Class, migration and bordering at work: the case of precarious harvest labour in the UK

This paper draws on symbolic bordering perspectives as a conceptual frame to highlight practices that shape the reproduction, justification, masking and distancing of precarious work. Via a case-study of the UK harvest labour market in 2020–2021, at a time of Brexit and COVID-19, we use media, employer and locally-based worker insights to show how us–them bordering practices are embedded within low-wage horticultural work. Three interrelated everyday bordering tropes are identified from the analysis of the data. First, while migrant harvest work is celebrated as valuable and essential, it is also portrayed as work achieved by, and suitable for, a constantly shifting, multi-dimensional, and therefore ambiguously defined ‘other.’ These ‘others’ and their work are notably valued in so far as they perform their work in particular ways that define them as ‘good neoliberal agents.’ Finally, a particular focus at the height of COVID-19, was on how low-wage ‘others’ were portrayed as providing service and duty to align with a national ‘community of shared values.’ These interrelated symbolic forms of bordering help to mask the exploitative nature of low-wage work and perform an important role in contemporary (transnational) class production/ reproduction.