980s due to anti-smoking campaigns and legis- psychosocial effects of laboring under capitalism. lation (Ramsey et al.2003). In addition have been other Archibald (2009a; 2009b) argued that the effects of factors such as: further changes in production pro- competition and job insecurity have increased the cesses with the introduction of technological innova- objective powerlessness and subjective alienation of tion in curing tobacco; the identification of alternative workers. Lindio-McGovern (2004) examined the crops through research and development; the employ- different forms of alienation that Filipino migrant ment of local and migrant workers; environmental domestic workers experience due to familial estrange- issues associated with changes in climatic patterns ment, the commodification of labor, government such as early frosts, wind damage, and precipitation; policies, and cultural dynamics. Moreover, the and the changing social values regarding tobacco Research Committee on Alienation Theory and consumption among individuals and communities. Research, a sub-committee of the International Soci- Such dramatic transformations have had a significant ological Association, continues to contribute to our effect on the well-being of farming communities in knowledge of alienation. This research focuses on the the tobacco growing region in Ontario, Canada. Social interpretation of classical perspectives on alienation effects have included a decline in the quality of life and examines cross-national and comparative per- associated with less social interactions, changes in the spectives on the varieties and forms of alienation on communities, and less career opportunities. This has personal, organizational, and societal levels (see led to an increase in physical problems such as heart International Sociological Association 2014). attacks and ulcers and psychological problems such as stress, suicidal thoughts, and the loss of support networks. Economic effects have included less farm 123 GeoJournal

Fig. 1 Tobacco growing region in Ontario, Canada income, higher debt, greater financial uncertainty, and methods identify structures into which individuals fewer community services (Ramsey and Smit 2001; are locked and their mechanisms, the abstract knowl- 2002). In 2008, the Government of Canada provided edge of these may be more generally applicable. The $300 million through the Tobacco Transition Pro- findings provide an explanation about how the context gram, which allowed many tobacco farmers to exit the in which alienation is structured, and how the key industry and identify alternative crops. Since that agents under study fit into it, interact with it, and period, however, demand for tobacco products has constitute it. increased prompting a rise in production for the The qualitative research method that I chose was remaining tobacco farmers (Brown 2013). interviewing. The goal of each interview was to deeply explore a respondent’s point of view, feelings, and perspectives. This allowed me to produce rich and Research design and methodology varied data that explain issues, complexities, and contradictions (Kitchin and Tate 2000; Valentine I employed an intensive research design (Sayer 2010: 2005). Some caveats, however, should be noted with 161–169), which is primarily concerned with how respect to interviewing. The epistemological premise some causal processes work out in a small number of of interviewing (i.e., that respondents are competent examples. The focus is on groups of individuals that reporters of past and present events, experiences, relate to each other structurally or causally. In beliefs, behaviours, interactions, and so on) has been intensive studies, the individuals need not be typical, contested (Ackroyd and Hughes 1992). Respondents and they may be selected one by one as the research are influenced in all sorts of ways that affect how they proceeds and as an understanding of the causal group interpret and account for events and experiences to a is developed. Identifying one contact leads to another probing researcher (Weiss 1994). with whom s/he is linked, creating a picture of the I adopted a less formal, less standardized, and more structures and the causal group comprised of the interactive approach to interviewing where I began the contacts. At the concrete level, the findings of the interview by asking the respondents about their day- present study may be unique and in this sense not to-day circumstances. This allowed me to build upon ‘representative’; however, in so far as intensive and refer to knowledge gained about the specific

123 GeoJournal characteristics of various respondents. A meaningful I employed a sampling method referred to as communication was established by adapting the ‘‘snowballing’’ (Valentine 2005: 117), where a questions and ideas in the interviews to what is researcher relies on one or more contact/s to recruit relevant to the respondents, and by being willing to respondents. My initial contacts were researchers, discuss as well as to evoke answers. In situations which led to contacts with union representatives, where my questions and emphasis was disputed by the workers, and farm owners. Between May 2017 and respondents, this gave me an opportunity to learn August 2017, I conducted 25 semi-structured inter- something about my own preconceptions or those of views with workers and farm owners in Delhi, Ontario the respondents. I explained to the respondents that where the workers were employed. The interviews particular care and attention to ethical issues was were between one and two hours in length and sought considered prior to and during the interviews. I assured to give a general account of the alienating experiences them that I will not disclose any information about of migrant workers (Table 1). their identity. I explained the purpose of the research, the intended uses of the findings, and their legal rights. By understanding and learning about the respon- Alienation in the tobacco fields dents’ views, feelings, and perspectives I established a relationship of trust and rapport. As a result, the The Marxian concept of alienation in reference to the respondents