‘The Fear of Authority‘:

Disciplinary Practices in
Global Merchant Shipping

Foto source: Marie C. Grasmeier

Marie C. Grasmeier 16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
Universität Bremen 21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Research
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Dissertation about processes of occupational
boundary-work (Lamont 1992; Wimmer 2013) among
seafarers on global merchant ships.
●
Question here:

significance of everyday practices of discipline

effects on seafarers’ everyday life

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Methods
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Ethnographic Fieldwork
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Autoethnographic Data
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Narrative Interviews
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Peer-Intervision

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 The Shipping Industry
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Almost complete globalisation
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Global labour-market and racialised work organisation
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Ship as a postcolonial space
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Specific forms of work organisation

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Workplace Domination
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transforming labour-power into labour (Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Ch. 6)
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Consent vs coercion
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„New spirit of capitalism“ (Boltanski & Chiapello 2007):

Proactivity and self-motivation

Independent teams

Flat hierarchies
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„Manufacturing consent“ (Burawoy 1982)

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 The „New Spirit“ in Shipping
●
Late fordist era: attempts to enforce the new spirit in
the shipping industry
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Globalisation:

Restoration of traditional forms of authority

Relapse into „old forms of labor“ (Aguilar 2003)

Ideology of unconditional obedience on board

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
Lisa: And I couldn’t say that the formal hierarchy was unimportant for the crew.
Marie: mhm. So also in leisure time?
Lisa: Also during free time. That starts with the distribution of seats [in the mess room].
Marie: mhm
Lisa: so the bosun is not only sitting on his bosun’s chair at work, [...] but he is also sitting on his bosun’s
chair in his spare time.
Marie: mhm
Lisa: and that means that there is no flying change in the leisure time at the places in the mess room. [...]
Yes. And one bosun even, when he had a conflict with another cadet, um, he exercised, yes, how can you
say that, he exercised subservience with us.
Marie: mhm
Lisa: For example, he said, “Where are you not allowed to sit?” “Yes, on your chair, of course”. And: “Yes
and why are you not allowed to sit there?” “Yes, because it’s your chair.” […] Yes, blatant! Isn’t it?
Marie: Yes [both laugh]
Lisa: I mean, that’s what he did to adult people, you know?! [laughs].

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Bosun‘s chair

Foto source: Marie C. Grasmeier

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Authoritarian Culture
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“the captain is king” (Sampson 2013: 78)
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Example: military haircuts to show subservience
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Job description: „follow orders“

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Contradictions of the Ideology
Contradictory in two ways:
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Practical requirements of the job
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Counter the hegemonial management ideology in the
industry

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 New and Old Spirit
“Neo-liberal capitalism has as much to do with Walmart,
maquiladoras and microcredit as with Silicon Valley and
Google” (Fraser 2009: 110).
“where there is Apple, there is also Foxconn” (Connell
2019: 59).

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Production of ‘Cultural Difference‘
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Western countries: Training in progressive
management techniques
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Labour supply countries: paramilitary-style training
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„Power distance index“ (Hofstede 1991)
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Demand on the market for subservient workers

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
Peter: Well, a ship is actually a big kindergarten, you know?
My first officer also told me, he had a lot more experience [...],
and it’s like a big kindergarten. Yes.
Marie: What is like a kindergarten there?
Peter: Yes, well, I initially come from the industry [he means a
factory ashore in Germany], and we got our tasks there in the
morning and then it just worked, you know? But there [on the
ship], you have to monitor it more […]. So you [...] have to be
more behind it, so that things go the way they’re supposed to,
you know? Well, you can’t generalise that either, but that’s the
way it is, yes.

