Old Brokers, New Brokers. History, Geography,
and Ethnography of the Caporalato in Agriculture
The caporalato is an illegal system of intermediation of labour,
widespread in the agriculture of Southern Italy since the beginning of
twentieth century. Over the last 25 years, caporali of non-Italian origin
have replaced a great number of their Italian «colleagues»; in August 2011,
this form of intermediation has been declared a criminal offense by the
Italian government. This article aims to contribute to the understanding
of the caporalato from an historical, geographical, and sociological point
of view. In the first part of the article, I trace the history of the caporalato
in the Italian agriculture. In the second part, I depict similar kinds of
brokers such as farm labor contractors in the US and gangmasters in
the UK; moreover, I describe other instruments for the recruitment of
agricultural workforce presently used in the European Union, in particular
governmental programs for seasonal workers and private temporary
employment agencies. In the last part of the article, I discuss some data
collected with ethnographic methodologies in Puglia and Basilicata
(Southern Italy); in particular, four organizations of caporalato and five
dispositions held by farmworkers towards their caporali are described and
analyzed.
Keywords: gangmaster system, Southern Italy, migration, agriculture
Parole chiave: caporalato, Mezzogiorno, migrazione, agricoltura