openly described and explained their form of labor in capitalist society provides the experiences in their own words. This allowed me and conceptual resources for understanding the alienation the respondents to build rich detailed conversations of migrant workers. I begin with the interaction based on empathy, mutual respect, and understanding. between workers and three of the four broad relations In particular, we were able to share common frames of that Ollman (1976: 131–152) identified: their produc- reference around the issue of integrating into Canadian tive activities, the product that they produce, and their society. Most of the workers shared narratives about fellow workers and employers. feeling out of place while in Canada, being starred at Canada’s SAWP and Mexico’s and Jamaica’s while shopping, and longing to go back home. This deregulated labor regimes are linked together as gave me opportunities to share my own struggles as an elements of a complex social whole in which human immigrant to Canada. The openness and candidness labor power becomes a source of profit for farmers in promoted the flow of conversation, and allowed the Canadian agricultural industry (Binford 2013; workers to share their experiences, concerns, and Preibisch 2007). Operating in a highly competitive problems. global market, farmers rely on the availability of While the life experiences of the workers are as migrant workers to achieve greater flexibility in their diverse as the workers themselves, there was a sense labor arrangements and employment practices beyond during the interviews that regardless of their back- those possible with a domestic workforce (Preibisch ground (Jamaican or Mexican) they often possessed 2010). Workers are issued temporary visas for a the same hopes and fears. The hope of a better life for duration of eight months, which are designed to them and their families, access to an education for prevent permanent residency, and they must return to their children, stable work in increasingly unsta- their countries of origin at the end of the contract. ble economic conditions, and so on. The fear of not Their work permits allow them to work only in the having employment and deportation, the possibility of agricultural sector with a specific farmer, therefore injury, and their longevity given the difficult work and negating any possibilities of participating in the labor life conditions, and so on. Such similarities may be in market. Here a clear differentiation is made between part due to the selection criteria of the SAWP. The migrant workers (non-citizens) and non-migrant SAWP targets workers that are males, between the workers (citizens). The construct of citizenship is ages of 20–50, married with a family, with a low level exhibited ‘‘in formal (legal and institutional) as well as of education, with a low level of income, in good informal (practiced and cultural) forms’’ (Bauder health, and capable of performing intensive physical 2008a, b: 316). Citizenship is associated not only labor (Brem 2006). with a particular national identity, a sense of belonging, recognition under the law, participation in the 123 GeoJournal

Table 1 Summary of the Farm 1 Farm 2 tobacco farms’ characteristics Total number of workers 26 20 Number of SAWP workers 23 17 Migrant workers interviewed 15 10 Gender and age of workers Males ages 20–35 Number of Mexican workers (interviews conducted 73 in Spanish with a translator) Number of Jamaican workers (interviews conducted 87 in English) Farm owners interviewed 1 1 Type of farm Family owned and operated Farm Size (small-scale farms) Under 50 hectares Years participating in the SAWP 16 14 Years in tobacco farming (second generation farmers) 21 30 community, and so forth, but with access to limited transplanting of tobacco, which was done by hand, is resources and institutional privileges. This view of now done by a machine that covers four rows at a time. citizenship ‘‘integrates processes of inclusion and Advanced tractors are used that eliminate the need to exclusion’’ (Bauder 2008a, b: 316) that render migrant hoe each row of tobacco. Chemical inputs that control workers more vulnerable and exploitable than non- weeds eliminate pulling weeds by hand. Mechanical migrant workers. More recently, the Government of tobacco harvesters eliminate the need to pick leaves Canada introduced open work permits to migrant off the tobacco plants. The leaves are packed into workers and their family members when there are special bins, instead of tying every leaf to a stick for reasonable grounds to believe that the migrant worker drying, and placed into a temperature controlled barn who holds an employer-speciﬁc work permit is for curing (NCSU Libraries, n. d.). Despite such experiencing or is at risk of abuse in the context of changes, tobacco farming remains an art and a skill, their employment (see Government of Canada, 2019). requiring in-depth knowledge and years of experience These arrangements and practices are governed by an to produce a quality product, however, the nature of overriding logic of control and exploitation (Bridi migrant work does not allow workers to develop such 2013; Dyer et al. 2011; Ferguson and McNally 2015; skills. The relation between workers’ productive Goldring and Landolt 2013) that dehumanizes and activity (what they do) and their productive power alienates migrant workers. This is illustrated by the (what they potentially can do) in tobacco farming following comments from two workers: exists at a very low level of achievement. This form of deskilling is referred to by Bauder (2003) as ‘brain I need the money. I have a wife and children abuse’—the non-recognition and underutilization of back home that depend on me. You tell me what the skills and foreign credentials of migrant workers. choice do I have? I have to make whatever The process of devaluation occurs through the insti- money I can (Worker 8). tutional arrangements that guide the SAWP and What can I do? You think I can quit? If I lose this actively weakens the skills that migrant workers job, that’s it; me, my family, my kids, we previously held. become beggars on the street like other beggars Accordingly, migrant workers in tobacco produc- (Worker 3). tion are in the truest sense appendages in the machine. This may be demonstrated by the division of labor. The mechanization and introduction of chemical The designing, planning, decision-making, and coor- inputs in the tobacco industry in the late 1950s dinating of the various aspects of tobacco production replaced nearly every step in the tobacco growing is done, for the most part, by the farmers. For example, process with new technological innovations. The the farmers make decisions about the purchase of

