Books by Claudia Bernardi
https://www.getupandgoals.eu/resources/textbook, 2021
This textbook explains the history of an unequal relationship between
rulers and those who are ru... more This textbook explains the history of an unequal relationship between
rulers and those who are ruled, which includes the decisions of a
small group that have shaped the world as we know it. It also narrates
the actions of the majority of humanity, which created new worlds
by accepting, refusing or resisting domination. All these actions and
reactions are part of history, and forge processes of change and
transformation that happened over time and are reconstructed or
remembered centuries or millennia later.
This textbook also aims to narrate how humanity, as a single species,
created different modes of living, different economic systems,
cultures, political and social formations, ideas, beliefs and worldviews.
These systems organised humans into common organisations and
around common ideas, but they also highlighted differences between
humans. These differences originated over time; they were created by
humans themselves.
This textbook covers the history of humanity, from homo sapiens
departure from Africa to the twenty-first century. Volume 1 spans the
years 70,000 BCE to 1000 CE; Volume 2 covers 1000 to 1870 CE; Volume
3 spans the years 1870 CE to the twenty-first century. The first volume
focuses on the expansion of frontiers, starting with the agricultural
frontier that created empires and cities. The second volume narrates
the story of the connection of different frontiers and the creation
of the first intercontinental trade system. The third volume looks at
the intensified intervention of complex systems of frontiers on our
planet.
Each volume is divided into three chronological chapters. Each
chapter starts with an overview of the chapter, then covers the four
themes by which the book is structured. Instead of reading historical
transformations as single topics, we have chosen to organise our
narrative in four themes and to look at the different transformations
that have occurred in the world. The four themes are 1) humans change
nature, 2) humans on the move, 3) social organisation and inequality,
and 4) worldviews.
[Premio SISSCO opera prima 2019]
Il volume narra la storia dello spazio di frontiera tra... more [Premio SISSCO opera prima 2019]
Il volume narra la storia dello spazio di frontiera tra Messico e Stati
Uniti. La figura principale che traghetta il lettore in questo viaggio
in territori contesi e densi di attriti è il bracero, il lavoratore migrante
messicano, protagonista sia delle turbolente migrazioni verso nord e
delle deportazioni a sud del confine, sia del programma d’importazione
di forza lavoro e di gestione della mobilità noto come Programa Bracero.
Il bracero diviene, al contempo, simbolo di modernizzazione e
oggetto di discriminazione. Un lavoratore temporaneo, “disponibile”,
razzializzato, a basso costo, flessibile e quasi privo di diritti che, lungi
dall’essere una mera vittima, intraprende varie forme di fuga dai regimi
del lavoro e della mobilità che hanno generato e trasformato lo spazio di
frontiera.
Papers by Claudia Bernardi
ANNALS of the FONDAZIONE LUIGI EINAUDI AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, 2022
This paper aims to investigate the role of the land reform and labour recruitment systems in gove... more This paper aims to investigate the role of the land reform and labour recruitment systems in governing farmworkers mobility and immobilisation, in particular the practices of mobility of Mexican peasants in the aftermath of the agrarian reform, and during the guest workers program between Mexico and the United States (1942-1964). Under the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940), agrarian reform, expropriation of large land estates and its redistribution in cooperative and collective holdings (ejido) constituted an important trajectory of peasantries’ transformation and set off an era of prosperity until the 1960s. In this context, farmworkers’ transnational mobility was the outcome of different strategies that shaped the relation between land possession and labour mobility.
Through the use of sources collected in the Archivo General de la Nación in
Mexico City, the essay investigates the relation between peasant’s mobility and forms of land possession by: describing the forms of land possession and their juridical framework after the agrarian reform; focusing on the management of Mexican workers’ mobility; assessing the desires and practices of mobility of ejidatario and other peasants that interacted with the politics of immobilisation within Mexico.
