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Despite perfunctory characterisation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘triple win’, scholars and activists have long admonished its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. This article contends that the SAWP is predicated upon naturalised, deeply engrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic fieldwork in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, it reveals the extent to which anti-Black racism permeates, organises and frustrates workers’ lives on farms and in local communities. It situates such experiences, which workers characterise as ‘prison life’, in the context of anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. This ethnography of Caribbean migrants not only adds perspective to scholarship hitherto focused on the experiences of Latino workers, but it also reinforces critical work on anti-Black racism in contemporary Canada.
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Over the past century, the Okanagan Valley's social, economic, and physical landscape has been largely shaped by the region's agricultural industry. Within this landscape migrant farmworkers have an essential role, yet are rendered invisible and remain marginalized. This commentary explores migrants' struggle by looking at the intersections of colonialism, race, borders, and the local food economy. We begin with a historical examination of the racialized nature of the region's agricultural labor force, and also provide an overview of the local food economy. Following this, we outline Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) and discuss how the SAWP places migrant laborers in positions of precarity, often resulting in worker isolation and superexploitation. We then turn to the social conditions migrant workers encounter upon arriving in the Okanagan Valley by describing the institutional discrimination they face, as well as the everyday prejudices and aggressions they endure due to their status of being labeled both "foreign" and "temporary." Next we provide a brief explanation of settler colonialism, the imposition of borders, and the common struggles shared by migrant workers and Aboriginal people. Finally, we offer some recommendations for change that would ameliorate some of the challenges migrant workers experience upon arriving in the Okanagan.
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