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Paper short abstract:

This communication explores olive harvesting practices and olive oil production. Based on ongoing ethnographic work in southern Spain, this papers examines how current olive food system contributes to making some humans more vulnerable than others, and why this impacts women disproportionately.

Paper long abstract:

Andalusians of Jaén,

proud olive pickers,

tell me from your soul: who,

who raised the olive trees?

They were not raised by nothing,

nor by money, nor by the master,

but by the silent earth,

by work and by sweat.

In these famous verses, which are the official anthem of Jaén province in Andalusia, Miguel Hernandez asks the “proud olive pickers” to answer this question: “Who raised the olive trees?” For this paper, I will ask the ensuing question: "who picks them today?"

From an anthropological perspective rooted in gender studies, this communication explores agricultural and agri-food practices around olive oil production, especially during harvest season. This moment is when this system can be seen as a "synthesis of field and factory," as Sidney W. Mintz defines plantation.

This paper is based on ongoing ethnographic work in southern Spain and aims to understand how contemporary olive oil “food system” contributes to making some humans more vulnerable than others, particularly according to gender.

Following Donna Haraway’s idea that plantation is "the discipline of plants in particular, and the discipline of humans to work on those", I first explore the modeling of land and landscape for olive growing purposes. I then analyse more extensively the social aspects of work organization in cultivating, harvesting and processing olives, with an emphasis on gender inequalities. Finally I will evoke ongoing local struggles and avenues of hope that arose during my fieldwork.