Moving workers. Historical Perspectives on Labor, Coercion and Im/Mobilities (16th - 20th century), 2023
Research Handbook on the Global Political Economy of Work, 2023
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system ... more All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
in Vij Ritu, Kazi Tahseen, Wynne-Hughes Elisa (eds), Precarity and the International Relations, International Political Economy Series, PalgraveMacMillan, UK , 2020
Labor History, 2023
The 'new mobilities paradigm' formulated in the early 2000s allowed scholars of labor to explore ... more The 'new mobilities paradigm' formulated in the early 2000s allowed scholars of labor to explore the possibilities of the concept of im/mobility as an interpretive framework for understanding processes of work and labor. This paper contributes to the continued cross-fertilization between mobility studies and labor studies by exploring the theoretical and methodological prospects of focusing on assemblages of temporal-spatial practices that simultaneously compel and confine movement. The article suggests that means, processes, and extent of labor coercion can be understood by analyzing how people are compelled to move or are confined to specific sites temporarily or permanently. It discusses how employing space and im/mobility as conceptual tools uncover the role of diffused, hierarchical layers through which labor coercion emerges. In this regard, environment emerges as a significant factor. The paper examines how mobility becomes a line of flight from sites/fields of coercion, or locks people into new forms of coercive relations; the legal/ formal or informal frameworks that regulate or govern labor im/mobility within specific sites; and how the logics of deployment and coercion overlap and mutually reinforce one another. Ultimately, it aims to contribute to the calls for nonlinear, newly spatialized histories of labor processes and labor coercion.
Atlas Histórico de América. Nuevas miradas en la huella del Americano. Siglos XIX y XX. Volumen III. Publicación 566, 2021
Este artículo brinda una contribución novedosa a la comprensión de la experiencia transnacional d... more Este artículo brinda una contribución novedosa a la comprensión de la experiencia transnacional de los trabajadores en México y EE. UU. a través de una perspectiva centroamericana en las décadas de 1940 y 1950, al considerar el papel de la movilidad de los trabajadores guatemaltecos y el específico contexto histórico transnacional que conectaba a estos tres estados. La comprensión clásica de la movilidad transnacional como una relación México/Estados Unidos se reformulará a través de un enfoque transnacional que implica el papel de los trabajadores centroamericanos en las relaciones norteamericanas mediante el análisis de una serie de fuentes primarias que se refieren explícitamente a esta conexión. El objetivo general del ensayo es dar una primera contribución a la historia de la movilidad laboral al considerar los movimientos transnacionales de trabajadores que conectaron a estos tres países en un régimen integral de movilidad laboral. El objetivo específico es identificar las fuentes que abordan un proceso de espejo en la frontera sur y norte de México que, a pesar de algunas diferencias importantes y especificidades históricas, podría abordar la escritura de una historia transfronteriza de los trabajadores. Fuentes primarias del Archivo General de la Nación de México apoyarán este propósito.
NovaDelphi, 2020
Questo saggio si propone di ripercorrere alcuni momenti salienti
della storia dei messicani negli... more Questo saggio si propone di ripercorrere alcuni momenti salienti
della storia dei messicani negli Stati Uniti in cui la costruzione di
un immaginario ostile e pericoloso, in particolare dei migranti, ha
prodotto politiche di espulsione e stigmatizzazione, muovendo da
processi di razzializzazione.1 Dalla seconda metà dell’Ottocento, con
l’annessione statunitense di buona parte del territorio messicano, il
corpo del messicano è “inciso” da stereotipi e politiche del controllo
che lo hanno trasformato in un corpo pericoloso, violento e persino
infetto. Le crisi economiche – prima la Grande depressione poi la
crisi energetica – sono utilizzate da governi e settori reazionari della
società come laboratori che, da un lato, sanciscono il processo di
razzializzazione e, dall’altro, identificano nel messicano la causa della
crisi economica ridefinendo il suo status sociale e giuridico sino a
coinvolgere i chicanxs.2
Il saggio analizza il contesto politico ed economico in cui si sono
moltiplicate politiche e pratiche fomentate da odio razziale, muovendo
da uno sguardo di lungo periodo che rintraccia nella colonizzazione
la matrice di stereotipi e discorsi di odio. Il saggio utilizza
fonti d’archivio – in particolare la stampa periodica messicana –
relative alla persecuzione dei lavoratori migranti, i braceros, a un
caso di tortura avvenuto in Arizona nel 1976 e alle mobilitazioni
del gruppo estremista e segregazionista Ku Klux Klan sostenuto
da vari settori istituzionali negli Stati Uniti. Lungi dall’essere vittime passive, migranti e chicanxs hanno organizzato forme di resistenza
alle politiche di deportazione, espulsione e razzializzazione.
