Description

The present era is witnessing profound changes in global production and consumption of food. In some respects, this is a continuation of earlier trends. However, in several significant ways, restructuring of global agro-food systems in the contemporary moment appears to be completely new. Concentration and centralization of capital within agriculture is now being reinforced through intensified global competition, innovations in biotechnology and transportation, and the social organization of labor. As a result, we result as daily evidence rapid transformation of agriculture, including decline of subsistence agriculture and proletarianization of independent farmers.

In parallel, these transformations especially in the last five years have unfolded within what can be described as a “polycrisis”: the co-existence and interweaving of multiple crises such as an acute socio-economic crisis, ecological crisis, persisting racial injustice, health-care crisis, the growth and the rapid spread of far-right populism, and the breakdown of international order. Together, these constitutes a colossal crisis of crises that exposes the enduring strength of the capitalist system.

Migrant agrarian workers have been a structural element of the new global agro-food production system, in which they, together with autochthonous women, constitute the most exploited and vulnerable group within agro-business. COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus the indispensability of migrant farm workers in sustaining global agro-food production while revealing the deep contradictions in migrant labour regimes – these migrant agrarian workers were classified as “essential” to national food security, yet they were rendered disposable through restrictive border controls and temporary migrant labour programs.

Scholarship emerging in the wake of the pandemic has laid bare the role of the state in facilitating the expropriation and exploitation of migrant labour and, thereby advancing the spread of agricultural racial capitalism that Manjapra (2018) defines as agriculture production derived from the unfree labour of racialized farmworkers. Research has also documented heightened consciousness among migrant farmworkers during this period, which has resulted in solidarities, mobilization of cross- racial and cross-national alliance building, unionizing, and informal and everyday resistances enacted against their exploitation and racialized migrant precarity.

There was a widespread anticipation that the momentum of such resistances and solidarities would persist, post pandemic, to generate momentum to contest bordering regimes and propose alternatives against labour exploitation in the agriculture sector.

The proposed volume focusses on migrant farmworker resistances in the last five years of the polycrisis. It seeks contributions that examine the roots and forms, evolution and role, consequences and prospects of solidarities, alliance building, and resistances against the exploitation, control, and precarization of racialized migrant labour. The volume's larger goal is to provide a platform for dialogue among academics, activists, artists, migrant workers and indigenous populations on practices of resistance and self-advocacy to reclaim labour rights and propose alternatives to agricultural racial capitalism. Among other, the volume invites submission on questions such as:

• Has the promise of heightened consciousness among migrant workers and local populations, and, with it, a promise of tangible changes within the global agri-food regimes led to change, either positive or negative?
• How has migrant farmworker resistance evolved or adapted?
• What new alliances have emerged or brought in new social actors to facilitate change?
• How has agricultural racial capitalism responded to labour resistance and solidarities and what new strategies of labour exploitation and discipline developed against racialized migrant farmworkers?
• What social infrastructures or local factors facilitate or prevent struggles, including social policies and the role of migrants within them?
• What role does spatiality have in shaping migrant resistance? Do certain spaces of agrarian production inhibit or facilitate collectivities of resistance or not?
• What role does/do temporality-ties such as those of seasonal migration or agricultural season have in contouring migrants’ resistance, solidarities and alliance building?
• Are certain forms of agricultural work more prone to collective action?
• Has the current polycrises led to new forms of gender subordination? In what ways have new forms of gender sequencing and gender segregation in agricultural work shaped consequences for labour resistance?
• Analyze whether struggles produce only immediate material gains (e.g., better salary, housing) or do these generate political and theoretical critiques (e.g., critique of racism, neoliberalism, agricultural racial capitalism)?
• Is there a link/alliance between such migrant resistances with struggles for social rights within specific national contexts and against structural and systemic racism and discrimination? With greater consciousness about exploitative migrant labour regimes and racial discourses, are these linked horizontally to similar struggles across countries or labour sectors?
• In relation to transnational collaboration of resistance against migrant labour exploitation, what factors have facilitated alliance building and what strategies have worked (or not).
• How is organized top-down resistance led by unions or other structured groups different than organic, grassroots mobilizations led by migrant workers and how do these fare in effectiveness of strategies and coalition building?

Significantly, the volume endeavours to examine resistances that either failed or got co-opted by agricultural racial capitalism. What led to the failure of migrant resistance or in the erosion of solidarity among migrant farmworkers? What lessons do such instances hold for racialized migrants, migrant rights groups and activists as they mount struggles against exploitative migrant labour regimes?

Call for Chapter Submissions

With the edited volume’s aim to provide critical insights, diverse perspectives, and creative approaches about migrant farmworker resistance, we invite scholars, researchers, writers, and creative artists to contribute original works, empirically grounded studies, and theoretical essays to the volume. We encourage non-traditional scholarly contributions that include creative performing arts, expressions of resistance such as poetry, short stories, photo essays, or participatory creative research methods such as photovoice.

Submission process and deadlines

If you are interested in contributing, please submit an abstract of 500 words, a 200-word biographical note with current affiliation and email address, and an updated CV (all as Word docs),

by 30 September 2025.

Please include “migrant agricultural workers resistance CfA” submission in the subject line. The abstract should state the research question addressed in the proposed article, outline the theoretical framework, and state the article’s main argument.

Please email the abstract and all queries to Eriselda Shkopi (eriselda.shkopi@unive.it), Reena Kukreja (reena.kukreja@queensu.ca), and Fabio Perocco (fabio.perocco@unive.it)

Editors

• Dr. Reena Kukreja, Queen’s University, Canada
• Dr. Eriselda Shkopi, Ca’ Foscari University, Italy
• Dr. Fabio Perocco, Ca’ Foscari University, Italy

Proposed publisher

• Routledge (The Mobilization Series on Social Movements, Protest, and Culture)

Keywords

migrant labour, resistance, agriculture