Making camp: Social reproduction in temporary agricultural labour

This article examines how a group of Mexican male agricultural guestworkers in the United States manage their basic needs and transform their labour camp into something resembling a home. These efforts do not happen automatically, but instead require cooperation and innovation under challenging circumstances, including gruelling work requirements, rudimentary housing and separation from family and friends. Detailing these quotidian activities offers important insight into the expanding temporary farm labour programme. Drawing from a ten-year ethnographic study of H-2A visa-holders, the article shows how shared housing and repeat migration permit the apple pickers to establish routines, amass resources and build relationships with co-workers that improve their situation and help meet the men’s physical, financial and social needs. In contrast to locals who must also prepare themselves to work, the guestworkers are ‘doing reproduction’ under a visa system that restricts mobility and demands compliance if they wish to return. These camp-making practices reflect and entrench a temporary labour programme that deliberately limits social reproduction in the service of production.