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- Title
Isolation and Interaction in Temporary Agricultural Labor.
- Authors
Trouille, David
- Abstract
This article examines how isolation and the seasonality of employment both constrain and enable agricultural guest workers' contact with outsiders. While the H-2A visa program can render foreign workers invisible and immobile—and thus more easily exploited and mistreated—a group of temporary Mexican apple pickers in northwest Virginia generated resources, transportation, and assistance well beyond what was provided by the company or mandated by visa protocol. The conditions and processes highlighted in this study provide a framework for identifying factors that may diminish—or enhance—the relative autonomy of guest workers. In this case, a history of return migration and the presence of co-ethnics in the settled population generated an unexpected flow of activity in and out of the remote camp. While not automatic or without limitations, these connections provided a more open and dynamic guest-worker experience than what a singular focus on isolation and exclusion would otherwise suggest.
- Subjects
VIRGINIA; AGRICULTURE; FOREIGN workers; RETURN migration; AGRICULTURAL laborers; AD hoc organizations; AGRICULTURAL sociology; EMIGRATION &; immigration; REPRODUCTIVE isolation; SOCIAL isolation
- Publication
Qualitative Sociology, 2023, Vol 46, Issue 3, p329
- ISSN
0162-0436
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11133-023-09541-x