Mind the recognition gaps: layers of invisibility of farm migration in Norway

Abstract

This article analyses the phenomenon of ‘invisible’ seasonal farm migrants, drawing on the case of labour migration to Norwegian agriculture. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews conducted between 2017 and 2020, with local stakeholders, farmers, and migrants, we employ the notions of (mis)recognition and recognition gaps to illustrate how various aspects of invisibility are the result of overlapping factors and practices, performed by the involved actors. Our analysis demonstrates how the established narrative of the normality of labour migration facilitates rendering the migrant workers invisible both in discursive and in institutional terms and reduces its function to a pure labour force. This is related to narratives about structural changes within agriculture that transformed the once intimate relationship between farmers and workers into a more impersonal employer-worker relationship. Finally, the situation of seasonal migrants can be understood as a ‘double absence’ as their lack of interaction with the local community and circular patterns of living deprive them of social reproduction and labour market opportunities in both the home and the host country. Thus, invisibility is a crucial component in normalising, legitimising, maintaining and reproducing the continued misrecognition of seasonal migrants.