ANNALS of the FONDAZIONE LUIGI EINAUDI AN INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS, HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE, 2022
CONTENTS SYMPOSIUM: MOBILITY, LABOUR, RIGHT: HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES AND INTERACTIONS IN THE AMER... more CONTENTS SYMPOSIUM: MOBILITY, LABOUR, RIGHT: HISTORICAL TRAJECTORIES AND INTERACTIONS IN THE AMERICAS AND EUROPE (XVII-XX CENTURIES
Ácoma. Rivista Internazionale di Studi Nordamericani, 2021
The article investigates the peculiar history of farmworker unions in Arizona, and their relation... more The article investigates the peculiar history of farmworker unions in Arizona, and their relation with Mexican migrant workers. Since the bilateral agreement for the importation of workers from Mexico to USA in 1940s, a strong opposition to Mexican migrants developed and progressively fragmented the “color line” that was supposed to unify the community of Mexican descendants. The introduction of the “wet line”, the political practice of the chicano union UFW, led to the final split of the labor movement in 1970s. As a result, the Maricopa County Organizing Project (MCOP) was founded to develop new strategies and political practices of labor organization that would generate the most massive work stoppage of migrant workers in the history of Arizona. The article analyzes the transformation of the MCOP farmworkers movement into a non-profit organization supporting projects of culture, education and health for chicanos, and indigenous and undocumented communities till today.
Moving Workers: Historical Perspectives on Labour, Coercion and Im/Mobilities, 2023
This book explores how workers moved and were moved, why they moved, and how they were kept from ... more This book explores how workers moved and were moved, why they moved, and how they were kept from moving. In particular, it examines the junction of mobility and coercion, thereby merging insights from two very different but in many ways mutually supportive currents of study and epistemological renewal. On the one hand, global history has broadened the scope of studying labour spatially and temporally as well as creating new methodological incentives by eschewing the binary distinctions previous generations of scholars tended to make between free and unfree labour, productive and unproductive labour, or wage labour and unpaid labourto name only some of the most common examples. 1 Historians of work have thus increasingly begun to emphasise the interrelational nature of labour regimes in their various guises throughout history and around the globe. On the other hand, the expanding field of mobility studies has been paying more and more attention to questions of labour in connection with mobility, since work is one of the prime motivators for people to move and be moved. In this line of research, human movement emerges as a social process enmeshed in myriad relations of power and control. 2 This volume aims to combine the influence of these two historiographical currents by investigating them through the lens of coercion 3 as an analytical tool to improve our understanding of the complex and interconnected processes of labour and mobility in different historical contexts. With contributions spanning Europe and North America, Moving Workers combines fresh perspectives on the entanglements of human labour and human movement. It shows that all struggles relating to the mobility of workers or its restriction have the potential to reveal complex configurations of hierarchies, dependencies, and diverging conceptions of work and labour relations that continuously make and remake our world.
Confluenze. Rivista di Studi Iberoamericani, 2021
The article analyzes the historical context and the characteristics of the Mexican industries kno... more The article analyzes the historical context and the characteristics of the Mexican industries known as maquiladora, in the border zone between Mexico and USA. Mexican and US secondary sources are employed to analyze the historiographical debate on the topic. The essay shows that neoliberalism is the outcome of convergent logics and of various scales in which entrepreneurs of the Mexican norte have employed nationalism as driver for changing the maquiladora's regional economic model into a global mode of production.
Studi Emigrazione. International Journal of Migration Studies, 2018
This article illustrates the main issues and characteristics of Mexican cross-border workers in U... more This article illustrates the main issues and characteristics of Mexican cross-border workers in United States, from the Mexican-American War till recent times. The mobility of commuters is firstly considered through the analysis of laws and administrative practices that made migrants' status «artificial», and through available data on crossings and employment sector. Then, the article examines political and social oppositions to this form of labor mobility, and workers' mobility strategies linked to maquiladoras. Parole chiave: confini; mobilità; pendolarismo transfrontaliero; Messico; Stati Uniti. Introduzione Diversi termini e appellativi, nel corso del tempo, sono stati utiliz-zati per riferirsi ai lavoratori frontalieri lungo il confine tra Mes-sico e Stati Uniti: commuter, tarjeta verde, cross-border worker, transmigrant/e, green-carder, trabajador/a transfronterizo/a e jor-nalero identificano i protagonisti di questo movimento circolare sulla linea. Un'attività che si traduce con termini quali movilidad cotidiana, transmigracion, commuting e fa riferimento al periodico e frequente, se non quotidiano, movimento da un lato all'altro della linea tra due punti molto prossimi a essa. È una mobilità di tipo la-vorativo seppur diversi studi, in senso ampio, la colleghino ad altre attività come l'acquisto di beni di consumo (i cosiddetti shoppers) o legati alla riproduzione (genitori che ogni giorno accompagnano i figli a scuola negli Stati Uniti) e anche alla salute (visite mediche, più spesso dentistiche, nelle città di confine messicane).
