Flexibility in Agricultural Labour Forces in the NAFTA System.

Drawing on the results of a long-term multi-researcher project conducted across North America, the paper offers an analysis of the establishment and outcomes of flexible agricultural labor regimes in Mexico, the United States and Canada. In particular, the paper focuses on the determinants and effects of north-south internal migration from Mexico, both undocumented and H-2A legal contract workers in the United States and the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program in Canadian horticulture. I examine the social and economic conditions of capitalist globalization through which documented and undocumented migrant workers have become increasingly central to the success of North American agriculture in the NAFTA era, and I discuss the complex, multiple and regional/local struggles of such workers to overcome the ?state of exception? through which they are frequently deprived of basic human rights. As such, the paper offers new insights into the relationships between changing global productive structures and the movement and agency of migrant laborers within the North American context. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]