Local Food, Foreign Labour: A Multi-Sited Ethnography of the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in Nova Scotia, Mexico, and Jamaica

This project examines the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), a low-wage guest worker program, in an understudied and less populated region of Canada. Our main objective is to produce an in-depth ethnographic study about how, why, and to what effect, both locally and transnationally, farms in Nova Scotia rely on guest worker programs, including the ways in which the SAWP is experienced by workers’ non-migrant kin in Mexico and Jamaica. Although there is excellent research on SAWP, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia where the majority of SAWP workers are employed, relatively little is known about the successes and challenges of SAWP in Nova Scotia (Horgan & Liinamaa 2016, 2017). Our goal is to fill this knowledge gap, and to advance the study of guest worker programs to include questions about livelihoods, the effects of SAWP among non-migrant kin, and the interaction of such programs with local farms and food movements. As part of this project, we carefully consider the challenges and perspectives of farmers in the region who rely on the program.  Additionally, our project will train and mentor student researchers in Nova Scotia, Mexico and Jamaica; enhance research networks between the three countries; and communicate key findings to researchers and SAWP stakeholders, as well as foster more nuanced discussion about local food systems that rely on guest worker programs. 

Funding Partner: SSHRC Insight Grant (2019-2024)

Principal Investigator: Dr. Elizabeth Fitting
Co-Investigator: Dr. Catherine Bryan
Collaborators: Dr. Anne Galvin, and Dr. María de Lourdes Flores Morales,
Research Assistants: Yessenia Alvarez Anaya, and Zoe Etni Castell Roldán