Paper short abstract:

Sandy SW Portugal became a plantationscape of plastic-walled greenhouses that produce berries for Northern Europe, largely supported on the massive input of Asian migrant workers. In this paper we will address the new plantations through the angle of labor migration in this ethnographic setting.

Paper long abstract:

In the historically neglected region of Odemira, Alentejo, SW Portugal, a combination of political, financial and environmental factors propitiated a radical transformation of the sandy and rocky landscape into a quasi-continuum of greenhouses where berries and other fruits and vegetables are produced for international markets under the sponsorship of international corporations, at the expense of local water and weather, and with a massive input of imported labor. In this contemporary plantationscape, labor is imported mostly from Asia through a number of migratory channels. What used to be a region of abandonment and demographic decline is now the temporary home for a variety of groups, from eastern Europe, Africa, and above all South Asia. Based on the current immersive research of Kishor Limbu with fellow Nepalese workers, we will analyze the ways in which Nepalese migrants in and out of the berry greenhouses negotiate their itineraries, legal status, and expectations of social mobility in the European Union, while also outlining the changes, tensions, COVID-related crises and political management of a new social and ethnic population in the Alentejo.