Migrant Work Exploitation and Resistance in the Italian Countryside: Precarious Lives Between Violence and Agency

This chapter provides a qualitative overview on the forms of exploitation and resistance experienced by migrant workers – women and men - involved into the global capitalist agriculture market, through the analysis of the Italian case. The profound changes experienced by this market during the past thirty years, altogether with the effects of the restructuring of agricultural production and food chains, the lack of fair trade policies, the widespread underpaid employment conditions and the large availability of migrant workforce have had a strong impact on the market. Moreover, the highly exploitative system is further exacerbated by the role played by the illegal gang-master system known as caporalato, which foresees a widespread use of violence, threat and blackmailing practices. As a result this has led to an increased informalisation of work, ethnicization of the labour market, clandestinzation and further racialization of the people involved. Migrants, however, are also increasingly engaged in forms of resistance and activism against these forms of exploitation and violence which actually represents an essential part of the current global capitalist political economy.