Rou Dalagurr Food Futures
Abstract
Campesinos, often reduced to the label of “farmworkers”, are too often seen only through the lens of their labor within profit-driven systems. This thesis disrupts that limited narrative by illuminating the rich, expansive nature of vivencias campesinas, ways of being that transcend capitalist measures of value. These vivencias are lived, embodied experiences rooted in campesino lifeways, encompassing cultural, spiritual, and relational practices that nurture and sustain life.
My research is guided by four central questions: (1) In what ways have campesinos in pixley resisted exploitative labor systems, and how can this resistance be understood as a form of care labor? (2) How have both land and the labor of campesinos in pixley been transformed through time? (3) Why is it important to recenter the lived, experiences, Indigenous knowledge and worldview of campesinos? What more-than-human relationships do they highlight? (4) In sharing the collective stories of campesinos in pixley: how do they transform our understanding of vivencias campesinas today?
Through the lens of resistance and care labor, this work examines the transformative role campesinos have played throughout the central valley, highlighting their continued resistance to exploitation as an act of care and community building. The recentering of Indigenous knowledge systems and lived experiences aid in understanding the relational and reciprocal ways of being in vivencias campesinas.
Recommended Citation
Ríos Gómez, Chelsea
(2025)
"Campesino World-Building: Stories of Migration, memory, and Care in the Tension of the Colonial Frame,"
Rou Dalagurr Food Futures: Vol. 2, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/foodfutures/vol2/iss1/5
Included in
Food Studies Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Native American Studies Commons, Social Justice Commons