Thirteenth International Conference on Food Studies

Abstract

This study analyzes why multinational meatpacking companies are increasingly opening facilities in remote, rural areas of the US where there are few workers. The authors explore how companies in this industry subordinate racialized “outsiders” and use immigration law to support both wage and worker subordination, thereby incorporating harm and human degradation into the production of food. Conceptually, the project integrates socio-legal understandings of corporate personhood within a framework of settler colonialism to understand the harms to sustainable food production that occur when multinational meatpacking companies use rural US land to accomplish their economic goals. The politics of place in this framework are key for identifying how labor strategy and immigration policy are related to industry-wide pressures involving land use, wealth extraction, and the social stratification of workers. Methodologically, the project bridges ethnographic work with meatpacking workers in rural communities, participatory research with immigration rights organizations, and interviews and ethnography in corporate meatpacking spaces where executives articulate the industry’s goals. Two specific places—southeast North Carolina and southwest Minnesota—constitute the research sites due to their similarities (high meatpacking job density) and their distinctiveness (region, racial and ethnic population, and typical land use). Conducting research in these two regions allows for the comparison of industry strategies and the experiences of those whose livelihoods are shaped by those strategies. The project includes an evidence-based and conceptually innovative assessment of the human costs of a major food supply, and considers the implications for the integrity and sustainability of animal protein production.

Presenters

Ivy Ken
Associate Professor, Sociology, WGSS, Public Policy, George Washington University - District of Columbia, District of Columbia, United States

Kenneth Sebastian Leon
Assistant Professor, Latino and Caribbean Studies; Criminal Justice, Rutgers, United States