ABSTRACT
This chapter describes writing and numerical calculations taking place in Mexico’s agricultural fields. It shows how migrant working families use literacy and numeracy to keep track of their debts to the company store and register their tallies of picked produce. The analysis centers on the strategies families use to control (and challenge) their debts and assure fair payment for their work. Findings reveal that the so-called non-literate and non- numerate have complex literacy and numeracy practices finely tuned to their conditions of production, and how they articulate social knowledge, memorization techniques, face-to-face interaction with writing to record their calculations and defend themselves when necessary.
