James Daria

Cultural Anthropologist Spelman College

James Daria, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Co-Director, Food Studies Program
Spelman College

Labor and migration in the global food system. Modern slavery, exploitation, and the human rights of migrant farmworkers in North and Central America.

About

Portrait of James Daria in front of a bookshelf

Dr. James Daria is a cultural anthropologist working on issues of labor and migration in the global food system. His work is centered on modern slavery, exploitation, and the labor and human rights of migrant farmworkers in North and Central America.

Full biography and education

New Book

Cover of ¡Huelga! Indigenous Farm Labor Organizing in Mexico by James Daria: a farmworker in a striped shirt carries two white buckets of cucumbers through green vines, under the title in red block letters.

¡Huelga!

Indigenous Farm Labor Organizing in Mexico

University of Arizona Press November 2026

On March 17, 2015, tens of thousands of Mexican farmworkers went on strike in San Quintín, Baja California, to protest horrible working conditions on the farms that produce most of the fresh fruits and vegetables you consume. Calling themselves the “slaves of the twenty-first century,” these mostly Indigenous men, women, and children rose up in defiance of the conditions of modern slavery, forced labor, sexual harassment, and “hunger wages.”

About the book Order from the press