Appropriated, Segregated, Hierarchised: The Spaces of Migrantised Agroindustry in Mediterranean Europe

Abstract

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Agroindustry, as a contemporary form of agrarian extractivism, extends the technical control frontier via agrochemicals, salarisation, and Fordist work rationalisation, devaluating labour in the process. In Spain, Italy, and Greece, this model evolved into a social formation whose mode of appropriation relies on incorporating large numbers of migrant workers from the global peripheries, subject to exploitation and harsh living conditions. This chapter explores the spatial dimension of Euro-Mediterranean agroindustry’s mode of appropriation: how rural space in these countries is reshaped by its development. Land ownership structure is reconfigured, altering local social relations. New residential and daily life spaces emerge, notably rural slums. Territory becomes fragmented along intersecting lines of class and “race”/ethnicity, with the migrant—and, especially, racialised—proletariat inhabiting spaces that lose viability as habitats. In sum, Euro-Mediterranean agroindustry appropriates space as actively as it does human and non-human natures.