The Nightcrawlers

A Story of Worms, Cows, and Cash in the Underground Bait Industry
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-520-41370-2
Verlag: University of California Press

Buch, Englisch, 262 Seiten, Trade Paperback, Format (B × H): 229 mm x 152 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics

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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Steckley, Joshua

Fachgebiete

• Geowissenschaften Geographie | Raumplanung Geographie: Allgemeines, Karten & Atlanten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Sachkultur, Materielle Kultur
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften: Ernährung & Gesellschaft
• Naturwissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften Biowissenschaften, Biologie: Sachbuch, Naturführer
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Ökotrophologie (Ernährungs- und Haushaltswissenschaften)
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik
• Geowissenschaften Umweltwissenschaften Umweltschutz, Umwelterhaltung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
Acknowledgments

Prologue: Bags Full of Cash
Introduction: Worm Traps and Worm Queens
1. From a "Plebeian Bait" to the "Canadian Nightcrawler"
2. Following the Worm
3. Cash-Cropping Worms
4. Underground Capital
5. The Worm-Picking Labor Process
6. Unexpected "Freedoms"
7. How a Bait Assemblage Falls Apart
Conclusion: "Closing the File on This Subject Forever"

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Joshua Steckley is a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University.