123 GeoJournal supplies (e.g., seeds, pesticides), maintenance and/or our opinion…I don’t care, I just do what the boss replacement of equipment, labor requirements, the says (Worker 12). coordination and management of tasks, tobacco auc- The boss makes all the decisions…we meet in tioning, and so on. Workers are employed for only part the morning, he tells us what we will be doing of the growing season mostly performing manual work that day…we don’t have a choice about what we such as operating equipment, heavy lifting, applica- are going to do (Worker 9). tion of pesticides and insecticides, and so on. The work is highly fragmented and simpliﬁed, creating skills After a while the work makes you numb, it’s that are easily reproducible and substitutable (Bridi mindless…I’m young now, but what will happen 2015). The goal is to create and sustain a temporary to me when I’m older and I can’t do the hard migrant workforce that is differentiated from the work? (Worker 6). citizen workforce, whose everyday life and longer- I hate the work I do. Sometimes I go crazy…I get term expectations are so degraded that they can often a lot of headaches from the stress of it all. I don’t be viewed and treated as disposable (Ferguson and really want to do this job (Worker 13). McNally 2015). This sentiment was expressed by the farmers and the workers. This adversely affects the health of workers either directly or indirectly on two intimately connected The workers are here today gone tomorrow, so dimensions: physical and psychosocial. According to there is no point in them getting involved in the Crinson and Yuill (2008: 464), ‘‘The direct conse- entire business…they are on a need-to-know quences relate to the cumulative physical damage to basis (Farmer 2). individuals, and the indirect relate to the emotionally We hire the workers to do a lot of the hands-on stressful as well as the more existential consequences work…this is the toughest part of the of work in an exploitative economic system’’. Here job…they’re only here for a few months and there is an interaction between the physical damage then they’re gone (Farmer 1). that workers endure because of highly exploitative work practices and the psychosocial distress that We’re here only a short time and many workers workers experience because of their separation from will not come back, so there’s no need to get family and friends. The following comments from involved in everything that happens around here workers provide stark examples. (Worker 11). The ﬁrst couple of months were depressing. My We’re hired to do the back-breaking work, body was aching and I felt tired all the time and nothing else really, and then we’re gone (Worker did nothing except sleep and work (Worker 15). 4). The work is horrible and at the same time you The highly repetitive character of the productive tasks have no one to go to at night. I mean I’m alone and the lack of control over what workers do and how away from my family and my friends and I feel they do it does not require the full application of their lonely (Worker 8). individual skills and experiences or does so in a limited and narrow way. Instead of developing the A link can be established between the alienation of productive potential of each individual worker, the workers from their productive activity and alienation production process in tobacco farming consumes these from the product they produce. Workers are alienated powers without replenishing them and leaves the from the product they produce because they do not use workers that much poorer (Ollman 1976). The it for their own subsistence or to engage in further following comments from four workers reveal their productive activity. In this sense, the product exists sense of meaninglessness, powerlessness, and normal- outside the worker, as something alien. Workers ness because of working in tobacco farming. cannot lay claim to the very thing that they produce, because it is the property of another. Moreover, given They [farmer and his family members] assume that the workers may not return for another work term we don’t know anything, so they don’t ask for or if they do return may not be employed in tobacco

123 GeoJournal farming, the product they produce becomes a means to You can’t trust anyone around here, as soon as an end (a paycheque) rather than an end itself. Two someone has a chance they’ll go behind your workers put it this way. back and tell the boss about you (Worker 8). Boss says that we make the best tobacco, but It’s like any other job, you know, only the best what do I care, I just work for a few months and people have the chance to stay on and make then I get my money and I go (Worker 6). money, so in a way I am not here to make friends (Worker 3). I don’t care about what I plant here, doesn’t really matter to me, just give me my money and I hate the boss because he gives me trouble I’m gone (Worker 3). sometimes…he does not care much about me…if I die tomorrow you think he cares Workers are also subservient to the product they (Worker 11). produce, which may contribute to their own detriment. Here there is an inversion of the relation of the worker Well, no one really thinks much of the boss you to the product. Workers do not control the product, but know, like any job, all he cares about is money the product controls the workers. As a result, the (Worker 9). interaction between workers and their product The tensions that arise among workers and farmers becomes one of total adjustment on the part of the are intensified by a discourse that is generated about former to the requirements and demands of the