Restaging Rituals: Methodologies for Dialogue With Migrant Workers and Communities in Agro-Industrial Localities Under Pressure

Abstract

This article examines how agricultural rituals can serve as methodological tools to uncover migrant workers’ voices and facilitate dialogue in agro-industrial regions under pressure. On the basis of 2 years of ethnographic fieldwork in Haspengouw, Belgium, and Westland, the Netherlands, the research combined participant observation in agricultural workplaces with the co-creation of the exhibition Picking Fruit, Sowing Stories and the organisation of community dialogues. The article highlights how rituals can ground an engaged research positionality by creating spaces of encounter and unexpected, constructive conversations between otherwise disconnected communities. Analysis of both the process of co-creation and the community dialogues suggests that creative methodologies and performance-based frames such as rituals can help bridge social divides. At the same time, transformative research in this field requires critical reflexivity on researcher positionality, broader local mobilisation, political willingness and more inclusive co-creation processes.