Introduction
Shipping accounts for about 90% of global trade. In 2021, trade in goods reached a substantial USD 28.5 trillionFootnote 1 (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development [UNCTAD], 2022). Yet those at the forefront of this massive movement of goods and services are invisible. This review concerns seafarers, indispensable to global trade, yet paradoxically, made vulnerable by the very service they work to deliver. Their chosen profession exposes them to severe working conditions and considerable dangers in many instances. Many of their vulnerabilities arise from their invisibility (Reference GrahamGraham, 2021). As such, much is not known about the world of the seafarer.
Shipping is divided into a number of sectors which broadly include pleasure and cargo/merchant ships. The definition of seafarers has been updated by the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, to include not only seafarers who are professional navigators and engineers but also those working in the passenger, hospitality and entertainment sectors in for example cruise shipping. This book is concerned with the professional navigators and engineers in the cargo and fishing sectors who see to the operation, management and maintenance of the ship, cargo and crew.
Seafarers face a combination of work-related risks as they undertake the multitude of activities in their jobs to facilitate global trade, a combination not required of any other profession. In performing their work functions, seafarers are expected to be simultaneously security personnel for both ships and seaports, humanitarian relief providers and environmental custodians. They must be knowledgeable in relevant aspects of environmental law; international law; international relations; medical emergency operations; computer technology; occupational safety and health (OSH); human resources management and the list goes on.
The World of the Seafarer: Qualitative Accounts of Working in the Global Shipping Industry, edited by Victor Oyaro Gekara and Helen Sampson, reveals aspects of this world. It provides a unique insight into the complex and challenging world of seafarers. The book is well organised, informative and written in a language that makes it accessible to a wide readership. This is important in educating a non-shipping audience on many of the important issues of life at sea. Its publication is timely as although the studies were conducted prior the COVID-19 pandemic, some of the issues associated with the pandemic are made real for those who were not aware of the challenges of being a seafarer. Additionally, the book serves to remind those in the maritime industry of the difficulties seafarers face; providing answers and insights, it gives much food for thought and points the maritime industry to how some of these challenges might be met.
Themes and arguments of the book
The World of the Seafarer: Qualitative Accounts of Working in the Global Shipping Industry, is an important sociological study which captures the essence of what it means to be a seafarer. It is one of the few publications written from their perspective. The book is therefore a welcome addition to the literature on the global seafaring workforce.
The studies range from the micro to the macro. They explore the minutiae of daily life and operations onboard as well as the overarching regulatory, political and geographical influences on the world of the seafarer. The book takes advantage of the strengths of qualitative research methodologies to reveal the lived experiences of research participants and does not disappoint in its attempts to reveal this invisible side of shipping.
Divided into three sections, each dealing with a particular theme, the book is a journey from land to sea and back, reflecting the cyclical nature of seafarers’ lives. Some of the themes have never been explored systematically and therefore the book offers valuable knowledge and insights.
Section 1
Section 1, titled ‘Going to Sea’ contains 5 chapters and examines some of the challenges with seafarers going to and remaining at sea. It begins by exploring the lives of Filipino artisanal fishers and their role in the global commercial sector. This world is marked by exploitation, abuse and violence (Chapter 1). While specific to the Philippines, the chapter has implications for persons of the nature described in the study – persons from disadvantaged communities in other developing countries where people’s choices are limited. The chapter is valuable as the world of commercial fishing is even less visible than other sectors of the shipping industry. It gives insights into one of the most high-risk jobs in the world.
The other chapters continue with the theme of going to sea and explore the education and training of seafarers, and what being a seafarer means in terms of a life-long career (Chapter 4); recruitment and retention challenges (Chapters 2 and 3); and barriers to going to sea (Chapter 5). These themes are important to a maritime industry faced with a shortage of seafarers (Baltic and International Maritime Consultative Organisation [BIMCO] 2021). Importantly, Chapter 5 brings a gender perspective to bear on this shortage while examining the challenges for women seafarers. In its 2008 ‘Go to Sea’ campaign, the maritime industry began encouraging women to go to sea as a strategy to address the shortage, without the necessary due diligence as to what this might mean. This chapter points out the barriers to the employment of women and provides valuable analyses as to the challenges associated with women going to sea.