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Effects on Everyday Life
●
Omnipresent „fear of authority“
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Authoritarian structure transgresses into the sphere of
leisure relations

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Fear of Authority
Fieldwork:
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Formal role of a cadet
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Unable to assert my role as a rearcher
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Idiosyncracy => structure of the field‘s culture

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Fear of Authority
„I have somehow never really perceived captains (and
other ‘authority figures’) as real people and have always
been inhibited. I still differentiate between ‘adults’ and me
– and with adults, you do not joke, you do not talk
normally about this and that. [...] Whereby, that is not
only related to captains but generally to all those I would
sort into the category ‘adults’.“

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Private relations during leisure time
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Problems to form private relations:

Everybody is a workmate

Almost no peers of equal rank
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Attempts to suspend the authoritarian structure during,
e.g. parties on boad regularly failed
●
Seafarers reproduced relations of power, dominination
and subordination

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon
 Quellen:
Aguilar Jr, Filomeno V. 2003. ‘Global Migrations, Old Forms of Labor, and New Transborder Class Relations.’ Japanese Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 41 (2): 137–61.
Boltanski, Luc, and Ève Chiapello. 2007. The New Spirit of Capitalism. London; New York: Verso.
Burawoy, Michael. 1982. Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism. Paperback ed. Chicago; London: University of Chicago Press.
Ching, Manny Isla. 2017. ‘Quasi-Military Training Experience, Academicperformance and Shipboard Training Competence:The PMMA Success Indicators of Maritimeeducation and Training.’ Master’s Thesis, Oslo:
World Maritime University. http://commons.wmu.se/all_dissertations/596.
Connell, Raewyn. 2019. ‘New Maps of Struggle for Gender Justice: Rethinking Feminist Research on Organizations and Work’. Gender, Work & Organization 26 (1): 54–63. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12332.
Fanon, Frantz. 2008. Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press.
Fraser, Nancy. 2009. ‘Feminism, Capitalism, and the Cunning of History.’ New Left Review 56: 97–117.
Gerstenberger, Heide, and Ulrich Welke. 2004. Arbeit auf See: zur Ökonomie und Ethnologie der Globalisierung. [Work at Sea: on the Economy and Ethnology of Globalisation.]. 1. Aufl. Münster: Westfälisches
Dampfboot.
Grasmeier, Marie C. 2017. ‘Vom Vermuten zum Verstehen. [From Conjecture to Comprehension].’ In Ethnografie und Deutung: Gruppensupervision als Methode reflexiven Forschens, edited by Jochen Bonz,
Katharina Eisch-Angus, Marion Hamm, and Almut Sülzle, 319–31. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-15838-5_18.
———. 2020. ‘“That Is My Profession”. Occupational Culture and Occupational Identities of Seafarers in the Global Merchant Fleet.’ Unpublished dissertation, Bremen: Universität Bremen.
Hofstede, Geert. 1991. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. London: McGraw-Hill.
Lamont, Michèle. 1992. Money, Morals, and Manners: The Culture of the French and American Upper-Middle Class. Morality and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marx, Karl. 1887. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Vol. 1. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Russo, Andrea, Toni Popović, and Vico Tomić. 2014. ‘The Impact of Technology an Seafarers’ Work and Leisure.’ In Book of Proceedings., edited by Pero Vidan, Elen Twrdy, Nenad Leder, Rosanda Mulić, Nikola
Račić, Gojmir Radica, Mihaela Bukljaš Skočibušič, et al., 173–78. Solin, Croatia: Faculty of Maritime Studies Split. https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/721047.IMSC2014_proceedings.pdf#page=181.
Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
Sampson, Helen. 2013. International Seafarers and Transnationalism in the Twenty-First Century. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press.
Theotokas, Ioannis, Ioannis Tsamourgelis, Maria Progoulaki, and Efstathia Tsagari. 2007. ‘South-Asian Seafarers on Board Greek-Owned Ships: Organisational, Managerial and Cultural Issues’. Proceedings of the
International Association of Maritime Economists, 1–13.
Wimmer, Andreas. 2013. Ethnic Boundary Making. Institutions, Power, Networks. New York: Oxford University Press.

16th EASA Biennial Conference

EASA2020: New anthropological horizons in and beyond Europe
21-24 July 2020 in Lisbon