Representing reciprocity, reproducing domination: Ideology and the labour process in Latin American contract farming

This article examines conflicting representations of contract farming in Latin America. Contract farming addresses many of the contradictions of wage labour in agriculture, but generates its own. For the company these contradictions include indirect control of the labour process and the problem of uncertain supply; for the farmer they include disguised proletarianization and self‐exploitation. The indirect nature of control makes the understanding and reliability of each partner crucial; the understanding of the contract is therefore the subject of muted but pervasive struggle. A moral economy of the contract offers one framework for understanding the politics of representation in contract farming.