Settlement and Migration under the Global Fresh-Produce Industry: Indigenous Farm Laborers in Baja California, Mexico

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Over the past few decades, there has been a singificant expansion of the fresh-produce industry in northern Mexico. It has been fuled by American demand for fresh vegetables, the expansion of United States agribusinesses in Mexico, and Mexican pro-export agriculture macroeconomic development policies. University of Texas at Arlington anthropologist, Dr. Christian Zlolniski, assisted by graduate student researchers, will examine the impact of these developments on indigenous farmworkers from Southern Mexico who have settled down in this region attracted by employment in commercial agriculture. The research will address three main questions: 1) Has employment in this industry contributed to reduce labor migration of indigenous workers to the United States? 2) To what extent has work in the local fresh-produce industry enhanced the employment stability and economic mobility of indigenous farm laborers? 3) What economic, social, and political resources do these workers and families mobilize to build new communities in this scarcely populated region?Zlolniski and his team will conduct ethnographic fieldwork among Mixtec, Triqui, and Zapotec workers in three squatter settlements in the San Quintin Valley in Baja California. They will employ a variety of research methods, including participant observation and in-depth interviews with ethnic leaders and farmworkers in each of these colonias; and semi-structured interviews with a sample of households in each of these settings to examine how settlement has shaped farmworker occupational and economic opportunities, and migration histories (especially, migration to the United States).Export agriculture has become a common economic growth strategy in many developing countries. This project will contribute to social science theory of the relationship between internantional, national, and local economic effects, by examining in depth the costs and benefits of expoert agriculture at the local level in northern Mexico. The study will help policy makers assess the impacts of commercial agriculture in the Mexico/United States border areas, particularly its effects on migration to the United States.