Iberoamericana – Nordic Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 49(1), 2020
This paper investigates the conflicts between the conservative élite, workers’ organizations, and... more This paper investigates the conflicts between the conservative élite, workers’ organizations, and Mexican migrants in Arizona in the 1960s and 1970s when major confrontations occurred around the so-called ‘undocumented problem’. Through a labour history approach and the use of primary sources, this study returns the voice of seasonal workers, governors and Arizona’s Republican electoral body, union organizers and citizens, workers and anti-union associations. This article investigates, a) the role played by conservative political groups and southwestern capitalists in spreading anti-union and anti-migrant sentiments; b) the relation between status and contract in agricultural work; c) the recruitment and working conditions imposed on migrant workers; d) the political confrontation and conflicts that emerged between unions and migrant workers’ organizations in Arizona’s agricultural labour regime. In conclusion, although transnational organizing efforts led to success in labour confrontations, the exclusionary political practices against undocumented workers–like the wet line – resulted in the fragmentation of the ‘color line’ that ultimately exacerbated the frictions between farmworker unions and migrant workers.
Keywords Mexico; Arizona; migration; labour; unión; republicans
Resumen
Este articulo investiga los conflictos entre la élite conservadora, las organizaciones de trabajadores y los migrantes mexicanos en Arizona en las décadas de 1960 y 1970, cuando se produjeron importantes enfrentamientos en torno al llamado ‘problema de indocumentados’. Mediante un enfoque de historia laboral y el uso de fuentes primarias, el artículo da voz a los trabajadores temporales, gobernadores y al cuerpo electoral republicano de Arizona, organizadores sindicales y ciudadanos, trabajadores y asociaciones antisindicales. El estudio investiga el papel desempeñado por los grupos políticos conservadores y los capitalistas del sudoeste en la difusión de los sentimientos anti-sindicales y migratorios; la relación entre estatus y contrato en el trabajo agrícola; las condiciones de reclutamiento y trabajo impuestas a los trabajadores migrantes; la confrontación política y los conflictos surgieron entre los sindicatos y las organizaciones de trabajadores migrantes en el régimen laboral agrícola de Arizona. En conclusión, si bien los esfuerzos de organización transnacionales condujeron al éxito en las confrontaciones laborales, las prácticas políticas excluyentes contra los trabajadores indocumentados–como la wet line–resultaron en la fragmentación de la ‘línea de color’ que finalmente exacerbó las fricciones entre los sindicatos de trabajadores agrícolas y los trabajadores migrantes.
Palabras clave: México; Arizona; migración; trabajo; sindicato; conservador
Violence and periphery have always been central issues and useful keyconcepts to understand Latin... more Violence and periphery have always been central issues and useful keyconcepts to understand Latin-American history transformations. This paper aims to analyse the representation of Mexicans’ body in United States, since the beginning of the Twentieth century until the Great Depression, and its role in defining the deportation inside the historical context of transformation of sovereignty. After 1929 crisis, the deportation of thousands of persons is the first massive expulsion of migrants supported by the U.S. government, a political practice that will lead to several consequences in the history of Mexico and its relation with U.S.A., besides changing completely the face of the frontier and migration itself.
Keywords: biopolitics; colonization; crisis; mexicans; migrants
Le tematiche della violenza e della periferia sono sempre state centrali nella storia latinoamericana, come chiave teorica per comprendere le sue trasformazioni. Questo articolo intende analizzare la rappresentazione del corpo dei messicani negli Stati Uniti, dall’inizio del Novecento fino alla Grande Depressione, e il ruolo che essa ha avuto nel definire la deportazione nel contesto storico di trasformazione della sovranità. Dopo la crisi del 1929, la deportazione di migliaia di persone costituisce il primo caso in cui il governo statunitense sostiene un’espulsione massiva di migranti, una pratica politica che porterà a numerose conseguenze nella storia del Messico e della sua relazione con gli U.S.A., oltre a cambiare completamente il volto della frontiera e quello della migrazione stessa.
