“ If You're Not Careful It'll Kill You ”: Extreme Heat and Thermal Labor in Imperial Valley, California

Imperial Valley, California is among the poorest and hottest regions in the state, with summer temperatures routinely exceeding 100°F. For the 1000s of outdoor workers employed in agriculture, construction, and roofing, extreme heat poses a serious and often deadly risk. Climate change is projected to further intensify occupational heat stress, reducing safe work hours and increasing vulnerability for those whose labor requires prolonged exposure to extreme temperatures. While outdoor workers are widely recognized as disproportionately exposed to climate risks, existing scholarship has not adequately addressed the social and cultural practices through which workers live with and manage heat. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and over 100 interviews conducted in the Imperial Valley between 2022 and 2025, this article examines how outdoor workers deploy everyday thermal regulation practices to endure labor in extreme heat. We argue that outdoor work entails three interrelated forms of labor: physically demanding manual work; the largely invisibilized labor of preparing for heat exposure; and the continuous monitoring of one's body for signs of heat stress. Together, these constitute what we term thermal labor: a set of quotidian social and cultural practices aimed at managing exposure to extreme temperatures within racialized neoliberal climate regimes.