ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author constructs micro-universes to interrelate the activities in different work spaces: fields, greenhouses, administrative offices and packing houses. A study of microlocalities has two ends: to identify how workers appropriate the workplace and to understand the flexibility with which those spaces are transformed on the job. Tomato work is both an economic category and an epistemological/cultural construction. Contemporary analyses of agricultural production focus on globalization and relocalization. To show the relevance of current globalizing trends, van der Ploeg proposes that the actual submission of agriculture to agribusiness, and to capital in a general sense, would be unthinkable if not accompanied or preceded by a contemporary disconnection of farming activities from the local sets of social relations of production. Cultivation practices changed drastically on farms that had recently installed drip irrigation systems; now some spraying and fertilizer applications came directly through those systems and were controlled by a crew of four workers and head laboratory personnel.