Parole chiave: biopolitica; colonizzazione; crisi; messicani; migrante
Didattica della storia. Journal of Research and Didactic of History, 2020
This paper aims at presenting the forthcoming school textbook 'A Global History of Humanity' that... more This paper aims at presenting the forthcoming school textbook 'A Global History of Humanity' that spans from 70.000 BCE till the 21 st century and narrates a global history of our world assuming a non-Eurocentric and non-nationalist perspective. The textbook covers the history of humanity through three volumes, combining a chronological and a thematic approach. Each volume is divided into three chronological chapters. Each chapter presents the four themes in which the textbook is structured: humans change nature; humans on the move; social organization and inequality; worldviews. The last part of this paper ties the long history of humanity narrated through the textbook to today's central questions, discussing the conditions in which we find ourselves today and the challenges we are facing in the coming years.
in Favarò V., Merluzzi M., Sabatini G. (eds), Fronteras: representaciónes, integraciónes y conflictos entre Europa y America, ss. XVI-XX, Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 2016
En este texto me propongo utilizar el concepto de «frontera» como un triple proceso que se impone... more En este texto me propongo utilizar el concepto de «frontera» como un triple proceso que se impone en las Américas desde el principio de la «modernidad» hasta el presente. Lejos de proponer un concepto universal o fundacional –aunque haría posible una conceptualización dirigida a su utilización en otros contextos actuales–, la frontera puede ser utilizada como un instrumento historiográfico para analizar algunas transformaciones fuera de las perspectivas centradas en el nacionalismo epistémico o enfocadas en la soberanía estatal. Me refiero a la frontera como proceso histórico en cuanto a la movilidad de capital en su forma despojadora y colonizadora, método de jerarquización inmaterial y separación material, representación y producción de subjetividad. Estas características me permiten analizar, aunque brevemente, la afirmación de un confín visible sobre la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México a través de las deportaciones de mexicanos.
en WIDERSPRUCH 65 Europa, EU, Schweiz - Krise und Perspektiven
Este artigo fornece uma conceituação prismática da Europa, para além de uma perspectiva eurocêntr... more Este artigo fornece uma conceituação prismática da Europa, para além de uma perspectiva eurocêntrica, para investigar a sobreposição do Norte e do Sul dentro dela, considerando o Mediterrâneo e a cidade de Roma como caso exemplar.
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Books by Claudia Bernardi
rulers and those who are ruled, which includes the decisions of a
small group that have shaped the world as we know it. It also narrates
the actions of the majority of humanity, which created new worlds
by accepting, refusing or resisting domination. All these actions and
reactions are part of history, and forge processes of change and
transformation that happened over time and are reconstructed or
remembered centuries or millennia later.
This textbook also aims to narrate how humanity, as a single species,
created different modes of living, different economic systems,
cultures, political and social formations, ideas, beliefs and worldviews.
These systems organised humans into common organisations and
around common ideas, but they also highlighted differences between
humans. These differences originated over time; they were created by
humans themselves.
This textbook covers the history of humanity, from homo sapiens
departure from Africa to the twenty-first century. Volume 1 spans the
years 70,000 BCE to 1000 CE; Volume 2 covers 1000 to 1870 CE; Volume
3 spans the years 1870 CE to the twenty-first century. The first volume
focuses on the expansion of frontiers, starting with the agricultural
frontier that created empires and cities. The second volume narrates
the story of the connection of different frontiers and the creation
of the first intercontinental trade system. The third volume looks at
the intensified intervention of complex systems of frontiers on our
planet.
Each volume is divided into three chronological chapters. Each
chapter starts with an overview of the chapter, then covers the four
themes by which the book is structured. Instead of reading historical
transformations as single topics, we have chosen to organise our
narrative in four themes and to look at the different transformations
that have occurred in the world. The four themes are 1) humans change
nature, 2) humans on the move, 3) social organisation and inequality,
and 4) worldviews.
Il volume narra la storia dello spazio di frontiera tra Messico e Stati
Uniti. La figura principale che traghetta il lettore in questo viaggio
in territori contesi e densi di attriti è il bracero, il lavoratore migrante
messicano, protagonista sia delle turbolente migrazioni verso nord e
delle deportazioni a sud del confine, sia del programma d’importazione
di forza lavoro e di gestione della mobilità noto come Programa Bracero.
Il bracero diviene, al contempo, simbolo di modernizzazione e
oggetto di discriminazione. Un lavoratore temporaneo, “disponibile”,
razzializzato, a basso costo, flessibile e quasi privo di diritti che, lungi
dall’essere una mera vittima, intraprende varie forme di fuga dai regimi
del lavoro e della mobilità che hanno generato e trasformato lo spazio di
frontiera.