latter. migrant workers in Ontario, Canada through the print There was a sense during my interviews that workers media (Bauder 2008a, b). First, although migrant felt the product took precedence over their lives and workers are viewed as a necessary aspect of the well-being. This is indicated by the following economy because they provide labour power for the comments. agricultural sector, this is undergirded by the view that Boss does not care about anything except the they are particularly suited for such work where they tobacco, so we work like animals, I don’t know are in their ‘natural’ environment, and take pleasure in how else to describe it (Worker 11). the transiency and seasonality of the SAWP. Second, print media reports most frequently focus on migrant After a while you start hating everything, I mean workers in relation to accidents, unruliness, and you get fed up, I feel like the only important unlawful activity. This suggests that migrant workers thing is how much work we do and how much are a social problem and a burden on Canadian society. tobacco we produce (Worker 4). Such narratives make it increasingly difficult for No one cares about me…what they care about is migrant workers to integrate into local communities making money…if I am here or I am not here, who where they might claim social rights, privileges, and a cares, what matters is the tobacco (Worker 2). sense of belonging. Third, the SAWP is viewed as an effective foreign aid program because it allows The alienation of workers from their fellow workers migrant workers to remit their income directly to their and the farmers occurs in relation to the alienation of families. This enables their families to come out of workers from their productive activity and their poverty, improve their standard of living, have access product. The interconnected processes of production to an education, invest in a business, increase their and reproduction in which workers not only reproduce level of consumption (e.g., purchase electronics), and themselves as workers by producing a product, but so on. Migrant workers are represented as ‘selfless also reproduce their social relations with other work- fathers’ that make the necessary ‘sacrifices’ to ers and with the farmers are necessarily antagonistic improve the well-being of their families back home. because of competing interests between workers and Such perceptions legitimate the highly exploitative between workers and the farmers (Bridi 2015; labor practices, cultural disintegration, and the tem- Choudry and Thomas 2013; Coe 2013). This results porary work arrangements of the SAWP (Bauder in the alienation of workers from each other and from 2008a, b). the farmers as demonstrated by these statements. These narratives are further exacerbated by the institutional arrangements and bureaucratic practices 123 GeoJournal that guide the agricultural industry more generally and At the completion of the work term, farmers evaluate the SAWP more specifically. For example, in Ontario, the workers. The respective governments subse- Canada all agricultural workers including workers quently collect the written evaluations. Workers that participating in the SAWP are denied the right to earn the approval of the farmers may be requested to collective bargaining, reducing the prospects of return for a future work term. Workers that do not earn improving working and living conditions. Working the approval of their employer are relocated to another and living conditions as well as labor relations are employer or suspended from the program (Basok negotiated between the workers and the representative 2002; Binford 2013). The result of this practice is an consulates. Any disputes are dealt with by the atmosphere of competition among workers to secure consulate agents and attempts are made to resolve another work term. The tensions over these issues grievances at the scale of the farm between the arose during interviews with workers. workers and the farmers (Preibisch 2010). This Only the best workers are guaranteed to come arrangement often results in preferential treatment in back…I must try to outdo some of the other favour of the farmers at the expense of the workers, workers (Worker 5). which creates unresolved tensions. Such issues were raised by two workers. Some of the other workers can do more, they drive the tractor, or they drive the truck…so When I first started in the program the consulate maybe he won’t ask me to return…if you want to said if I have a problem they will help me resolve come back you can’t be the weakest worker it, but they don’t do anything if you com- (Worker 7). plain…all they care about is keeping the boss happy (Worker 9). Some of the workers try to be the best worker…I don’t like the atmosphere, some will do anything If we have a problem and we go to the consulate to just make sure they come back (Worker 11). nothing happens, they don’t help us, they only help the boss (Worker 11). The parameters of the employment contract and the organizational structure of the SAWP have significant Moreover, the farmers may terminate employment influence on the living conditions of migrant workers. at-will (for good cause, or bad cause, or no cause), Workers often felt neglected by their representative resulting in immediate deportation without an oppor- consulates. In cases where workers had legitimate tunity for appeal. The threat of loss of employment and concerns about working conditions, they often thought deportation intensifies the profound vulnerability of that the interests of the farmers and the SAWP took workers. Some workers had their employment termi- precedence over their interests. Moreover, the over- nated and were deported for a variety of reasons hanging threat of terminating employment and depor- including: refusing unsafe work, getting sick, getting tation combined with evaluation forms that are injured, underperformance, or no longer being needed collected by the representative governments ensure a (Lenard and Straehle 2012; Preibisch 2010). This highly disciplined workforce with little wiggle room power differential between the rights of farmers and in terms of ameliorating working