This open access book constitutes an ethnographic mosaic which depicts the contextual complexities of the life and work of seafarers who are employed in the international merchant cargo fleet. The ...collection is based upon the observations and interviews of researchers in multiple disciplines. It is woven together to offer a richly detailed insight into the ways in which a complex global industry operates internationally. The book covers issues to do with career decisions and recruitment, gender, life and work on board multinational vessels, health and safety issues, the regulation of the industry, shipboard roles and role conflict, and the representation of workers. It will be of considerable interest to all students globally who are studying for professional seafaring qualifications, to graduate students studying for masters courses in ship and port management, and to welfare professionals and policy makers. It is of special interest to those connected to the shipping industry who specialize in issues relating to 'the human element' and will serve as a paradigm defining text in this area.
This article provides a critical reflection on methodological issues at the interface of researcher national identity and emotional vulnerability. This aspect of social research is often neglected in ...discussions of positionality, primarily in relation to emotional risk in the field, and here we address this gap in the literature. Rather than reflecting on access and rapport, or issues related to the complexities of insider or outsider research, the national identity of the researcher is considered alongside emotional entanglements experienced in the field. The emotion work that is performed, and the emotional risks that are experienced by the researcher as a consequence of nationality reveal much about the complexities of identity and power relations in the field. The fieldwork informing this article was undertaken as part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded study (ES/N019423/1) that examined how seafarers from different ethnic and faith backgrounds interact with each other on board and how their religious/spiritual and welfare needs are addressed ashore.
In line with a more reflexive approach in social science, particularly amongst
ethnographers, authors increasingly report not just what they have found from a
piece of research but how they have gone ...about doing it. Using a similar style this
article considers the importance of pilot work in undertaking qualitative and
ethnographic studies, prior to researcher immersion in the
‘field’. It offers an account of the author’s
experiences of ‘cold’and total immersion in a fieldwork setting
and uses a contrasting example of a funded and carefully developed pilot study using
a variety of methods, in order to highlight the benefits of pilot work. In doing so
it suggests that while pilots are not new to ethnographers they are under-discussed
and to some extent under-utilized, perhaps as a consequence of methodological
allegiances and a tendency to link pilots with more positivist approaches in social
science. The article suggests that while pilots can be used to refine research
instruments such as questionnaires and interview schedules they have greater use
still in ethnographic approaches to data collection in foreshadowing research
problems and questions, in highlighting gaps and wastage in data collection, and in
considering broader and highly significant issues such as research validity, ethics,
representation and researcher health and safety.
This paper contributes to debates about the effectiveness of international regulation and the place of ‘the state’ in developing and enforcing effective international shipping regulation. It focuses ...on the example of the Maritime Labour Convention (2006) to highlight some of the challenges and successes of international regulation in defending the rights of workers to ‘decent work’. The empirical basis of the paper is a novel analysis of abandonment data which allows for the consideration of the resolution of abandonment cases pre-and-post-MLC. This is the first time that such objective analysis has been used to evaluate the efficacy of MLC. The paper describes the regulatory framework which offers protections to seafarers in such circumstances and the ways in which internationally agreed regulations at the ILO are enforced. It describes the data and analyses the effectiveness of the MLC, in increasing the speed with which abandoned seafarers are repatriated. It discusses the implications of the findings and draws conclusions, relating these to broader discussions of the limits and importance of international regulation.
•Presents new analysis of data on vessel abandonment.•Advances debates on effectiveness of MLC.•Indicates MLC strengths and weaknesses.
In recent decades social scientists have expanded their understanding of risk in the field to extend from concern with participants to awareness of how researchers themselves may be exposed to a ...variety of physical, emotional, ethical and professional ‘dangers’. A variety of accounts have exposed the kinds of risks concerned with fieldwork, many of which are difficult to anticipate. However, this article takes a further step forward in considering the ways in which risks combine in the field, the coalescence of risk in particular circumstances, and the ways in which risk should be understood as dynamic and unpredictable. The article concludes that these considerations require researchers to take a leading role in assessing the risks that they face, that risks should not be considered as uniform for all team members in conjunction with projects involving multiple researchers, and that researchers should receive greater training on appropriate risk management in an effort to change the prevailing research culture in many institutions.
In recent years mental health has been identified as a significant issue for the global workforce. In the shipping industry charities and insurance companies have raised concerns about seafarers' ...mental health and wellbeing and have suggested a range of largely reactive and behaviour-based remedies and risk mitigation strategies. This paper contributes new data to the existing debates around seafarers' welfare and mental health by exploring stakeholder and employer attitudes and approaches to the mental health and wellbeing of seafarers working aboard deep-sea cargo vessels, alongside the views and perceptions of active seafarers themselves. Unusually, the central focus is on what seafarers themselves consider to be supportive of their own happiness and wellbeing. Drawing on these two major sources of data the paper recommends a range of practical steps which should be taken by employers to mitigate seafarers' exposure to a variety of risk factors associated with unhappiness and poor mental health. These recommendations relate to the shipboard provision of communication facilities, food, recreational facilities, shore-leave, work to leave ratios, bullying and harassment, furnishings, officer training and the provision of counselling services.
The use of vignettes that are based upon fictionalised accounts is well-established in contemporary social science. Vignettes have been used in a variety of ways to contribute to studies with both a ...quantitative and a qualitative orientation. This paper reflects on two recent qualitative studies which have made innovative use of ‘real-life’ vignettes. In each case, the paper describes some of the unanticipated and overlapping benefits that accrued from their incorporation into the research design and reflects on the advantages that ‘real-life’ vignettes might bring to future research. Drawing on two different research projects, the paper highlights the further potential contribution of ‘real-life’ vignettes to the repertoire of research methods currently available to social scientists.
Abstract
This paper explores some of the different relationships that horses and humans experience in the case study country of Wales. In doing so, it pays attention to differential patterns of ...equine care/lack of care and explores these from a sociological perspective considering evidence of the potential impact of cultural practices and socio-economic status in particular. The paper concludes that access to common lands and "fly grazing" may be associated with specific values and norms which may result in equine neglect, while indicators of socio-economic deprivation and patterns of equine neglect do not seem to be related. The paper highlights the variation in equine care across this relatively small national population and suggests some areas where further explanatory work could usefully be undertaken in order for us to better understand the care-relationships between horses and their keepers.
This paper revisits discussions about the best ways for regulators to protect employees from accidents at work. It focuses on a case study example from a globalised, outsourced and offshored sector - ...namely, the shipping industry. Using the illustrative example of a large and reputable ship operator, it discusses the understandings that onshore and sea-based staff have of company policies and practices with regard to safety. It considers these alongside responses to environmental regulation and associated penalties. The paper concludes that, in relation to environmental protection, penalties are set sufficiently high to effect a real change in practice in this industry. However, the same cannot be said with regard to fatal accidents at sea.
The shipping industry is among the most globalized of all industries and is characterized by complex modular supply chains, including a largely outsourced labor force of “just‐in‐time” casualized ...workers from developing countries and the transitional East European states. Despite long‐standing efforts by international bodies to standardize and regulate the education and training of seafarers, variations in practices and standards persist. Employers exercise contradictory influences on education and training providers, on the one hand demanding the urgent provision of more recruits (encouraging corner‐cutting), and on the other complaining about the poor quality of recruits received (urging crackdowns on poor quality providers and more rigorous examinations) – the training double bind. This paper reflects on these issues through the study of the problematic use of computerized assessments in seafarer examinations, drawing upon findings from a study involving research in six different case study countries providing maritime labor and interviews with stakeholders.
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