Papers by Claudia Bernardi
Through the use of sources collected in the Archivo General de la Nación in
Mexico City, the essay investigates the relation between peasant’s mobility and forms of land possession by: describing the forms of land possession and their juridical framework after the agrarian reform; focusing on the management of Mexican workers’ mobility; assessing the desires and practices of mobility of ejidatario and other peasants that interacted with the politics of immobilisation within Mexico.
della storia dei messicani negli Stati Uniti in cui la costruzione di
un immaginario ostile e pericoloso, in particolare dei migranti, ha
prodotto politiche di espulsione e stigmatizzazione, muovendo da
processi di razzializzazione.1 Dalla seconda metà dell’Ottocento, con
l’annessione statunitense di buona parte del territorio messicano, il
corpo del messicano è “inciso” da stereotipi e politiche del controllo
che lo hanno trasformato in un corpo pericoloso, violento e persino
infetto. Le crisi economiche – prima la Grande depressione poi la
crisi energetica – sono utilizzate da governi e settori reazionari della
società come laboratori che, da un lato, sanciscono il processo di
razzializzazione e, dall’altro, identificano nel messicano la causa della
crisi economica ridefinendo il suo status sociale e giuridico sino a
coinvolgere i chicanxs.2
Il saggio analizza il contesto politico ed economico in cui si sono
moltiplicate politiche e pratiche fomentate da odio razziale, muovendo
da uno sguardo di lungo periodo che rintraccia nella colonizzazione
la matrice di stereotipi e discorsi di odio. Il saggio utilizza
fonti d’archivio – in particolare la stampa periodica messicana –
relative alla persecuzione dei lavoratori migranti, i braceros, a un
caso di tortura avvenuto in Arizona nel 1976 e alle mobilitazioni
del gruppo estremista e segregazionista Ku Klux Klan sostenuto
da vari settori istituzionali negli Stati Uniti. Lungi dall’essere vittime passive, migranti e chicanxs hanno organizzato forme di resistenza
alle politiche di deportazione, espulsione e razzializzazione.
Keywords Mexico; Arizona; migration; labour; unión; republicans
Resumen
Este articulo investiga los conflictos entre la élite conservadora, las organizaciones de trabajadores y los migrantes mexicanos en Arizona en las décadas de 1960 y 1970, cuando se produjeron importantes enfrentamientos en torno al llamado ‘problema de indocumentados’. Mediante un enfoque de historia laboral y el uso de fuentes primarias, el artículo da voz a los trabajadores temporales, gobernadores y al cuerpo electoral republicano de Arizona, organizadores sindicales y ciudadanos, trabajadores y asociaciones antisindicales. El estudio investiga el papel desempeñado por los grupos políticos conservadores y los capitalistas del sudoeste en la difusión de los sentimientos anti-sindicales y migratorios; la relación entre estatus y contrato en el trabajo agrícola; las condiciones de reclutamiento y trabajo impuestas a los trabajadores migrantes; la confrontación política y los conflictos surgieron entre los sindicatos y las organizaciones de trabajadores migrantes en el régimen laboral agrícola de Arizona. En conclusión, si bien los esfuerzos de organización transnacionales condujeron al éxito en las confrontaciones laborales, las prácticas políticas excluyentes contra los trabajadores indocumentados–como la wet line–resultaron en la fragmentación de la ‘línea de color’ que finalmente exacerbó las fricciones entre los sindicatos de trabajadores agrícolas y los trabajadores migrantes.
Palabras clave: México; Arizona; migración; trabajo; sindicato; conservador
Keywords: biopolitics; colonization; crisis; mexicans; migrants
Le tematiche della violenza e della periferia sono sempre state centrali nella storia latinoamericana, come chiave teorica per comprendere le sue trasformazioni. Questo articolo intende analizzare la rappresentazione del corpo dei messicani negli Stati Uniti, dall’inizio del Novecento fino alla Grande Depressione, e il ruolo che essa ha avuto nel definire la deportazione nel contesto storico di trasformazione della sovranità. Dopo la crisi del 1929, la deportazione di migliaia di persone costituisce il primo caso in cui il governo statunitense sostiene un’espulsione massiva di migranti, una pratica politica che porterà a numerose conseguenze nella storia del Messico e della sua relazione con gli U.S.A., oltre a cambiare completamente il volto della frontiera e quello della migrazione stessa.
Parole chiave: biopolitica; colonizzazione; crisi; messicani; migrante
rulers and those who are ruled, which includes the decisions of a
small group that have shaped the world as we know it. It also narrates
the actions of the majority of humanity, which created new worlds
by accepting, refusing or resisting domination. All these actions and
reactions are part of history, and forge processes of change and
transformation that happened over time and are reconstructed or
remembered centuries or millennia later.
This textbook also aims to narrate how humanity, as a single species,
created different modes of living, different economic systems,
cultures, political and social formations, ideas, beliefs and worldviews.
