When Food is Finance: Seeking Global Justice for Migrant Workers

Abstract

The steady growth of international labour mobility has been one of the defining features of globalization. Alongside the liberalization of international trade, labour mobility has been a key dynamic propelling economic development in the new millennium. In recent years, migrant labour is increasingly regulated via temporary schemes, deepening and widening migrant precarity. This paper argues that a growing reliance on temporary migrant workers reflects the financialization of global agriculture. Drawing on conceptual debates among scholars of critical finance studies, migration governance and food systems, it explores the implications of financialization for social justice work, asking how a systemic understanding of the migrant experience with financial institutions and practices might enhance rights-based advocacy.

Keywords

• financialization
• assetization
• global food system
• farm worker migration
• global governance of labour migration
• advocacy