Crisis politics and US farm labor: health justice and Florida farmworkers amid a pandemic

Abstract

Globally, farmworkers are among the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout. Longstanding social and spatial inequalities allowed COVID-19 to spread unchecked, propelling a surge in farmworker activism, while the state uses the crisis to rollback worker protections. The politics of this moment are rooted in racialized labor regimes characterized by “imported colonialism”. We use the case of Florida, where farmworker movements have for decades organized for health and justice, to contribute to the global debate on COVID-19, and to show how a deep history of the present can illuminate opportunities and challenges for organizing.