These systems organised humans into common organisations and
around common ideas, but they also highlighted differences between
humans. These differences originated over time; they were created by
humans themselves.
This textbook covers the history of humanity, from homo sapiens
departure from Africa to the twenty-first century. Volume 1 spans the
years 70,000 BCE to 1000 CE; Volume 2 covers 1000 to 1870 CE; Volume
3 spans the years 1870 CE to the twenty-first century. The first volume
focuses on the expansion of frontiers, starting with the agricultural
frontier that created empires and cities. The second volume narrates
the story of the connection of different frontiers and the creation
of the first intercontinental trade system. The third volume looks at
the intensified intervention of complex systems of frontiers on our
planet.
Each volume is divided into three chronological chapters. Each
chapter starts with an overview of the chapter, then covers the four
themes by which the book is structured. Instead of reading historical
transformations as single topics, we have chosen to organise our
narrative in four themes and to look at the different transformations
that have occurred in the world. The four themes are 1) humans change
nature, 2) humans on the move, 3) social organisation and inequality,
and 4) worldviews.
Il volume narra la storia dello spazio di frontiera tra Messico e Stati
Uniti. La figura principale che traghetta il lettore in questo viaggio
in territori contesi e densi di attriti è il bracero, il lavoratore migrante
messicano, protagonista sia delle turbolente migrazioni verso nord e
delle deportazioni a sud del confine, sia del programma d’importazione
di forza lavoro e di gestione della mobilità noto come Programa Bracero.
Il bracero diviene, al contempo, simbolo di modernizzazione e
oggetto di discriminazione. Un lavoratore temporaneo, “disponibile”,
razzializzato, a basso costo, flessibile e quasi privo di diritti che, lungi
dall’essere una mera vittima, intraprende varie forme di fuga dai regimi
del lavoro e della mobilità che hanno generato e trasformato lo spazio di
frontiera.
Through the use of sources collected in the Archivo General de la Nación in
Mexico City, the essay investigates the relation between peasant’s mobility and forms of land possession by: describing the forms of land possession and their juridical framework after the agrarian reform; focusing on the management of Mexican workers’ mobility; assessing the desires and practices of mobility of ejidatario and other peasants that interacted with the politics of immobilisation within Mexico.
della storia dei messicani negli Stati Uniti in cui la costruzione di
un immaginario ostile e pericoloso, in particolare dei migranti, ha
prodotto politiche di espulsione e stigmatizzazione, muovendo da
processi di razzializzazione.1 Dalla seconda metà dell’Ottocento, con
l’annessione statunitense di buona parte del territorio messicano, il
corpo del messicano è “inciso” da stereotipi e politiche del controllo
che lo hanno trasformato in un corpo pericoloso, violento e persino
infetto. Le crisi economiche – prima la Grande depressione poi la
crisi energetica – sono utilizzate da governi e settori reazionari della
società come laboratori che, da un lato, sanciscono il processo di
razzializzazione e, dall’altro, identificano nel messicano la causa della
crisi economica ridefinendo il suo status sociale e giuridico sino a
coinvolgere i chicanxs.2
Il saggio analizza il contesto politico ed economico in cui si sono
moltiplicate politiche e pratiche fomentate da odio razziale, muovendo
da uno sguardo di lungo periodo che rintraccia nella colonizzazione
la matrice di stereotipi e discorsi di odio. Il saggio utilizza
fonti d’archivio – in particolare la stampa periodica messicana –
relative alla persecuzione dei lavoratori migranti, i braceros, a un
caso di tortura avvenuto in Arizona nel 1976 e alle mobilitazioni
del gruppo estremista e segregazionista Ku Klux Klan sostenuto
da vari settori istituzionali negli Stati Uniti. Lungi dall’essere vittime passive, migranti e chicanxs hanno organizzato forme di resistenza
alle politiche di deportazione, espulsione e razzializzazione.
