Dr Lorenza Arango invetigates how production and social reproduction interplay at migrants’ places of origin and at the destination sites of work.
Basing her research on the town of Puerto Gaitán in Colombia, she suggests that the links between production and social production are intimately connected to the politics of land.
She argues that although Puerto Gaitán provides basic needs like food, housing and healthcare, many crucial aspects of social reproduction take place on indigenous peoples' rural collective lands (resguardos). Despite restrictions, these lands form the key basis to of Indigenous peoples’ reproduction. The implication, Arango argues, is that migrant workers’ access to land should respond to a broader conceptualization of social reproduction - i.e., one in which non-material aspects are equally considered.
Read the article
'Indigenous migrant labourers and land: towards an exploration of indigenous’ socio-cultural reproduction in the Colombian Altillanura' Agriculture and Human Values, January 2025.
About the author
Dr Lorenza Arango is a recent PhD graduate from the International Institute of Social Studies and a researcher with the Commodity & Land Rushes and Regimes research project.