conditions. Indeed, those of workers further sharpens the divisions among such conditions intensify the alienating experiences of them. This is exemplified by the following comments. migrant workers. There was one guy who stood up to the boss and the Mexican consulate got involved and they couldn’t resolve it so that was it for him, they Conclusion sent him right back to Mexico (Worker 7). The findings from the study contribute to the existing One time the boss was angry, he started yelling at academic literature on alienation, the SAWP, and us saying we were lazy, we should be happy we labor geography in several ways. The orientation of have a contract. Sometimes there is no pleasing classic studies on alienation to primarily the realm of the guy (Worker 8). philosophy has resulted in significant theoretical insights that, for the most part, have been abstract 123 GeoJournal with little engagement in concrete reality. I draw on Migrant workers participating in the SAWP are in the philosophical concept and make it operational as a notoriously labor-intensive, low-wage, non-union research problematic. I demonstrate that the concept employment with limited and uneven claims on social has merit for understanding the alienation of migrant services in an industry where they are vulnerable to agricultural workers. Workers are alienated from their significant medical costs. In some cases, they are paid productive activities. The relation between what less than the legal minimum wage, are frequently workers do and what they potentially can do exists at unpaid for overtime hours, and have costs for a very low level of achievement. The highly frag- employer-provided housing deducted directly from mented and simplified work creates skills that are their paychecks. The goal is to create and sustain a easily reproducible and substitutable. This adversely temporary migrant workforce that is differentiated affects the physical and psychosocial well-being of from the citizen workforce, whose everyday life and workers. Workers are alienated from the product they longer-term expectations are so degraded that they can produce because they cannot use it for their own often be viewed and treated as fully disposable. subsistence. The interaction between workers and the Disposability involves the devaluation and degrada- product is one of adjustment on the part of the former tion of waged labor in the workplace, highlighting the to the requirements and demands of the latter. In this multiple sites of capitalism’s essential impulse to treat sense, the product takes precedence over the workers’ labor power as merely a commodity. The more lives. Workers are alienated from their fellow workers desperate, anxious and insecure workers are, the more and farmers. This is due to competing interests that pit susceptible they are to exploitation. This has facili- workers against workers and workers against farmers. tated the construction of neoliberal forms of migrant In addition, I develop an understanding of alien- worker precariousness, which contribute centrally to ation as the interrelationship between workplace the reorganization of the global labor market in ways dynamics and broader social processes in the geogra- that facilitate the reproduction of capital at the expense phy and political economy of capitalism. The SAWP of the reproduction of the working class (Ferguson and and Mexico’s and Jamaica’s deregulated labor McNally 2015). regimes link migrant workers with Canadian farmers. The findings from the study bring me back to the Although migrant workers participating in the SAWP poignant statement by Harvey (2014: 220 italics in are afforded various rights and privileges, they original) regarding alienation as a ‘‘dangerous, if not experience some barriers accessing them. Accord- potentially fatal’’ contradiction of capitalism that ingly, they constitute a vulnerable and hyper-precar- evokes the anger of workers. This has been demon- ious section of the working class. Their heightened strated globally as workers increasingly struggle for insecurity is a deliberate social policy that contributes just wages, job security, and humane working condi- to the lowering of general levels of real wages and job tions. For example, in 2019 there were 25 major strikes and social protections. These arrangements are gov- (1000 or more workers) that idled 425,500 workers in erned by an overriding logic of control and exploita- the US, the largest number in the 2010–2019 decade tion. The SAWP has been effective at promoting (Bureau of Labour Statistics 2020). In France, 1.5 precarious migrant labor by emphasizing temporary million people marched or struck against plans by settlement. This is legally enforced through work Macron to cut pensions. This was the largest strike of permits that are tied directly to employment status, its kind since the 1960s (Torres and Lantier 2019). In restrictions on mobility rights, and the prohibition of India, tens of millions of workers participated in a changes to immigration status. With transiency, sec- nationwide one-day strike to protest the Bharatiya ondary citizenship status, and labor immobility built Jananta Party government’s right-wing policies into their contracts, migrant workers have little (Jayasekera and Jones 2020). In Canada, the recent leverage when it comes to challenging these condi- strike by 3200 workers at the Canadian National tions. This is undergirded by the looming threat of Railway raised concerns regarding dangerous working deportability, which furthers their profound alienation. conditions, long shifts, and high levels of fatigue Not only can they be ejected from employment; they (Martins and Bernardo 2019). Working people every- can also be geographically expelled from the nation- where are intensifying their struggles against austerity, state (Ferguson and McNally 2015). 