To lift oneself up against the gravity of common sense, it takes a probing mind and searching spirit. It takes focus and scope, it takes dialogue with people who have real experience, and it perhaps also takes some acquaintance with history.

Ed Dunsworth is a historian of labour, migration, and politics at McGill University. His 2022 book is Harvesting Labour: Tobacco and the Global Making of Canada’s Agricultural Workforce. It’s an intricate and ambitious look at how global trends and trajectories have passed through the prism of one specific sector in one specific county, just off Lake Erie in southern Ontario.

Harvesting Labour undermines our default understanding of agricultural work in Canada, not least by showing farm workers of many eras and origins organizing, resisting, and asserting their own dignity. 

This episode also discusses Dunsworth’s 2023 book, Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada, co-authored with Gabriel Allahdua.

Music for this episode from ⁠⁠⁠Uppbeat⁠⁠⁠⁠. License code: 2CWHTEVPITF6KWEO.