ABSTRACT

Winner of the 'Casa Chata Award' for the Best Book of 1994 (Spanish edition)In charting the paradoxical effects of power and knowledge on the everyday life of subordinate people, this book offers a major rethinking of domination and the agricultural labor process. Challenging the belief that ethnography is theoretically weak, the author provides a fresh perspective on rural workers' responses to the development of transnational production systems and the transformations of agrarian structures brought about by the complex interactions of global and local forces. In questioning ingrained assumptions about worker consciousness, the author exposes the naivete of past approaches and the role of power and hegemony in the micro-politics of human relations. This book is obligatory reading for anyone interested in current debates about "resistance," development, and the future of rural societies.

chapter |8 pages

Introduction

chapter Chapter One|19 pages

Searching for New Ways of Understanding Farmworkers

chapter Chapter Three|49 pages

Tomato Work

chapter Chapter Five|31 pages

On Workers’ Power and Skills

chapter Chapter Six|25 pages

The Force of Irony and the Irony of Power

chapter |7 pages

Epilogue: Who Are They?