Chapters 2, 3 are case studies from national perspectives on the challenges associated with supplying the merchant fleet with seafarers. Chapter 2 analyses the Chinese context providing answers to the reasons for these seafarers not emerging to dominate the labour market as predicted. Chapter 3 gives insights into the continuing decline of a once dominant maritime state and reasons for this decline. This chapter focuses specifically on the United Kingdom and strategies it has employed to increase the number of British seafarers. The chapter provides answers to why the strategies fail and how these failures might be addressed.
Chapter 4 complements Chapters 2 and 3 by giving a broader perspective of the challenges with going to sea. It presents a warning to the industry regarding its employment practices and how these threaten the recruitment and retention aspirations of the industry. Like land-based industries, the employment of seafarers evolved from long-term stable employment to more short-term precarious work. This move has threatened the sustainability of the seafaring workforce. Chapter 4 explores the notion of a seafaring career and points out that the move towards what is seen as precarious work arrangements, has undermined this notion of a life-long career. In such a situation, there are implications for recruitment and retention of quality seafarers.
Section 2
Section 2, titled ‘Being at Sea’, contains 6 chapters and logically follows on from Section 1. This section reveals some interesting aspects of the daily lives of seafarers in their working and living environment. The section appropriately begins with an account of the life-cycle of a seafarers’ tour of duty (Chapter 6). It examines transitions between contracts from land to sea and back. The tour cycle demands stages of adjustment and re-adjustment between being at home and being onboard which has the seafarer in a constant flux. Through examining this cycle, the study unearthed critical points during a tour when the seafarer is most vulnerable to work-risks. The chapter thus addresses the important issue of maritime safety from a unique perspective. In identifying such critical periods, the study has given policy makers empirical evidence on which to act to reduce some of the OSH risks at sea.
Next, the book reveals more of the social and operational life onboard and some of the other OSH risks that arise with living and working in an isolated and multicultural environment (Chapters 7 and 8). While Chapter 8 looks at one seafaring nationality, it reveals the positives and negatives of interactions with multiple nationalities. Chapter 7 takes a more global approach and examines the nature, structure and organisation of the working and living conditions onboard. It vividly presents the psycho-social environment and its impact on seafarers’ wellbeing which can ultimately influence their decision to remain at sea.
Other perspectives on OSH and working conditions are revealed through organisational structure and employee relations. Chapter 10 examines the dynamics of communication and its importance in OSH management. The chapter shows how communication is thwarted by the nature, structure and organisation of work onboard commercial ships and its implications for OSH.
The other two chapters (Chapters 9 and 11) each deals with different regulatory imperatives. Chapter 9 examines what it means for seafarers in their roles as environmental custodians. Marine environment protection is an important subject matter in the industry and seafarers play a critical role. The chapter reveals that while seafarers are conscious of their roles and wish to protect the environment, they are constrained by the onerous demands of regulatory compliance and the threat of criminalisation. Some are disheartened by the general attitudes that pit them against the environment they wish to protect, a theme vividly described by one of the authors in another publication Seabirds matter more than us (Reference SampsonSampson, 2016). Mistrust seeps into this world due to the ease at which seafarers can be blamed and therefore leaves them questioning the legitimacy of the maritime industry’s marine environmental protection programme.
The final chapter in this section can arguably be considered a landmark study on the hitherto unexplored multiple yet conflicting roles of seafarers as economic, humanitarian and security players. It is one of the most unique chapters in the book. It presents a rare view of life at sea in relation to seafarers’ responsibilities to assist and manage stowaways and undocumented migrants, and the threats posed to seafarers’ safety, health and security in fulfilling these roles. The chapter demonstrates the old adage ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ as seafarers are expected to perform these roles for which they are ill-equipped to competently undertake. Paradoxically, however, seafarers are legally obligated to perform these roles under international law.
Section 3
This final section has 3 chapters and is titled ‘Support for Seafarers and Their Families’. After taking the reader through the rigors of going to sea and daily life onboard, this section appropriately discusses what supports exist for seafarers. These are to be found in their unions and their families. These supports are importantly outside regulatory and the employers’ influence that, as chapters in the other sections reveal, can be unreliable or onerous and do not necessarily give seafarers the protection envisaged.
