Places in production: Nature, farm work and farm worker resistance in U.S. and Mexican strawberry growing regions

This dissertation argues that place matters in relation to industrial agro-food systems. How it matters is the subject of this dissertation. Drawing the agro-food, labor, migration, and race and ethnicity literatures, this study compares the organization of production and work in two fresh strawberry production regions in the U.S. and Mexico: Watsonville/Salinas, California, and the San Quintin Valley, Baja California, Mexico. Using an agrarian ecologies approach, I explain that constraints and opportunities related to the natural environment and the local labor market influence how agricultural firms carry out their local operations. In response, this context shapes how farm workers resist. This study draws on ethnographic interviews and observations carried out over six months in each location.;In Watsonville/Salinas, I compare Driscoll Berry and Dole Berry where a mild summer climate encourages a prolonged growing season, but labor constraints inhibit strawberry production. Here I point out that Driscoll relies on concessions and migrant networks with mestizo farm workers to maintain its primary labor needs, while Dole maintains an antagonistic relationship with the UFW and their mostly indigenous farm worker base. The story in the San Quintin Valley is quite different. By comparing Driscoll Berry, and Andrew and Williamson, I point out that an acute water shortage constrains how firms organize production. To make up the difference, firms use a labor surplus to increase flexibility within the production process. I explain how Driscoll Berry uses human resource strategies to mold indigenous migrants into loyal farm workers, while I contend that Andrew and Williamson uses repressive strategies to explicitly reinforce control in the fields.;Lastly, this study explains that the organization of production and work in each location shapes how farm workers resist. In Watsonville/Salinas, I explain that ethnic segmentation of the labor market actually fragments resistance. Mestizos, who are mostly settled and well integrated into the labor market, chose to address issues that limit their integration into U.S. society, while indigenous migrants, who work at the margins of the local labor market, organize through the UFW to improve labor conditions in the fields. In the San Quintin Valley, a repressive labor market keeps indigenous farm workers from addressing unjust labor conditions. Instead, farm workers organize within their pan-ethnic colonias to contest unequal access to water, and as a device for building community-based worker solidarity.