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Paper short abstract:

The paper investigates the constructs of precarity in illicit seasonal cannabis labor and how young temporary cannabis trimmers navigate uncertainty through a negotiation of their capitals and reflection of their positionality in the hopes to gain from the experience.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates how seven young Europeans and Americans navigate the experience of illegal, seasonal cannabis work in California. It shows that the work's main characteristics (cannabis, illegality, time and place, (im)mobility, and uncertainty) give rise to multiple forms of precarity and inform the experience's symbolic value. The research draws on seven individual interviews and a theoretical framework inspired by perspectives on precarity, agency, and mobility. The analysis of the seasonal cannabis workers' labor, journeys, and meaning-making process demonstrates how the young people in this study navigate the unique labor experience through their different habitus and capitals (Bourdieu, 1977, 1986). Social capital, mobility capital, and what I coin trim capital are particularly beneficial in the workers' navigation of illegal, seasonal cannabis work in California.

The paper contributes to an under-researched area in cannabis scholarship as it explores first-hand experiences of the cannabis workers' labor conditions and employment, mobility strategies, and ways of making sense of their experience. Moreover, the research nuances the argument in precarity literature that the term precarity's analytical potential lies primarily in its ability to uncover acts of resistance. Instead, the paper finds different expressions of agency; the young cannabis workers do not resist labor precarity but rather choose to navigate the trimmigrant experience as it provides a form of symbolic value. I argue that illegal, temporary cannabis work in California can be both marginalizing and empowering and that the experience is significantly shaped by who steps into the social field and what resources they have and acquire.