Bodies and Documents: The Material Impact of Collaborative Information- Sharing Within the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

This study examines information-sharing practices within the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP), focusing on the program as it is administered within Ontario. I analyze 61 documents for their content, codification of stakeholder relationships, and discourse regarding the program. Documents were selected based on their creation, use, or circulation within Ontario, and based on the likelihood that at least one stakeholder group would look to the document for (what they perceive to be) reliable information. Documents include, for example, SAWP contracts, webpages describing program requirements, and e-pamphlets on workplace safety and accessing services. Document analysis was supplemented by interviews with industry and service provider experts, which guided interpretation of documents’ significance. I argue that documents function as material actors, alongside (and sometimes beyond) human actors, and make physical impact on SAWP bodies and realities. Documents construct and uphold neoliberal structures surrounding the program by contributing to the creation and sustaining of incomplete, labour-centric individuals. Through consistent sharing of narrow, “work” information, and the rare inclusion of more well-rounded, “non-work” knowledge, documents subtly discipline the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable communication. In doing so, material actors (alongside other SAWP actors) perpetuate a foreign worker program which does not consider the varied, complex needs of whole persons but, instead, treats them as disposable labouring bodies.

PENIS CANCER PROFILE IN PATIENTS RESIDENT IN MINAS GERAIS

Introduction: Penile cancer are rare neoplasms, being more frequent in men aged 50 years or older, although it may affect men of any age. Unfavorable socioeconomic conditions, poor intimate hygiene, HPV infections, among others, are risk factors for this type of cancer. Objective: To know the profile of penile cancer in patients living in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Methods: A descriptive study of quantitative approach was conducted through data from patients diagnosed with penile cancer in hospital records of the José Alencar Gomes da Silva National Cancer Institute (INCA). Results and discussion: In the period from 2015 to 2019, 573 diagnoses of penile cancer were recorded in the database of the José Alencar Gomes da Silva National Cancer Institute (INCA). Conclusion: Men aged between 50 and 74 years, married, brown and with incomplete high school were identified, the main occupation was agricultural worker. It is essential that in order to face this problem, men's health is considered routinely and systematically in the routine health services.

Sentenced for the season: Jamaican migrant farmworkers on Okanagan orchards

Despite perfunctory characterisation of Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) as a ‘triple win’, scholars and activists have long admonished its lack of government oversight, disrespect for migrant rights and indentureship of foreign workers. This article contends that the SAWP is predicated upon naturalised, deeply engrained and degrading beliefs that devalue Black lives and labour. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic fieldwork in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, it reveals the extent to which anti-Black racism permeates, organises and frustrates workers’ lives on farms and in local communities. It situates such experiences, which workers characterise as ‘prison life’, in the context of anti-Black immigration policy and the workings of racial capitalism. This ethnography of Caribbean migrants not only adds perspective to scholarship hitherto focused on the experiences of Latino workers, but it also reinforces critical work on anti-Black racism in contemporary Canada.

Labour Reconversion from the Agricultural Sector to Rural Tourism: Analysis of Rural Areas in Chile

The aim of this study is to analyse the likelihood of agricultural workers in rural areas converting to the tourism sector. Chile is used as a case study, drawing on the CASEN survey of 2017 to analyse differences between the northern, central, and southern regions of the country and construct a satellite account of tourism. A matching process was carried out within the data, and the estimation of a logit model was done to assess the probability of labour reconversion. The results indicate that an agricultural worker has a 12.8% probability of retraining. However, differences emerged when demographic characteristics were analysed; specifically, people with post-secondary education and women have a higher probability of retraining. These and other sociodemographic characteristics are important to explain potential labour reconversion towards tourism in rural areas, although differences arose between areas of the country. Therefore, homogeneous public policies that do not consider the specific characteristics of the territories within a country will be ineffective.

Good Enough to Work, Not Good Enough to Stay : A Review of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

This critical literature review examines the ways in which the agricultural sector in Canada has changed from small family farming to largely mechanized and consolidated farms thus requiring the need for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). It also finds that the program was created not only for economic but also for political reasons and it continues to function for both economic and political motivations. Since the program's inception, there has been a shift from permanent to temporary migration in many industries in Canada because foreign temporary workers such as those involved in the SAWP, labour under unfree conditions making them a reliable and disposable workforce. The denial of citizenship status to seasonal agricultural workers serves to maintain their vulnerable position in the Canadian workforce. Finally it is revealed that the program is primarily beneficial for the Canadian Government and Canadian employers. Workers and sending countries receive an economic benefit from the program as well, however this impact is much more significant for the Canadian state.

Protection of Nationals Abroad : The Mexican State and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers in Canada

Due to the adverse economic conditions in Mexico and the need for offshore labour in Canadian agriculture, Mexico entered the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) in 1974 as a source country, becoming the country that exports the highest number of agricultural works to Canada. While abroad, these workers have genuine needs that should be addressed by the Mexican government, but unfortunately the Mexican government has failed to provide adequate protection to its nationals. This paper offers an overview of the situation in rural Mexico, the operational aspects of the program and its violations; it identifies the workers' needs and the most important national and international documents that regulate the protection of nationals abroad. This research is a critique of the role of the Mexican government in the protection of the seasonal agricultural workes in Canada, identifying the limitations that the State faces for providing protection to its nationals.

Good Enough to Work, Not Good Enough to Stay : A Review of the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program

This critical literature review examines the ways in which the agricultural sector in Canada has changed from small family farming to largely mechanized and consolidated farms thus requiring the need for the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP). It also finds that the program was created not only for economic but also for political reasons and it continues to function for both economic and political motivations. Since the program's inception, there has been a shift from permanent to temporary migration in many industries in Canada because foreign temporary workers such as those involved in the SAWP, labour under unfree conditions making them a reliable and disposable workforce. The denial of citizenship status to seasonal agricultural workers serves to maintain their vulnerable position in the Canadian workforce. Finally it is revealed that the program is primarily beneficial for the Canadian Government and Canadian employers. Workers and sending countries receive an economic benefit from the program as well, however this impact is much more significant for the Canadian state.