Recognition, redistribution and immigrant condition: the fights of agricultural workers of the region of Murcia

Abstract

The  question  of  recognition  and  redistribution  as  dimensions  of  social  justice  has pervaded the social sciences over the last decades. In a first moment, the debate appeared as  a dichotomy.  On  the  one hand,  materialist  perspectives  emphasized  inequalities produced at the economic level and, thus, redistribution as the essential element of social justice. On the other hand, postmodern and multicultural trends affirmed that ongoing cultural changes required an emphasis on recognition. In a second moment, the debate was carried on with attempts to overcome the old dichotomy, as demonstrated by the contributions of Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser, even though the question of how the articulation between recognition and redistribution is produced remains controversial. In this article, I deal with the debate on recognition and redistribution in the light of sociological  investigations  I  have  been  undertaking  on  the  condition  of  immigrant workers at the agro-export complex at the Murcia Region (South of Spain). The empirical materials I present on work in intensive agriculture show the fertility of the relation between the theory of recognition and the sociology of labor. The social undervaluing that  “work  in  the  fields”  receives,  its  public  invisibility,  the  stigmatization  of  the Moroccan worker, to mention just some aspects of the research on the fields of Murcian intensive agriculture, are experiences of humiliation and contempt that conclusively evince that the organization and appreciation of social work fulfill a central role in a society’s structure of recognition, since the cultural definition of the hierarchy of actions establishes with itself the level of social appreciation an individual can receive for her/his activity and the characteristics associated with it.