Keywords Mexico; Arizona; migration; labour; unión; republicans
Resumen
Este articulo investiga los conflictos entre la élite conservadora, las organizaciones de trabajadores y los migrantes mexicanos en Arizona en las décadas de 1960 y 1970, cuando se produjeron importantes enfrentamientos en torno al llamado ‘problema de indocumentados’. Mediante un enfoque de historia laboral y el uso de fuentes primarias, el artículo da voz a los trabajadores temporales, gobernadores y al cuerpo electoral republicano de Arizona, organizadores sindicales y ciudadanos, trabajadores y asociaciones antisindicales. El estudio investiga el papel desempeñado por los grupos políticos conservadores y los capitalistas del sudoeste en la difusión de los sentimientos anti-sindicales y migratorios; la relación entre estatus y contrato en el trabajo agrícola; las condiciones de reclutamiento y trabajo impuestas a los trabajadores migrantes; la confrontación política y los conflictos surgieron entre los sindicatos y las organizaciones de trabajadores migrantes en el régimen laboral agrícola de Arizona. En conclusión, si bien los esfuerzos de organización transnacionales condujeron al éxito en las confrontaciones laborales, las prácticas políticas excluyentes contra los trabajadores indocumentados–como la wet line–resultaron en la fragmentación de la ‘línea de color’ que finalmente exacerbó las fricciones entre los sindicatos de trabajadores agrícolas y los trabajadores migrantes.
Palabras clave: México; Arizona; migración; trabajo; sindicato; conservador
Keywords: biopolitics; colonization; crisis; mexicans; migrants
Le tematiche della violenza e della periferia sono sempre state centrali nella storia latinoamericana, come chiave teorica per comprendere le sue trasformazioni. Questo articolo intende analizzare la rappresentazione del corpo dei messicani negli Stati Uniti, dall’inizio del Novecento fino alla Grande Depressione, e il ruolo che essa ha avuto nel definire la deportazione nel contesto storico di trasformazione della sovranità. Dopo la crisi del 1929, la deportazione di migliaia di persone costituisce il primo caso in cui il governo statunitense sostiene un’espulsione massiva di migranti, una pratica politica che porterà a numerose conseguenze nella storia del Messico e della sua relazione con gli U.S.A., oltre a cambiare completamente il volto della frontiera e quello della migrazione stessa.
Parole chiave: biopolitica; colonizzazione; crisi; messicani; migrante
The contributions in this book are based on extensive archival research and span Europe and North America over the past 500 years. They provide fresh historical perspectives on the various regimes of coercion, mobility, and immobility as constituent parts of the political economy of labour.
Moving Workers shows that all struggles relating to the mobility of workers or its restriction have the potential to reveal complex configurations of hierarchies, dependencies, and diverging conceptions of work and labour relations that continuously make and remake our world.
different case studies and analyzing the situation of transnational
commuters across several frontiers, we will look at the complexity of
the phenomenon, at its historical development, at the elements generating
this particular type of labor mobility, and at the characteristics of
borderlands where it happens, trying to use a global perspective.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Laura Fotia insegna Storia dell’America latina contemporanea presso l’Università degli Studi Roma Tre, è stata research fellow e visiting fellow presso diversi istituti di ricerca e università europei e americani. Tra le sue pubblicazioni, La crociera della Nave “Italia” e le origini della diplomazia culturale del fascismo in America latina (Aracne, 2017) e Diplomazia culturale e propaganda attraverso l’Atlantico. Argentina e Italia 1923-1940 (Le Monnier, 2019).
economic and environmental history, social and cultural history, among others. The expansion of 'commodification frontiers' led to profound transformations in the relationship between peasants,
land and the environment, in the Americas and in Europe. This radical change led to different responses by governments and peasants to the “land question”. In this context, we want to investigate how different tenure regimes (collective/community, private, cooperative) and the
practices of different actors (communities and peasant associations, land workers, public institutions, private intermediaries, movements, among others) changed in relation to agrarian reforms, and the environmental impact due to the extraction, dispossession or accumulation of
resources. We welcome contributions on cross-border and transcontinental regions, countries or communities -indigenous or not- that can contribute to the investigation of the processes of exchange of ideas and peasant practices in Latin American regions or between Latin America and
Europe.
With this call, we aim to bring together historians working on a variety of regions and periods to provide fresh perspectives on the study of im/mobilizations. The focus is on thematic research that engages with a broad range of workers’ experiences of mobility and immobility and the interactive processes of labour mobility and immobilization, which enables us to grasp the historical trajectories of labour relations.
We invite abstracts for papers that enrich the conversation about labor mobility and the related forms of coercion. Please send abstracts of less than 500 words and a short bio (max 200 words) to claudia.bernardi@uniroma3.it or giulia.bonazza@unive.it by February 15, 2021. The proposal should include name, surname, current affiliation and contact details of the proponent. For the full Call for Papers see Attachment.
Please feel free to distribute the call to friends, colleagues, relevant networks or others who might be interested. Also, do not hesitate to get in touch with the coordinators Claudia Bernardi and Giulia Bonazza if you have any questions or comments.