123 GeoJournal declining living standards, and increasing social Basok, T. (2002). Tortillas and tomatoes: Transmigrant Mexi- inequality. can harvesters in Canada. Montreal: McGuill-Queens University Press. As important as these struggles are, no less Basok, T., & Carasco, E. (2010). Advancing the rights of non- important are the interrelated struggles for migrant citizens in Canada: A human rights approach to migrant workers. The Fair Workplaces, Better Jobs Act, 2017 rights. Human Rights Quarterly, 32, 342–366. (Bill 148) introduced significant changes that address Batnitzky, A., & McDowell, L. (2013). The emergence of an ‘ethnic economy’? The spatial relationships of migrant labor standards for migrant workers, however, further workers in London’s health and hospitality sectors. Ethnic amendments are required. First, eliminate basic and Racial Studies, 36, 1997–2015. workers’ rights exemptions in Ontario that apply to Bauder, H. (2003). ‘‘Brain abuse’’, or the devaluation of migrant workers. Second, enforce mandatory regis- immigrant labour in Canada. Antipode, 35, 699–717. Bauder, H. (2008a). Citizenship as capital: The distinction of tration for recruiters and employers to prevent charg- migrant labor. Alternatives, 33, 315–333. ing migrant workers exorbitant and illegal recruitment Bauder, H. (2008b). Foreign farm workers in Ontario (Canada): fees. Third, allow anonymous complaints and open Exclusionary discourse in the newsprint media. The Jour- work permits to protect migrant workers from repa- nal of Peasant Studies, 35, 100–118. Bello, W. (2009). How to manufacture a global food crisis. triation. Fourth, give migrant workers the right to Global Asia, 3, 15–25. unionize (Migrant Workers Alliance for Change Binford, L. (2013). Tomorrow we’re all going to the harvest: 2017). Fifth, eliminate the segmentation of rights Temporary foreign worker programs and neoliberal and status and provide permanent residency to all political economy. Austin: University of Texas Press. Blackburn, R., & Mann, M. (1979). The working class in the workers that enter the country. The right for migrant labor market. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. workers to live and work where they choose is a Blauner, R. (1964). Alienation and freedom: The factory worker fundamental social right, for which all workers must and his industry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. struggle and do so in opposition to the promotion of Brem, M. (2006). Migrant Workers in Canada: A Review of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Program: Policy Brief. nationalism that pits Canadian workers against other Ottawa: North-South Institute. workers from across the globe. Bridi, R. M. (2013). Labor control in the tobacco agro-spaces: Migrant agricultural workers in South-Western Ontario. Acknowledgements I would like to thank all the participants Antipode, 45, 1070–1089. that made this paper possible. In addition, thank you to all the Bridi, R. M. (2015). Migrant workers in Ontario’s tobacco belt: reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of the An examination of workplace dynamics. Human Geogra- paper. The views and opinions reflected in the paper are solely phy, 8, 54–67. those of the author. Brown, M. (2013). Tobacco’s quiet revival. Available at: https:// www.canadianbusiness.com/companies-and-industries/ tobaccos-quiet-revival/ (accessed 23 January 2019). Buckley, M. (2014). On the work of urbanization: Migration, References construction labor, and the commodity moment. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104, 338–347. Ackroyd, S., & Hughes, J. A. (1992). Data collection in context. Bureau of Labour Statistics (2020) Major Work Stoppages in London: Longman Group UK Limited. 2019. Available at: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ Anderson, P. (1980). Arguments within english marxism. Lon- wkstp.pdf (accessed 30 March 2020). don: Verso. Carswell, G., & De Neve, G. (2013). Laboring for global mar- Angelucci, F., & Conforti, P. (2010). Risk management and kets: Conceptualising labor agency in global production finance along value chains of small island developing networks. Geoforum, 44, 62–70. states: Evidence from the Caribbean and the Pacific. Food Castree, N. (2007). Labor geography: A work in progress. In- Policy, 35, 565–575. ternational Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31, Archibald, W. P. (1978). Using Marx’s theory of alienation 853–862. empirically. Theory and Society, 6, 119–132. Choudry, A., & Thomas, M. (2013). Labor struggles for work- Archibald, W. P. (2009a). Marx globalization and alienation: place justice: Migrant and immigrant worker organizing in Received and underappreciated wisdoms. Critical Sociol- Canada. Journal of Industrial Relations, 55, 212–226. ogy, 35, 151–174. Coe, N. M. (2013). Geographies of production III: Making space Archibald, W. P. (2009b). Globalization, downsizing and inse- for labor. Progress in Human Geography, 37, 271–284. curity: Do we need to upgrade Marx’s theory of alienation? Coe, N. M., & Jordhus-Lier, D. C. (2010). Constrained agency? Critical Sociology, 35, 319–342. Re-evaluating the geographies of labor. Progress in Arthur, C. J. (1986). Dialectics of labor: Marx and his relation Human Geography, 35, 211–233. to hegel. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Cohen, A., & Hjalmarson, E. (2018). Quiet struggles: Migrant farmworkers, informal labor, and everyday resistance in

123 GeoJournal

Canada. International Journal of Comparative Sociology. Hegel, G. W. F. (1977). Phenomenology of spirit. Oxford: https://doi.org/10.1177/0020715218815543. Oxford University Press. Crinson, I., & Yuill, C. (2008). What alienation theory can Hennebry, J. (2008). Bienvenidos a canada´? Globalization and contribute to the study of health inequalities. International the migration industry surrounding temporary agricultural Journal of Health Service, 38, 455–470. migration in Canada. Canadian Studies in Population, 35, Crouch, D. (2001). The art of allotments: Culture and cultiva- 339–356. tion. Nottingham: Five Leaves Publications. Hennebry, J. (2012). Permanently temporary? Agricultural Dyer, S., McDowell, L., & Batnitzky, A. (2011). Migrant work, migrant workers and their integration in Canada. IRPP precarious work–life balance: What the experiences of Study, 26, 1–41. migrant workers in the service sector in Greater London tell Hennebry, J., McLaughlin, J., & Preibisch, K. (2016). Out of the us about the