The Nightcrawlers
eBook - ePub

The Nightcrawlers

A Story of Worms, Cows, and Cash in the Underground Bait Industry

  1. 298 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Nightcrawlers

A Story of Worms, Cows, and Cash in the Underground Bait Industry

About this book

How does a banal earthworm become a valuable commodity? Lumbricus terrestris, otherwise known as the Canadian nightcrawler, is the most popular live bait used by recreational anglers throughout the world. Each year, as many as seven hundred million worms are handpicked from Ontario farmland for the bait market, earning the region the undisputed title of worm capital of the world. The Nightcrawlers goes deep into the empirical underground to see how capital confronts a diverse cast of human and nonhuman characters: stubborn worms, wealthy dairy farmers and their precious cow manure, immigrant pickers laboring at night, and worm wholesalers who undercut each other through tax fraud and money laundering. This eccentric tale of worms, cows, and cash reveals the inherent contradictions in capitalism's attempts to commodify the living world—including the soil organisms that are inches beneath our feet.

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Yes, you can access The Nightcrawlers by Joshua Steckley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Agricultural Public Policy. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Series Page
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. List of Illustrations
  6. List of Tables
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. Prologue: Bags Full of Cash
  9. Introduction: Worm Traps and Worm Queens
  10. 1. From a “Plebeian Bait” to the “Canadian Nightcrawler”
  11. 2. Following the Worm
  12. 3. Cash-Cropping Worms
  13. 4. Underground Capital
  14. 5. The Worm-Picking Labor Process
  15. 6. Unexpected “Freedoms”
  16. 7. How a Bait Assemblage Falls Apart
  17. Conclusion: “Closing the File on This Subject Forever”
  18. Notes
  19. Bibliography
  20. Index