Degradation of farm work and resistance to deskilling in the Canadian prairies: The case of farm machinery.

摘要

The initial focus of this thesis is the assessment through historical research and field work of the relevance of a hypothesis related to the degradation of farm work in the Canadian Prairies, especially as it relates to farm machinery. The central hypothesis addressed is that a significant degree of deskilling has occurred among simple commodity producers on the Canadian Prairies according to a definition adapted from Braverman (1974) by Diaz and Stirling which sees skill as combining knowledge of the technology used and control over its utilization in executing productive processes. Further, the intent is to apply the thesis, drawn from research on the North American manufacturing and service sectors, to a different situation, namely family farm labour within the qualitatively different sector of agriculture.;Discussion of the central hypothesis bears directly on larger questions related to the sociology of agriculture, particularly the changing nature of both the classes of simple commodity producers and corporate agribusiness that are inter-related with changes in the technical base of agricultural production. These changes have altered the historical relationship between simple commodity producers and the corporate manufacturing class.;The analysis points toward a rethinking of the theoretical category of simple commodity production as defined by Friedmann (1978a, 1978b, 1980). A critique of that position is concluded with a brief discussion of other theoretical formulations that could contribute to a re-theorizing of simple commodity production on the Canadian Prairies.