Journal article
Exploring migrants’ knowledge and skill in seasonal farm work: more than labouring bodies
N Klocker, O Dun, L Head, A Gopal
Agriculture and Human Values | SPRINGER | Published : 2020
Abstract
Migrant farmworkers dominate the horticultural workforce in many parts of the Minority (developed) World. The ‘manual’ work that they do—picking and packing fruits and vegetables, and pruning vines and trees—is widely designated unskilled. In policy, media, academic, activist and everyday discourses, hired farm work is framed as something anybody can do. We interrogate this notion with empirical evidence from the Sunraysia horticultural region of Australia. The region’s grape and almond farms depend heavily on migrant workers. By-and-large, the farmers and farmworkers we spoke to pushed back against the unskilled tag. They asserted that farmworkers acquire knowledge and skills over time and ..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
The research reported on in this article was funded by an Australian Research Council Grant (DP140101165). The authors thank our numerous research participants in the Sunraysia region, our bilingual co-researchers, and the following organisations and groups for their involvement in this project: Robinvale Network House; Tree Minders, Robinvale; Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities Council; Mildura Twitezimbere Burundian Community Association; Hazara Community Association Mildura; and Food Next Door Co-operative. We gratefully acknowledge Tess Spaven, Paul Mbenna and Ikerne Aguirre Bielschowsky for providing research assistance.