Labor trajectories among temporary workers in globalized agriculture (province of Tucumán, Argentina).

GUILLERMO NEIMAN

Toronto

Congreso; XIV Congreso Mundial de Sociología Rural; 2016

Asociación Internacional de Sociología Rural

In Argentina, during the last decades, agriculture has been increasing a permanent and seteady growth for a variety of crops and in different regions of the country (reaching approximately 30 million of cultivated hectares with around 125 million tons of annual production). Among other consequences, this process has not led to a stabilization employment nor to a substantial improvement of the main parameters with which its work quality is assessed. As a matter of fact, temporary work has increased in traditional productions as well as in reestructured productions in the context of ongoing globalization trends.First, this paper describes the internal differences of temporary workforce in agriculture considering largely laborers? personal characteristics as well as specific working conditions. Second, labor trajectories of these these workers are being analyzed according to temporary workers?social origin, age, gender and place of residence (rural or urban). Methodologically, data from a recently implemented household survey of agrarian wage workers, complemented with in-depth interviews to selected workers are the main perspectives and sources of information that have been used. Fieldwork was conducted in the province of Tucuman, located at the northern region of Argentina, where classical productions such as sugarcane coexist alongside with others of more recent expansion as fruit (lemon), soybeans, blueberries and vegetables.