Boundaries of modernity: The agricultural space of the South and the ‘new subalternities’

Abstract

Drawing on a research I carried out in Piana del Sele I analyze the relationship between the concept of “modernity” and the reproduction of the hyper-productive agricultural space In Southern Italy. Drawing on a decolonial approach, I refer to the analytical tradition of critical meridionalism to show the historical, social and symbolic structures through which intensive southern agricultural spaces configurate as frontiers of “modernity.” Specifically, I ethnographically analyze on the one hand the mechanisms through which this frontier creates “subalternity” and on the other hand the ways in which farmworkers incorporate this ethos. The investigation, in this sense, shows how the modern agricultural space is inscribed on and boycotted by the body of the new subalterns.