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Chicken Doctors and the Trials of Transcendence: Unveiling Gallinera/o Illness Narratives
Ethnic Studies Review ; 44(2):65-100, 2021.
Article in English | ProQuest Central | ID: covidwho-2154360
ABSTRACT
This autoethnographic, multidisciplinary illness narrative describes the working conditions of a crew of Latina/o chicken workers (gallineras/os) in North Carolina and explores how these laborers respond to and make meaning of their brutal and dehumanizing work. Transporting us back to a pre-pandemic era, this project seeks to demonstrate how systemic conditions, exacerbating health disparities among poultry workers during COVID-19, are, in fact, endemic and will persist after a post-pandemic US society. Engaging with medical anthropological scholarship that investigates the intersections between Latina/o labor, legislation, and health, this project employs structural violence and structural vulnerability frameworks to investigate the network of structures that contribute to poor health outcomes among Latina/o immigrant workers. “Chicken Doctors” explores how disabling working conditions and their attending legislative and occupational policies debilitate Latina/o immigrant workers, and it argues that gallinera/o labor must be understood as a form of illness, as their toil leaves them with daily pains and lasting impairments. The project draws from an interview with the author’s father, who worked as a gallinera/o laborer and manager for over two decades, as well as from the author’s own observations and journal entries written during his work as a gallinera/o. The piece details the incapacitating gallinera/o labor required to move and vaccinate chickens, describes the toxic working environments, and reflects upon the collective strategies for transcendence that gallineras/os employ to survive their conditions. While this project unveils the spirited resilience of gallineras/os, who make up an essential link in the poultry industry chain but are less conspicuous than their meatpacking counterparts, it especially seeks to expose the network of injustices surrounding their labor.
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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: ProQuest Central Language: English Journal: Ethnic Studies Review Year: 2021 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: ProQuest Central Language: English Journal: Ethnic Studies Review Year: 2021 Document Type: Article