adult worker model. Gender, Place & Culture: loop:(in) access to health care for migrant workers in A Journal of Feminist Geography, 18, 685–700. Canada. Journal of International Migration and Integra- Elden, S. (2001). Politics, philosophy, geography: Henry tion, 17(2), 521–538. Lefebvre in recent Anglo-American scholarship. Antipode, Hennebry, J., & Preibisch, K. (2012). A model for managed 33, 809–825. migration? Re-examining best practices in Canada’s sea- Employment and Social Development Canada (2016a) Annual sonal agricultural worker program. International Migra- labor market impact assessment statistics 2008–2015 pri- tion, 50, 19–40. mary agriculture stream. Available at: https://www.canada. Herod, A. (1997). From a geography of labor to a labor geog- ca/en/employment-social-development/services/foreign- raphy: Labor’s spatial ﬁx and the geography of capitalism. workers/reports/2014/lmia-annual-statistics/agricultural. Antipode, 29, 1–31. html?#h2.15 (accessed 23 January 2019). Herod, A. (2010). Labor geography: Where have we been? Employment and Social Development Canada (2016b) Hire a Where should we go? In A. C. Bergene, S. B. Endresen, & temporary worker through the Seasonal Agricultural H. M. Knutsen (Eds.), Missing Links in Labor Geography Worker Program - overview. Available at: https://www. (pp. 15–28). Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/services/ Hiebert, D. (2000). Alienation. In R. J. Johnston, D. Gregory, G. foreign-workers/hire/agricultural/seasonal-agricultural. Pratt, & M. Watts (Eds.), 2000 The Dictionary of Human html (accessed 23 January 2019). Geography (pp. 19–20). Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Faraday, F., Fudge, J., & Tucker, E. (Eds.). (2012). Constitu- International Sociological Association (2014) Research com- tional labor rights in Canada: Farm workers and the fraser mittee on alienation theory and research RC36. Available case. Toronto: Irwin Law. at: https://www.isa-sociology.org/rc36.htm (accessed 23 Featherstone, D. (2012). Solidarity: Hidden histories and January 2019). geographies of internationalism. London: Zed Books Ltd. Jackson, P., Lowe, M., Miller, D., & Mort, F. (Eds.). (2000). Ferguson, S., & McNally, D. (2015). Precarious migrants: Commercial Cultures: Economies, Practices. Berg: Gender, race and the social reproduction of a global Spaces. Oxford. working class. Socialist Register, 51, 1–23. Jayasekera, D., & Jones, K. (2020). Massive all-India general Feuerbach, I. (1957). The essence of christianity. New York: strike protests Modi’s pro-investor, communalist policies. Harper. Available at: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/01/ Gabriel, C., & MacDonald, L. (2011). Citizenship at the mar- 09/ings-j09.html (accessed 30 March 2020). gins: The Canadian seasonal agricultural worker program Kitchin, R., & Tate, N. J. (2000). Conducting research into and civil society advocacy. Politics and Policy, 39, 45–67. human geography: Theory, methodology and practice. Gallie, D. (1978). In search of the new working class. Cam- Edinburgh Gate: Pearson Education Limited. bridge: Cambridge University Press. Lefebvre, H. (2008a). Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 1, Intro- Goldring, L., & Landolt, P. (2013). Producing and negotiating duction. London: Verso. non-citizenship: Precarious legal status in Canada. Tor- Lefebvre, H. (2008). Critique of everyday life, Vol. 2, Founda- onto: University of Toronto Press. tions for a sociology of the everyday. London: Verso. Gouldner, A. W. (1980). The Two Marxisms. New York: Oxford Lefebvre, H. (2008). Critique of Everyday Life, Vol. 3, From University Press. Modernity to Modernism. London: Verso. Government of Canada, 2019 Regulations Amending the Lenard, P. T., & Straehle, C. (2012). Legislated inequality: Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations: SOR/ Temporary labor migration in Canada. Montreal: McGill- 2019–148. Available at: https://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/ Queen’s University Press. p2/2019/2019-05-29/html/sor-dors148-eng.html (accessed Lichtheim, G. (1982). Marxism, an historical and critical study. 21 August 2019). New York: Columbia University Press. Gregory, E. (2009). Althusser: The detour of theory. Chicago: Lindio-McGovern, L. (2004). Alienation and labor export in the Haymarket Books. context of globalization: Filipino migrant domestic work- Grez, E V E (2018). Mexican Migrant Farmworker Women ers in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Critical Asian Studies, 36, Organizing Love and Work across Rural Canada and 217–238. Mexico. (Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto, Luka´cs, G. (1975). The young hegel. London: Merlin Press. Ontario, Canada). Martins N and Bernardo M (2019) More than 3,000 Canadian Harvey, D. (2014). Seventeen contradictions and the end of National Railway rail workers on strike. Available at: capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/11/18/cn-rail- workers-have-gone-on-strike/ (accessed 30 March 2020). 123 GeoJournal

Marx, K. (1992). Economic and philosophical manuscripts Preibisch, K. (2007). Local produce, foreign labor: Labor (1844). Early Writings (pp. 279–400). London: Penguin mobility programs and global trade competitiveness in Classics. Canada. Rural Sociology, 72, 418–449. Marx, K. (1996). Theses on Feuerbach. In E. Friedrich (Ed.), Preibisch, K. (2010). Pick your own labor: Migrant workers and Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German flexibility in Canadian agriculture. International Migration Philosophy (pp. 82–84). New York: International Review, 44, 404–441. Publishers. Preibisch, K., & Binford, L. (2007). Interrogating racialized Mayell S (2016) Up-rooted Lives, Deep-rooted Memories: global labor supply: An exploration of the racial/national Stress and Resilience among Jamaican Agricultural replacement of foreign agricultural workers in Canada. Workers in Southern Ontario. (Master’s Thesis, McMaster CRSA/RCSA, 44, 5–36. University, Ontario, Canada). Preibisch, K., & Grez, E. E. (2010). The other side of el Otro McDowell, L. (2014). Border crossings: Reflections on lado: Mexican migrant women and labor