Reconsidering the "Nature" of Agriculture

Racial Capitalism, H-2A Labor, and Political Ecologies of Extreme Heat in Georgia

Bibliographic Data

ID4879083
AuthorsC Keegan (0000-0002-8227-5555, Texas A&M University, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume113
Issue10
Pages2287-2302
Publication date2023-11-26
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnnals of the American Association of Geographers (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2469-4452 • E-ISSN: 2469-4460
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/24694452.2023.2223607
OpenAlexW4385191194
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited29

This article synthesizes literatures on political ecology and racial capitalism to interrogate the historical development and contemporary conditions of extreme heat and farm labor in Georgia. Challenging the extent to which agriculture is considered “naturally” exceptional as an industry, I argue that ecological volatility has been discursively deployed to justify Georgia’s racialized, devalued agricultural labor regime. Drawing on Du Bois’s concept of “the shadow,” I link early settler anxieties about extreme heat, violent nature, and the ideal settler-subject to current demands for immigrant farm labor through the H-2A temporary agricultural guestworker program. Although the exceptional “nature” of agriculture is overstated, the biophysical realities of extreme heat pose embodied risks for farmworkers who are treated as disposable in a constructed labor system dependent on exposure and vulnerability

Agriculture · Capitalism · Embodied cognition · Political ecology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Racism · Sociology · Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Ecology

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