No social study on the work environment would be complete without examining the role of trade unions. The first chapter in the section (Chapter 12) examines the discourse on trade union decline and revitalisation within the context of globalisation and ‘footloose’ capital. For shipping, globalisation influenced a shift in the seafaring labour market from the more organised seafarers of the advanced economies of Europe particularly, to less organised ones from developing countries in Asia. Chapter 12 presents a case study showing the success of one union’s revitalisation strategy through cross-border mergers. This study presents a response that other unions might use to strengthen their position and better serve their members in the face of economic globalisation.
Contrastingly, Chapter 13 examines how unionisation has failed seafarers as a result of their organising principles and approaches. Examining the Philippines, as one of the seafarer labour supplying giants, this chapter found that those national unions are not very effective in protecting their members’ safety, health and working conditions while onboard.
Chapter 14, the final chapter in the book, speaks to seafarers and their families and how they have devised mechanisms to cope with the long absences, loneliness and homesickness. Yet another paradox is brought to light in this chapter, where seafarers make the sacrifice to be away from their families in order to provide for said families, and the stresses that accompany such a decision. The chapter examines a virtual community and how technology helps in alleviating some of the challenges of being a seafarer.
Value of the book
A highlight of the book is its methodological approach. The qualitative accounts, although not generalisable, give readers an intimate perspective into the lived experiences of the seafarers who participated. The studies use primarily ethnographic designs and case studies which takes the reader into the world of the seafarer making their vulnerabilities and the challenges they face real. Such approaches are valuable in making visible this hitherto invisible world as well as revealing the institutional, structural and geopolitical influences that come together in creating and directing seafarers’ lives.
From an applied perspective, another important contribution of the book is the prospect of making policy changes spurred on by the findings. For instance, immediate actions can be taken to create an environment that will encourage more women to go to sea; onboard OSH can be improved by paying attention to the tour cycles; and unions have been provided with a strategy to strengthen their response to globalisation.
The book is also valuable as a complement to older publications such as Reference Alderton, Bloor and KahveciAlderton et al. (2004), and Reference Kahveci and NicholsKahveci and Nichols (2006). These publications present a general perspective of shipping and attempts to shed light on globalisation and the political economy of shipping and how seafarers are negatively affected. The ‘World of the Seafarer. . .’ simultaneously fills some gaps left by these earlier studies while taking the discussions forward and revealing new areas that need attention. It shows that much more is to be done to create the kind of industry that will attract persons to the profession and create better living and working conditions for those already there.
Finally, the book sets the agenda for future research. In particular, the perspectives of shipowners, managers and the regulatory bodies need documentation. In a sociological text foregrounding employment and working conditions for a global workforce, these are critical players. It is understandable within such an invisible industry, that employers attempt to remain as such. Shipowners, ship managers and shipping agents, are not readily available for research. Older studies have examined the nature of shipping in terms of how globalisation has contributed to lack of transparency. It is argued by some that this was a deliberate move to escape regulatory oversight (eg. Reference Alderton and WinchesterAlderton and Winchester, 2002). It is therefore not surprising that some sections of the industry are difficult to penetrate for research purposes. Notwithstanding, the book succeeds in making visible the invisible world of the seafarer. It importantly fills a knowledge gap for those directly involved in shipping and also a wider audience within and beyond the boundaries of the maritime industry.
Conclusion
‘I would not have wrecked the ship, says the man on the beach’ (unknown) is an apt proverb with which to conclude. It is quite common and easy for those without knowledge of the world of the seafarer to form opinions and make conclusions, particularly when a shipping casualty occurs, and more so when the environment is threatened. This book has revealed that world and has made many of its intricacies visible, even to those in the maritime industry. It covers important themes of OSH, recruitment and retention, environmental protection, gender and coping strategies; bringing to light the responsibilities and burdens of being a seafarer. The book is a clear message to those in charge that the world of the seafarer is complex and dangerous, and much more needs to be done to protect this group of essential workers.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Myrna Simmonds and Maxwell Coore for reviewing drafts of this review.
