Farmers on the Move: Investigating the Multinational Trajectories of Agricultural Workers
Thu, 27 Jun
|Room 711, Building 19, Waseda University
Who are the future farmers of the world and where will they come from? Wealthy nations have long relied on migrant farmers, establishing guest worker programmes and special visa regimes to bring in workers from countries in the Global South.
Date and Venue
27 Jun 2024, 15:00 GMT+9
Room 711, Building 19, Waseda University, Japan, 〒169-0051 Tokyo, Shinjuku City, Nishiwaseda, 1-chōme−21−1 早稲田大学 西早稲田ビルディング
About the Event
Hybrid event: in-person at Waseda University and online via Zoom
Speaker:
Marvin Joseph F. Montefrio, Associate Professor of Social Science, Yale-NUS College
Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Singapore Management University
Abstract:
Increasing demand for food and agricultural labour has raised the urgent question: Who are the future farmers of the world and where will they come from? Wealthy nations have long relied on migrant farmers, establishing guest worker programmes and special visa regimes to bring in workers from countries in the Global South. In this presentation, we argue that contemporary farmers’ mobilities have become much more complex, as advancements in food production increasingly demand labourers with the ability to handle work in large-scale industrial farms. We present preliminary plans to investigate how both immigration policies and industrial agriculture alter the skills required of migrant farmers, reshaping not only how people migrate but where they end up moving. We also seek to determine how such mobilities may have variegated implications on Philippine agrarian life beyond the narratives of de-agrarianisation and de-peasantisation.