"Everything I Know Is Canada": Migrant Farmworkers and the Making of Homes Across Borders

Canada is wholly reliant on migrant farmworkers who provide cheap labour while being barred from a wide range of rights and services, including pathways to permanent residency (Sharma, 2012; Satzewhich, 1990; Basok, 2002). Whereas most of the research on migrant farmworkers follows a deficit model, my thesis focuses on collective agency by asking: how do migrant farmworkers create a sense of home in Canada while unable to settle permanently in the country? Drawing from interviews and participant observation conducted in Guatemala and Canada, I show how migrant farmworkers exceed the boundaries of the farms where they live and work, forging their own modes of social organization using Indigenous Mayan cultural logic. Framing migrant farmworkers as strategic boundary-crossers, I highlight how they breach farm borders and, through the exchange of ideas across nation-states, inspire new migration journeys.