CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Sperneac-Wolfer, Paul |
|---|---|
| Title | Sistemul Infinit. A Multiscalar Perspective on Romanian Greenhouse Workers in the Austrian Fresh Food Sector |
| Summary | 40% of Austrian vegetables are produced in greenhouses on the outskirts of Vienna. Yielding two out of every three Austrian cucumbers, this scale of production has recently earned Vienna the sobriquet "Cucumber Capital of Austria”. What remains bracketed out in this celebratory narrative is the integral historical role of non-domestic labor therein: since the emergence of greenhouses in the 1980s, some 1000 workers, currently from Romania, have been performing the year-round labor. Currently, greenhouse workers face highly exploitative conditions, encompassing cases of stark underpayment, withdrawal of labor benefits, and disinvestment in accommodation. This MA thesis puts forward two related arguments. First, it ethnographically substantiates the idea that the labor recruitment regime in the greenhouse complex runs on the twofold exploitation of Romanian workers: not only is their labor power subject to value extraction but so are their interpersonal relations. Second, this type of recruitment as a strategy of wealth creation is stabilized through a current scaled arrangement. It operates through the targeted disempowerment of institutional regulation on regional, national, and European scales that renders the monitoring of labor protection highly ineffective. Taken together, both twofold exploitation and regulatory neglect perform a vital role as strategies to sustain the economic resilience of the domestic class of growers in a restructured Austrian Fresh Food Sector at the expense of migrant workers’ rights. This research draws on a) a one-year-long and ongoing ethnographic engagement with Romanian greenhouse workers; b) a workplace ethnography based on a four-month employment and residency in a greenhouse; c) interviews with relevant institutions (Labor Unions, NGOs, and Chamber of Agriculture); d) extensive analysis of relevant policy documents (Austrian Parliamentary debates, European Council). By examining my material from a perspective that is sensitive to history, social reproduction, and scale, this thesis both critically engages and thereby contributes to the literature that a) examines the current migration agriculture nexus in Europe and b) studies Romanian low-wage migration as embedded in European circuits of value creation. |
| Supervisor | Zentai, Violetta; Naumescu, Vlad |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/sperneac-wolfer_paul.pdf |
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