Critical Notes on Mapping the Mobility of Agricultural Workers in the Province of Ferrara: the (Ethical) Importance of Opacity

This article presents an on-going research project developed by the Department of Architecture of the University of Ferrara and AMI Ferrara regarding home-work mobility patterns in local agro-industrial production. By combining quantitative and qualitative research tools (i.e. literature review, surveys, interviews, GIS-mapping), this research originally aimed to research habits, needs, and propensity to change of agricultural workers in the area in relation to home-work mobility. The investigation therefore necessarily has to confront “caporalato”. Bearing in mind existing power relations and the inherent opacity of dynamics in agricultural work, we highlight the difficulties encountered by the mapping campaign, as well as the dangers of its instrumentalization when addressing such work relations. By emphasizing the tendency of agricultural day-labourers to defy localization, we aim at departing from this lack (or absence) of information to suggest the relevance of a critical approach to mapping in contemporary racial capitalism. The paper finally proposes substantial theoretical frameworks, extensive field research and investigative campaigns on-the-ground in contrast to the strictly vertical, top-down and technocratic approach of traditional mapping, in order to answer to mobility habits and needs of agricultural workers.