Embodied Rural Mobilities: Trajectories and Labor Regimes among Indian Punjabis in Sicily

This article presents emerging trends and findings based on ethnographic fieldwork with Indian Punjabi communities in the rural province of Ragusa, Sicily (Italy). Within this context, Punjabis are predominantly employed in the livestock sector, particularly within dairy farms. The study explores the recruitment of foreign labor in Ragusa’s agricultural sector, resorting to the Decreto Flussi (Flow Decree), which stipulates annual quotas for the admission of non-EU workers to Italy. Through the narratives and experiences of Indian Punjabis who arrived in Ragusa under this legal framework, alongside testimonies from local associations and trade unions, the article exposes fraudulent practices and structural contradictions inherent in the recruitment process. Moreover, while Italian migration policies rhetorically emphasize the tightening of its borders, the analysis reveals the country’s reliance on foreign labor in crucial sectors such as agriculture, livestock farming, food processing, construction, and domestic and care work, especially in peripheral areas severely affected by the emigration of Italian youth. The paper offers a critical perspective on labor migration policies and their ramifications at the local and rural levels in Italy’s Southernmost province. In particular, it shows forms of agency exercised by Indian migrants to evade conditions of labor exploitation, including a secondary migratory phase toward Northern Italian rural areas whereby workers deliberately relocate from one rural area to another, thus moving within rural landscapes to optimize economic and social opportunities. These embodied migration strategies shape the possibilities and trajectories of the (rural) migratory project. My doctoral project employs a qualitative methodology grounded in a rejection of ethnographic extractivism, privileging relational, co-constructed, and affective forms of knowledge over rigid data collection. This orientation foregrounds ethical, reflexive, and decolonial approaches to fieldwork, emphasizing the concept of reciprocity as central to apprehending participants’ perspectives and lived experiences.