RACE, LABOUR, AND THE POSTMODERN PLANTATION: JAMAICAN MIGRANT FARMWORKERS IN CANADA’S SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL WORKER PROGRAM by Kirsten Elise Hjalmarson B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2013 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Master of Arts in THE COLLEGE OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) (Political Science/Sociology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Okanagan) June 2016 © Kirsten Elise Hjalmarson, 2016 The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the College of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled: Race, Labour, and the Postmodern Plantation: Jamaican Migrant Farmworkers in Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program Submitted by Kirsten Elise Hjalmarson in partial fulfillment of the requirements of The degree of Master of Arts . Dr. James Rochlin, Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences, UBC Okanagan Supervisor, Professor (please print name and faculty/school above the line) Dr. Ricardo Trumper, Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences, UBC Okanagan Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Dr. Patricia Tomic, Irving K. Barber School of Arts & Sciences, UBC Okanagan Supervisory Committee Member, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Dr. Janet MacArthur, Critical Studies, UBC Okanagan University Examiner, Professor (please print name and faculty/school in the line above) Dr. Mercedes F. Duran, Critical Studies, UBC Okanagan External Examiner, Professor (please print name and university in the line above) June 20, 2016 (Date submitted to Grad Studies) "ii Abstract This ethnographic thesis project critically examines the experiences of Jamaican migrant farmworkers employed in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia via the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). First introduced in 1966, the SAWP is the oldest and longest-standing labour migration regime in Canada and the principal agricultural stream of the federal Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Drawing upon the salient work of numerous activists and scholars who have contended that the SAWP facilitates a form of transnational indentureship by bonding migrant workers to their employers, I argue that the SAWP farm site constitutes a peculiar and totalizing institution that capitalizes on the unfreedom of black labour. I apply critical race theory to situate workers’ experiences of surveillance, immobilization, and hyper- exploitation in addition to their characterization of farm life as “prison life” within a postslavery context. I conclude that only by acknowledging the role of racism and its relationship to the border can we ever hope to truly achieve justice for migrant farmworkers in Canada.# "iii Table of Contents Abstract.................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents..................................................................................................................... iv List of Illustrations.................................................................................................................... vi List of Acronyms...................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements................................................................................................................ viii Dedication................................................................................................................................. x Chapter 1. Introduction.......................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Research context.......................................................................................................... 3 1.1.1. Im/migration and temporary foreign worker programs in Canada......................... 5 1.1.2. Harvesting transnational labour: Making migration ‘work’ for agriculture............ 10 1.1.3. Institutionalizing unfreedom: The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program........... 11 1.2. Study participation and data collection ......................................................................18 1.3. Thesis overview.......................................................................................................... 20 Chapter 2. The colour of exclusion: Race, space, and the everyday.............................. 21 2.1. Race and racism......................................................................................................... 23 2.1.1. Race, state, and migration................................................................................... 28 2.2. Institutional ethnography and the everyday problematic............................................ 34 2.2.1. Reflecting upon my positionality.......................................................................... 37 2.2.2. The Okanagan Valley.......................................................................................... 42 2.2.3. Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture (RAMA)............................................ 46 2.2.4. Study recruitment, participation, and data collection........................................... 49 Chapter 3. Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program.......................................... 53 3.1. Program structure, governance, and administration................................................... 54 3.2. A model program for the world?.................................................................................. 57 3.3. Criticisms.................................................................................................................... 60 3.4. Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 66 Chapter 4. Slavery without the whip: The Okanagan Valley SAWP plantation............... 68 4.1. Surveillance, discipline, and panoptic power.............................................................. 68 4.2. (Un)free labour and the SAWP................................................................................... 70 4.3. Total(izing) institutions and the SAWP farm site......................................................... 77 4.3.1. Farm life as prison life......................................................................................... 79 4.4. The practice of everyday resistance .........................................................................93 Chapter 5. Cultivating justice for migrant farmworkers................................................... 98 5.1. Harvesting freedom for farmworkers.......................................................................... 99 5.2. Nationalized borders and the twenty-first century colour line................................... 104 5.3. Migration and belonging............................................................................................ 110 "iv References.......................................................................................................................... 113 "v List of Illustrations Illustration 1. Covert Farms time sheet, 1966......................................................................... 40 Illustration 2. City of Kelowna coat of arms (www.kelowna.ca).............................................. 44 Illustration 3. RAMA logo (www.RAMAOkanagan.org)........................................................... 47 Illustration 4. Author teaching English with group of Mexican migrant farmworkers in 2013.. 48 Illustration 5. Rules for Jamaican farmworkers posted on the wall of farm dormitory in the Okanagan Valley.............................................................................................. 85 Illustration 6. Dancing with Jamaican farmworkers................................................................ 99 Illustration 7. Jamaican migrant farmworker holding a callaloo plant from his garden in the Okanagan Valley............................................................................................ 102 "vi List of Acronyms AWA Agricultural Workers Alliance BC British Columbia BCFGA British Columbia Fruit Growers’ Association CIC Citizenship and Immigration Canada ESDC Employment and Social Development Canada COEDC Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission HRSDC Human Resources and Skills Development Canada ILO International Labour Organization IOM International Organization for Migration J4MW Justicia for Migrant Workers JMLSS Jamaican Ministry of Labour and Social Security MIPEX Migrant Integration Policy Index NIEAP Non-Immigrant Employment Authorization Policy RAMA Radical Action with Migrants in Agriculture SAWP Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program TMWP Temporary Migrant Worker Program TFW Temporary Foreign Worker TFWP Temporary Foreign Worker Program UFCW United Food and Commercial Workers Union WTO World Trade Organization "vii Acknowledgements While academic tradition requires that I claim sole authorship of this thesis, it would not have been possible without the intellectual and emotional labour of the many teachers, scholars, and organizers whose own writings and activism have inspired and challenged me over the years. I would not be where I am today without my parents, Betty and Leonard Hjalmarson, my first teachers, who taught me that social justice was about relationship. In addition to everything else that loving parents provide, they guided me through