From Invisible to Structural Power to Address Immigrant Farmworkers’ Challenges Through New Assemblages in the U.S. Dairy Industry

Abstract

Latinx immigrant workers on U.S. dairy farms experience multiple challenges. During recent decades, a myriad of stakeholders from the civil society and the food system have worked together to address struggles experienced by immigrant farmworkers and other marginalized groups. Meanwhile, assemblage and governance perspectives have gained the attention of scholars and practitioners addressing power relations and social challenges in the food system. Based on interviews with members of an immigrant organization in Vermont, this study examines how Latinx immigrant farmworkers and their allies created and leveraged opportunities to transform relations of power and address needs and problems through the creation of new assemblages. Results show how members of this organization were able to exercise and transform different forms of power. The construction of new social relationships and assemblages enabled Latinx immigrant farmworkers to transform invisible power into hidden and visible power, leading to structural changes, such as the creation of the first fair food program in the U.S. dairy industry.