Legal Landscapes, Migrant Labor, and Rural Social Safety Nets in Michigan, 1942-1971

Prifogle, Emily

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3699174

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Gossip was also part of the informal system of resource distribution formed by local Migrant Ministry projects. Scholars of rural law have repeatedly found gossip to be an important form of nonlegal sanction in small communities (Engel 1984; Ellickson 1994; Prifogle 2020). Gossip in this case could spread through reports to the state Migrant Committee or local churches who supported local projects.…”

Section: The Michigan Migrant Ministry—a “Responsibility Toward the Migrant People”mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Emily Prifogle (prifogle@umich.edu) is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. The author and article have benefited from generous feedback provided by Kate Andrias, Margot Canaday, Rebecca Eisenberg, Monica Hakimi, Daniel Halberstam, Hendrik Hartog, Scott Hershovitz, Don Herzog, Alison Isenberg, Kathryn McGarr, Nina Mendelson, Bill Novak, Karen Tani, and Barbara Welke.…”

Section: Biographical Statement/acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rural Social Safety Nets for Migrant Farmworkers in Michigan, 1942–1971

Prifogle¹

2021

Law Soc. Inq.

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In the 1960s, farmers pressed trespass charges against aid workers providing assistance to agricultural laborers living on the farmers’ private property. Some of the first court decisions to address these types of trespass, such as the well-known and frequently taught State v. Shack (1971), limited the property rights of farmers and enabled aid workers to enter camps where migrants lived. Yet there was a world before Shack, a world in which farmers welcomed onto their land rural religious groups, staffed largely by women from the local community, who provided services to migrant workers. From the 1940s through the 1960s, federal, state, and local law left large gaps in labor protections and government services for migrant agricultural laborers in Michigan. In response, church women created rural safety nets that mobilized local generosity and provided aid. This article uses Michigan as a case study to argue that these informal safety nets also policed migrant morality, maintained rural segregation, and performed surveillance of community outsiders, thereby serving the farmers’ goals of having a reliable and cheap labor force—ultimately strengthening the economic and legal structures that left agricultural workers vulnerable.

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Section: The Michigan Migrant Ministry—a “Responsibility Toward the Migrant People”mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Biographical Statement/acknowledgmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%