Dioquis: Being without doing in the migrant agricultural labor process

Abstract

Being on call without being on the clock is an important but underappreciated source of insecurity among low-wage workers. Drawing on fieldwork with 20 agricultural workers of the Texas-Mexico border region, this paper identifies several stages where workers are made to wait without pay and links these stages to economic precarity. These intervals occur at the local bus station, a hub for recruitment and departure, at home in both the US and Mexico, during travel to distant work sites, and in seasonal lodging. Workers use the Spanish colloquial term ‘ dioquis’, which they define as ‘being without doing’, to describe such uncertain periods of waiting which are required for them to work. Through dioquis, a liminal state, employers displace industry risk onto workers, leading to long-term instability. Expanding the implications of dioquis, the paper reveals the significance of temporal uncertainty for the marginalized across other contexts of work and waiting.