TY - JOUR
T1 - Subsidizing farmworker hunger
T2 - Food assistance programs and the social reproduction of California farm labor
AU - Minkoff-Zern, Laura Anne
N1 - Funding Information:
The author wishes to thank all participants in this research who generously gave of their time and thoughts. Many sincere thanks to my advisors Richard Walker, Nancy Peluso, Jake Kosek, Carolyn Finney, and Alison Alkon as well as Lindsey Dillon and Clare Gupta for input on previous versions of this article. This research was funded by a generous grant from Programa de Investigacion de Migracion y Salud (PIMSA) and the Health Initiative of the Americas , The University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UCMEXUS), and The Center for Race and Gender at the University of California, Berkeley .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
Copyright:
Copyright 2014 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2014/11/1
Y1 - 2014/11/1
N2 - Following Marx's theory of social reproduction, I argue that agribusiness benefits from food assistance programs that are available to farmworkers, as they assist workers minimally enough to keep laborers working in the fields, while distracting food assistance providers from the root causes of farmworker food insecurity. These programs simultaneously redistribute excess food that workers have labored over and cannot afford. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on California's Northern Central Coast, I outline how these programs act to reinforce structural food insecurity by ensuring that workers are provided with their most basic food needs. Although such approaches show evidence of providing crucial food for farmworkers in times of need, these programs ultimately allow agribusiness to feed their workers via charity, while maintaining low wages.
AB - Following Marx's theory of social reproduction, I argue that agribusiness benefits from food assistance programs that are available to farmworkers, as they assist workers minimally enough to keep laborers working in the fields, while distracting food assistance providers from the root causes of farmworker food insecurity. These programs simultaneously redistribute excess food that workers have labored over and cannot afford. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on California's Northern Central Coast, I outline how these programs act to reinforce structural food insecurity by ensuring that workers are provided with their most basic food needs. Although such approaches show evidence of providing crucial food for farmworkers in times of need, these programs ultimately allow agribusiness to feed their workers via charity, while maintaining low wages.
KW - Farm labor
KW - Food injustice
KW - Food insecurity
KW - Theory of social reproduction
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U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.08.017
DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2014.08.017
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84907546300
SN - 0016-7185
VL - 57
SP - 91
EP - 98
JO - Geoforum
JF - Geoforum
ER -