Migrant Workers Journey


  • Photographer
    Alessandro Penso
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    4seephoto
  • Date of Photograph
    2011
  • Technical Info
    digital

Its a journey that last one year. Through Italy, the southern of the peninsula basically, moving on the strength of seasonally farming, seeking for a little bit of money that could be enough to survive. In silence, and hiding themselves. Without rights, alternatives and chances to choose its own destiny, in conditions that none could define human. The project Migrant Workers Journey describes and documents the social and human working conditions of migrant people employed irregularly in Italy in the agricultural field, mainly as seasonal workers during the harvesting season. I followed the migrants and their migrations during a year, then. To follow each part of the harvest of agricultural products such as tomatoes and citrus fruits in several regions, such as Basilicata, Calabria and Puglia. In the winter, they live crowded into small apartments rented in the area between Afragola and Casal di Principe, a camorra estate. During the season, that lasts six or even seven months every year, they move for miles from East to West and from South to North of Italy in a sort of pilgrimage.An army of nameless that moves dedicating their lives to the harvesting cycle. These irregular migrant workers live or, better, survive in empty houses without electricity and water and in extreme poverty conditions. Home is often a derelict building without power or current water. As many as twenty-five people can be crammed into a degraded house, often without sanitation. They don't have any rights, any form of assistance, any voice, any other chance to find a work. And they work even 12 hours per day for only 25 euros. They are often referred to as the new slaves, at the mercy of corporals, mostly Italians, appointed to control not only their jobs but above all their life.

Story

Its a journey that last one year. Through Italy, the southern of the peninsula basically, moving on the strength of seasonally farming, seeking for a little bit of money that could be enough to survive. In silence, and hiding themselves. Without rights, alternatives and chances to choose its own destiny, in conditions that none could define human. The project Migrant Workers Journey describes and documents the social and human working conditions of migrant people employed irregularly in Italy in the agricultural field, mainly as seasonal workers during the harvesting season.

I followed the migrants and their migrations during a year, then. To follow each part of the harvest of agricultural products such as tomatoes and citrus fruits in several regions, such as Basilicata, Calabria and Puglia. In the winter, they live crowded into small apartments rented in the area between Afragola and Casal di Principe, a camorra estate. During the season, that lasts six or even seven months every year, they move for miles from East to West and from South to North of Italy in a sort of pilgrimage.An army of nameless that moves dedicating their lives to the harvesting cycle.
These irregular migrant workers live or, better, survive in empty houses without electricity and water and in extreme poverty conditions. Home is often a derelict building without power or current water. As many as twenty-five people can be crammed into a degraded house, often without sanitation. They don't have any rights, any form of assistance, any voice, any other chance to find a work. And they work even 12 hours per day for only 25 euros. They are often referred to as the new slaves, at the mercy of corporals, mostly Italians, appointed to control not only their jobs but above all their life.

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