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Performing Power en Las Yardas (at the Yards): The Body, Capitalist Discipline, and the Making of Mexican Yardero Lives in South Chicago
Author(s) -
Lemus Sergio
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
anthropology of work review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.151
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1548-1417
pISSN - 0883-024X
DOI - 10.1111/awr.12122
Subject(s) - biopower , lawn , sociology , capitalism , power (physics) , dehumanization , gender studies , population , yard , aesthetics , political science , anthropology , law , ecology , philosophy , demography , politics , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
This article examines the relationship between capitalism, the body, and discipline in a new working‐class population in Chicago, Illinois. Specifically, this analysis documents how Mexican lawn‐service workers—commonly known as yarderos— develop the discipline to control their movements, feelings, and bodily functions to perform lawn‐care services efficiently. The article draws on Michel Foucault's notion of biopower and Karl Marx's capitalist framework to advance an anthropological analysis of the ways in which workers become self‐disciplining. The article concludes with a reflection on the hardships of the lawn‐care industry, the production process, and how laughter becomes a mechanism to humanize an activity that is dehumanizing.