Movement and Migration Series Lecture: Slaughterhouse South: Migration, Ethnoracial Boundaries, and the Social Organization of Labor

Barnard Observatory, Tupelo Room

Drawing on sixteen months of work as a meatpacker in a North Carolina slaughterhouse, Vanesa Ribas investigates the intergroup dynamics between migrants and native-born workers, showing how the experience of oppressive exploitation mediates relations between Latina/o migrants, African Americans, and whites. Challenging conventional accounts, this research reveals the continued significance of white supremacy in the emerging arrangement of group statuses, experiences, and relations in a vastly transformed ethnoracial landscape. Vanesa Ribas is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego. She studies race/ethnicity, migration, labor, political mobilization, and social inequalities.