Sugarcane Labor Migration in Brazil

This book examines the experiences of seasonal, migrant sugarcane workers in Brazil, analyzing the deep-seated inequalities pervasive in contemporary Brazil. Education, employment, income, health, and relative political power are forefront in this study of the living and working conditions of the transient population. Based on ten years of qualitative research dominated by in-depth interviews with migrant sugarcane workers, this project argues that the ills of the sugarcane industry are symptomatic of an overarching problem of unequal access to opportunities by all Brazilian citizens. The project is unique in its use of a single industry as an expression of the multifarious problems of socioeconomic, regional, and racial inequality. The author explores details of the labor migration experience with a central premise that the conditions are not a direct outcome of the industry, but rather a manifestation of fundamental inequalities rooted in Brazil’s colonial history.

1. Sugarcane Labor in Brazil.- 2. Migration and Internal Colonialism.- 3. The Life and Work of a Manual Sugarcane Harvester.- 4. The Outsider Status of Internal Migrants.- 5. The (Un)Sustainability of Manual Sugarcane Harvesting.

Terry-Ann Jones is Associate Professor of Sociology & Anthropology at Fairfield University, USA. She studies international and domestic migration between and within Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, and Africa. She is currently researching the roots of xenophobia in South Africa.