flexibility in women’s lives in twentieth-century Britain. Gender, Place Canadian agriculture. Journal of Women in Culture and & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 21, 152–173. Society, 35, 289–316. McGrath-Champ, S., Herod, A., & Rainnie, A. (Eds.). (2010). Rajkumar, D., Berkowitz, L., Vosko, L. F., Preston, V., & Handbook of employment and society: Working space. Latham, R. (2012). At the temporary-permanent divide: Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. How Canada produces temporariness and makes citizens McLaughlin, J., Wells, D., Mendiburo, A., Lyn, A., & Vasi- through its security, work, and settlement policies. Citi- levska, B. (2017). ‘Temporary workers’, temporary zenship Studies, 16, 483–510. fathers: Transnational family impacts of Canada’s seasonal Ramsey, D., & Smit, B. (2001). Impacts of changes in the flue- agricultural worker program. Relations industrielles/In- cured tobacco sector on farmers in Ontario, Canada. Ap- dustrial Relations, 72(4), 682–709. plied Geography, 21, 347–368. Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (2017) MWAC calls for Ramsey, D., & Smit, B. (2002). Rural community well-being: stronger labour standards for Migrant Workers. Available models and application to changes in the tobacco-belt in at: https://migrantworkersalliance.org/mwac-calls-for- Ontario, Canada. Geoforum, 33, 367–384. stronger-labour-standards-for-migrant-workers/ (accessed Ramsey, D., Stewart, C., Troughton, M., & Smit, B. (2003). 30 March 2020). Agricultural restructuring of Ontario tobacco production. Mitchell, D. (2011). Labor’s geography: Capital, violence, guest Great Lakes Geographer, 9, 71–93. workers and the post-World War II landscape. Antipode, Reid-Musson, E. (2014). Historicizing precarity: A labor 43, 563–595. geography of ‘transient’ migrant workers in Ontario NCSU Libraries (n. d.) Mechanizing Tobacco Harvesting in tobacco. Geoforum, 56, 161–171. North Carolina between 1945 and 1970. Available at: Reid-Musson, E. (2017). Grown close to home: migrant farm- https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/learning- worker (im) mobilities and unfreedom on Canadian family resources/tobacco.html (accessed 30 March 2020). farms. Annals of the American Association of Geogra- Niewo´jt, L. (2007). From waste land to Canada’s tobacco pro- phers, 107(3), 716–730. duction heartland: Landscape change in Norfolk County Rutherford, T. (2010). De/re-centering work and class?: A Ontario. Landscape Research, 32(3), 355–377. review and critique of labor geography. Geography Com- Ollman, B. (1976). Alienation: Marx’s conception of man in pass, 4, 768–777. capitalist society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Sayer, A. (2010). Methods in social science: A realist approach. Press. London: Routledge. Parks, V. (2014). Enclaves of rights: Workplace enforcement, Sayers, S. (2011). Marx and alienation: Essays on Hegelian union contracts, and the uneven regulatory geography of themes. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. immigration policy. Annals of the Association of American Schmitt, R. (1994). Why is the concept of alienation important? Geographers, 104, 329–337. In R. Schmitt & T. E. Moody (Eds.), Alienation and Social Pechlaner, G., & Otero, G. (2010). The neoliberal food regime: Criticism (pp. 1–19). Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Neoregulation and the new division of labor in North Press. America. Rural Sociology, 75, 179–208. Seeman, M. (1975). Alienation studies. Annual Review of Perry, J. A. (2012). Barely legal: Racism and migrant farm labor Sociology, 1, 91–123. in the context of Canadian multiculturalism. Citizenship Strauss, K. (2013). Unfree again: Social reproduction, flexible Studies, 16, 189–201. labor markets and the resurgence of gang labor in the UK. Pero, R., & Smith, H. (2014). In the ‘‘service’’ of migrants: The Antipode, 45, 180–197. temporary resident biometrics project and the economiza- Sweeney, B., & Holmes, J. (2013). Problematizing labor’s tion of migrant labor in Canada. Annals of the Association agency: Rescaling collective bargaining in British of American Geographers, 104, 401–411. Columbia pulp and paper mills. Antipode, 45, 218–237. Pratt, G. (2012). Families apart: Migrant mothers and the Torres, A., & Lantier, A. (2019). 1.5 million march amid mass conflicts of labor and love. Minneapolis: University of strike in France against austerity and inequality. Available Minnesota Press. at: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/12/06/fran-d06. Preibisch, K. (2004). Migrant agricultural workers and pro- html (accessed 30 March 2020). cesses of social inclusion in rural Canada: Encuentros and Tufts, S., & Savage, L. (2009). Laboring geography: Negotiat- desencuentros. Canadian Journal of Latin American and ing scales, strategies and future directions. Geoforum, 40, Caribbean Studies, 29, 203–239. 945–948. 123 GeoJournal

Valentine, G. (2005). Tell me about.: Using interviews as a Wills, J. (2012). The geography of community and political research methodology. In R. Flowerdew & D. Martin organisation in London today. Political Geography, 31, (Eds.), Methods in Human Geography: A Guide for Stu- 114–126. dents Doing a Research Project (pp. 110–126). Addison Wyatt C (2005) Tobacco growers butt out their farms. Available Edinburgh Gate: Wesley Longman Limited. at: https://www.businessedge.ca/archives/article.cfm/ Walia, H. (2010). Transient servitude: Migrant labor in Canada tobacco-growers-butt-out-their-farms-9890 (accessed 23 and the apartheid of citizenship. Race & Class, 52, 71–84. January 2019). Weiss, R. S. (1994). Learning from strangers: The art and Yuill, C. (2005). Marx: Capitalism, alienation and health. Social method of qualitative interview studies. New York: The Theory and Health, 3, 126–143. Free Press. Wells, D., McLaughlin, J., Lyn, A., & Diaz, A. (2014). Sus- Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with taining North-South migrant precarity: remittances and regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and transnational families in Canada’s seasonal agricultural institutional afﬁliations. program. Just Labour, 22, 144–167.

123