Edward Dunsworth
Canada and the World, Migration, Labour, 1900-today
Winter 2024:
Tuesday 11:00-12:00pm
I am a historian of migration and labour with a particular interest in studying Canada within a global context. My first book, Harvesting Labour: Tobacco and the Global Making of Canada’s Agricultural Workforce, was published in 2022 by McGill-Queen’s University Press. The book uses a case study of farm labour in southwestern Ontario’s tobacco sector to advance a significant reinterpretation of the histories of farm labour and temporary foreign worker programs in Canada.
A second book, the result of a collaboration with Gabriel Allahdua (a migrant farm worker-turned-activist from Saint Lucia) to produce his memoir, will be released in March 2023 with Between the Lines. That book is titled, Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada.
An active public historian, I am a member of the editorial collective at Activehistory.ca, a founding member of the Toronto Workers’ History Project, and a frequent author of articles for broader audiences.
My next major project is a history of immigration politics in Canada.
Harvesting Labour: Tobacco and the Global Making of Canada’s Agricultural Workforce (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2022)
Gabriel Allahdua, with Edward Dunsworth, Harvesting Freedom: The Life of a Migrant Worker in Canada (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2023)
“‘Me a free man’: resistance and racialisation in the Canada-Caribbean Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program,” Oral History 49, no. 1 (Spring 2021): 71-82.
“Race, Exclusion, and Archival Silences in the Seasonal Migration of Tobacco Workers from the Southern United States to Ontario,” Canadian Historical Review 99, no. 4 (Dec. 2018): 563-93.
“Green Gold, Red Threats: Organization and Resistance in Depression-Era Ontario Tobacco,” Labour/Le Travail 79 (Spring 2017): 105-142.