Geography Research Forum

Editorial Introduction: Agriculture Labor Migration in an (Un)changing World

Yahel Kurlander — 2024-04-03

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The Visiting Border Worker’s Card Program in Mexico

Natasha Montes Hernández — 2024-04-01

This paper explores the phenomenon of labor migration on Mexico's southern border, particularly through the Visiting Border Worker’s Card Program. Through the review of bibliographic and statistical sources, it addresses the general characterization of the Mexico-Guatemala border region, and the changes in the policies of issuance and dissemination of documented labor migration. In addition, it explores some of the labor conditions that migrants experience in Mexico, most of the time in situations of great vulnerability. Considering these violations is fundamental to the securitization of this border region and the dissemination of documented migration.

New Forms of Voluntarism in Agricultural Employment: Insights from California

Johanna K. Schenner — 2024-04-04

Employment violations at the bottom of the (food) supply chain are hard to detect and sue for, for a combination of reasons that render farmworkers vulnerable to seeing their rights violated when compared to other food chain workers (especially those higher up in the supply chain, such as waiting staff). To counter this trend, new forms of voluntarism have emerged claiming to tackle employment violations before they even arise. One such effort is the Multistakeholder Initiative (MSI), involving partnerships between different stakeholders, including participants from the private, public or civil society areas. With their numbers proliferating across many sectors featuring low-wage jobs, including agriculture, research studies into how MSIs fare in reaching their goals vary in their assessment. This article provides insights as to how one particular MSI — the Rural Solution Program — fares in its quest to advance conflict resolution mechanisms at a time when farmworkers see their rights violated and employers witness high levels of worker turnaround. The article asks whether it is the MSI itself that accounts for the resolution of conflict or whether other factors contribute to the situation, doing so viewed through the lenses of institutional theory and regulatory space theory. The article is, then, divided as follows: Section One sets the scene by exploring the reasons as to why farmworkers routinely see their rights being violated. Section Two, then, turns to reviewing the rise of new forms of voluntarism in employment relations, before reviewing the effects of certification programs on stakeholders. Section Three introduces the case-study MSI and outlines how the research for this article was conducted. Section Four, subsequently, presents the findings, before these are discussed using the aforementioned analytic framework of institutional theory and regulatory space theory — with particular attention being paid here to concepts of ‘crimmigration’ and ‘immployment’ — in the fifth and final section.

Hotlines, Private Regulation, and Farm Migrant Labor Rights: Effective Grievance Mechanisms and the Role of Accessibility

Kathryn Babineau — 2024-04-01

In the growing world of private regulatory initiatives (PRI) around the globe, the vast majority feature complaint mechanisms, commonly in the form of a hotline. Existing research finds that most PRI hotlines are largely unused by workers, consistent with other findings that many PRIs’ entire monitoring and enforcement structures are ineffective. However, little research exists on the effectiveness of hotlines run by worker-centered PRIs, which studies suggest may be more effective than other types. In this paper, we ask, can worker-led PRIs create effective complaint hotlines? If so, under what conditions are they successful? To answer these questions, we conduct an analysis of call records made to a worker-led PRI operating in the Northeastern U.S. dairy sector, the Milk with Dignity (MD) Program. We consider how the Program’s hotline, which unlike other PRI hotlines is well-utilized, overcomes common barriers to ‘accessibility.’ Accessibility here refers to several challenges that studies have identified in other, seldom-used hotlines, related to hours of operation, language, and mechanisms for reporting complaints. Our research finds that the MD program recognized important technical challenges to hotline usage and addressed access-related roadblocks by (1) improving worker engagement and (2) building a better hotline infrastructure. These findings suggest that future research should further investigate whether worker-led programs effectively address other kinds of commonly-occurring challenges with PRI grievance mechanisms.

Worker Driven Social Responsibility: A Workable Model to Transform Exploitative Labor Markets or a Context-Specific Success?

Yonat Ben-Ozer — 2024-04-01

Worker Driven Social Responsibility (WSR) offers a connection between alternative labor unions and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), to improve the working conditions of vulnerable workers throughout supply chains. This article evaluates whether WSR can be applied in diverse contexts, as its advocates claim. By analyzing three existing WSR projects, it identifies two current models of WSR and points out to several structural characteristics that affect the probability of applying the paradigm in different contexts. It then argues that WSR has better chances to succeed in local supply chains, especially under the direction of a local alt-labor organization. In addition, while heavy regulation and high state involvement may pose substantial obstacles, cooperation with the state may succeed with some adjustments to the model. A significant question mark encircles the possibility of establishing WSR under a temporary migration regime, as none of the examples available operates under such conditions.

Crucial Yet Disavowed: Thai Migrant Farmworkers and Israel’s Migration Regime

Yahel Kurlander — 2024-04-01

Israeli farmers have employed Thai migrants since the 1980s. In this paper, we describe the gradual emergence of an institutionalized and regulated migration regime, characterized by shifting responsibility for the recruitment, placement and discipline of migrants. We argue that these policy shifts, along with the growing number and prolonged presence of Thai workers in Israel, have shaped employment relationships. We describe how these migrants have been denied equal rights and political representation in rural communities and in Israeli society at large. We argue that despite the migrants’ tremendous impact on the social fabric of the Israeli countryside, they are still perceived and treated as a temporary, dispensable and cheap labor force. Our arguments are based on sociological and ethnographic research conducted separately by each of the authors.

Do Thais Eat Dogs? Thai Migrant Workers in Israel and the Dog Meat Eating Myth

Nir Avieli — 2024-04-01

Israelis accuse Thai migrant workers, who make for the bulk of the workforce of Israeli agriculture, for eating the flesh of Israeli pet dogs. However, eating dog meat is unacceptable in Thailand, while the accusations of eating dog meat in Israel have no material support. Why then are Israelis so adamant that the Thai migrant workers systematically hunt and eat their dogs. In this article, based on ethnographic research conducted in Israel’s rural periphery and on critical media analysis, I argue that the dog eating myth has very little to do with the Thai culinary preferences in Thailand or Israel, and was actually formulated by the Israelis so as to relegate the Thais, members of the new global class of cheap laborers, into a specific social position in the Israeli power-structure so as to justify their economic exploitation. Thus, dog meat was singled out as the basis for this derogatory myth because of the meaning and social positions attributed by Israelis to dogs.

Book Reviews

Book Reviewers — 2024-04-01

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