The Nightcrawlers - (Critical Environments: Nature, Science, and Politics) by Joshua Steckley

About the 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"--

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

"How exactly does someone extract an element from nature and transform it into wealth? Through his skillful account of embodied practices, Joshua Steckley tells the story of commodification with an intimate touch. Cogently argued and highly readable."--Tania Murray Li, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto

"If you (like me) were disposed toward thinking that the political economy and political ecology of worms hardly warrants a book-length treatment, The Nightcrawlers will show you how wrong you were. Steckley tackles one of the unlikeliest (and slimiest) of lively commodities, explaining not only the centrality of nightcrawlers to the political economy of recreational fishing and the bait-worm industry but also the ways in which the worms and the geography of manual worm harvesting by racialized itinerant work crews intersect with the regulation and management of dairy farms in southern Ontario (unofficial worm capital of the world). Steckley addresses fundamental and contradictory dimensions of turning living organisms into commodities and the uneven contours of subordinating human and nonhuman nature to the needs of capital accumulation. Are nightcrawlers the exception to the rule or do they illuminate the rules more generally? Could both be true? The Nightcrawlers is empirically rich but also conceptually rigorous and nuanced. Steckley draws us into a narrative about the social, ecological, and economic dimensions of turning wriggling and unruly nightcrawlers into commodities, managing to do so with humor, creativity, and genuine insight while leading us on a journey from the arcane to the profound. You will never think about worms (if you ever thought about them before) the same way again."--Scott Prudham, Professor, Department of Geography and Planning and School of the Environment, University of Toronto

Review Quotes

"By examining the nightcrawler industry, Steckley offers a valuable case study of how informal economies are entangled with capitalism but in accidental, contingent, and unstable ways."

-- "Exertions"

About the Author

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