“The Boys Are No Relaxed

When I‘m Here”: Power,

Emotion and the Failure of
Private Relations in the Life-
World of a Ship’s Crew
Marie Grasmeier
Bremen University
(c) by the Author 2019

Introduction
In this paper I will investigate the emotional mediation of social power relations
in everyday interaction. I use as an example the case of seafarers working on an
internationally crewed merchant ship and especially the phenomenon that the
hierarchical social structure of shipboard organisation regularly tends to transgress
into the private sphere of the seafarers on board. I will draw on ethnographic data
collected for my dissertation project on occupational culture and the construction
of occupational identities of international seafarers in their workplace interactions.
To explore the topic, I chose to focus on occasions where the seafarers celebrated
parties on board the ship which conspicuously brings to light the relationships of
structures of domination and emotion. I interpret these occasions with Victor
Turner’s concept of communitas and Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and
symbolic violence. By having parties together, the seafarers tried to find a way to
privately interact with each other by temporarily suspending the hierarchical
order. Directly opposed to that intention, the social and mental tensions that arise
from the hierarchical structure of shipboard organisation became especially salient
in this situation.

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Methods
The field notes building the basis of the present paper were collected during an
ethnographic research trip of seven weeks on board a container ship operated by a
German shipping company. The all-male crew was composed of seafarers from
the Philippines, Poland, Sri-Lanka and Romania. My methodic focus was on
participant observation of daily interaction during working and leisure times
including informal talk.

Emotion as a subject of research is methodically not easy to grasp as emotions are

embodied and often not verbally expressed, often times not even verbally
expressible (Kubes 2014:114). Emotions have an unconscious dimension in the
sense that they are de-symbolised interactional patterns (cf.: Lorenzer 2000:118
f.). In other words, as we do not feel with words, it is hard to talk about feelings
or to understand feelings by means of verbal conversation. In recent years,
scholars have attempted to find methodic approaches to the problem to make
emotions accessible as a subject to social research. Mary Holmes (2015), for
example, proposes the use of joint interviews to be able to observe emotional
reflexivity between interviewees and get insight in the emotional dimension of
their relations. In my research, I attempt to utilize participant observation to gain
this access to the emotional dimension of social interaction. The goal of the
method is generally regarded as what Clifford Geertz baptized a “thick
description”, i.e. identifying the cultural rules underlying people’s actions and
understanding the meaning of these actions from the actors’ perspective (Geertz
1973:3 ff.). In any case, that kind of interpretation of social processes requires an
experience near method like participant observation that includes the
establishment of social relations with the research subjects (O’Reilly 2012:99 ff.
Lauser 2004:42; Girtler 2001:62 ff. Willis and Trondman 2000:394; Welz
1998:191; Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw 1995:12 f.). If the inquiry aims at the
emotional dimension of social action, focussing not only on the field members’
point of view but also on their feelings, as in case of the research presented in this
paper, this is even more true. Playing with the wording of Clifford Geertz, Gerd

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Spittler (2001) calls such kind of practical and emotional immersion into the life-
world under study “thick participation”. Tanja Kubes (2014) claims to radicalise
his approach with her concept of “living fieldwork”, aiming to utilize bodily
sensation as a means of cognition and understanding. According to her approach,
“sensory introspection” builds the basis of ethnographic understanding (Kubes
2014:112 ff.).

In order to achieve this “thickness” of participation, to be able to sympathise with

the seafarers lived experience of being part of a ship’s crew and subjected to the
particular social structure and relations of shipboard life, I myself took a role in
the working routine on the ship. This was possible as I have previously been a
member of the field myself and therefore met all the necessary training
requirements to work as a seafarer. During my field trip, I was mustered on the
ship as a deck cadet and took part in the daily work activities of the deck ratings
for at least six hours each day. This shared experience of working together not
only enabled me to build trustful relationships with the members of the deck crew
but was also a way to understand the emotional experience of seafarers’ working
life.

I supplemented the process of data analysis and interpretation by participating in

an ethno-psychoanalytic peer intervision group. The purpose of this mode of peer
intervision is to gain a deeper understanding of one’s field experience, to be able
to make sense of and utilize disturbances in the field work process in a productive
way and to obtain cognitive access to the latent content of the field notes.

During field work, many impressions cannot be perceived and processed

consciously but enter the ethnographer’s mind and field record “between the
lines” (Devereux 1967:303). Those latent content can most of the times only be
understood by readers other than the author (Nadig 1997:36). According to Alfred
Lorenzer’s semiotic concept of the unconscious, different people have
individually different ranges of consciousness at their disposal. That means, that
certain mental contents, thoughts or feelings that are displaced by one individual
may be consciously accessible by another (Lorenzer 2000:73 ff.). Peer intervision

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therefore works by combining the conscious capacities of several participants to
establish a more thorough understanding of the field data.

The concrete procedure of ethno-psychoanalytic peer intervision roughly follows

the method of the Balint-group which is employed in the supervision of medical
practitioners (cf.: Balint 1957). The participants read the notes of the text provider
and let themselves be affected by the text in a way comparable to the principle of
“evenly-suspended attention” (Laplanche and Pontalis 2018:43). They try not to
think rationally about the content but to perceive their emotions elicited by the
text, which they give to the text provider in form of spontaneous associations
(Krueger 2017:90). Those associations as a matter of course are not to be
understood as somehow objective statements or interpretations of the field data
(Bonz et al. 2017:14). Rather, they serve as clues to help the text provider explore
new perspectives on their field experience (Bonz and Eisch-Angus 2017:41). The
results of the peer intervision group sessions are therefore situated in what the
psychoanalyst Theodor Reik called the stage of “conjecture” (Reik 1948:214) in
the process of understanding. The second phase of this process, “comprehension”
(Reik 1948:226), then returns to the mode of critical, rational thinking which
draws on the manifest content of the field data as well as on the clues provided by
the intervision group (Grasmeier 2017:326).

I employed the method of peer intervision for two reasons: first, to compensate for
the risk of, as a former member of my research field, falling into a certain
operational blindness that is always inherent to insider ethnographies (O’Reilly
2012:98). Second, peer intervision is especially helpful to support reflexivity by
introspection. The latter is of increased importance due to the closeness to
subjectivity of emotional matters as my research subject (cf. