Scarce, suffering, saved: farm automation as digital saviourism

In this article we trace the complex ways in which farmworkers are characterised by technology promoters in the digital moment; as anxiety-provoking absences, relics of a cruel soon-to-be-past, and as fortunate beneficiaries of industrial, upskilling hygiene. Contributing to debates on labour and automation within the future of work, we argue that Silicon Valley’s mission to bring automation into the fields is a form of ‘digital saviourism’ that morally justifies new technology while evading direct participation by its presumed beneficiaries, in this case farmworkers. Using event ethnography accompanied by 26 in-depth interviews with agricultural-technology (ag-tech) investors, entrepreneurs and tech-positive growers in California, we analyse the discursive framing of farm labour in a rapidly digitising industry. While genuine in their concern for human dignity, the digital saviourism exhibited by the ag-tech’s boosters makes clear that farmworkers figure merely as subjects and rarely if ever as agents in the process of socio-technical change. We highlight how digital saviourism plays on forms of racialisation which have long characterised the agricultural sector, indicating that novel technologies are likely to perpetuate existing inequalities. We also show that while the language of digital saviourism is largely used to shore up capital, it also signifies a novel, indirect attempt to attract and keep farmworkers in the fields amid uncertainty over their supply. The digital saviourism frame thus serves dual functions, evading direct farmworker support while underscoring the industry’s continued reliance on farmworker labour to operate proposed technologies.