Socio-Legal Aspects of Labour Market Segmentation in the Agri-Food Sector in Sweden: Spatio-Temporal Dimensions

Abstract

Migrant labour constitutes an important feature of the Swedish agri-food sector – often employed with sub-standard working and employment conditions. Combining legal analysis and data from semi-structured interviews this article analyses the socio-legal factors and structure of the labour market and its interplay with the national migration regime that make possible the resort to exploitative practices in the employment of migrant labour in the Swedish agri-food sector. Theoretically speaking the article approaches migrant labour using Mariana Valverde’s concept of the ‘chronotopes of law’ capturing the simultaneous and dynamic relationship between space and time in defining legal meaning. In short, the study of legal processes as the result of a space-time interaction.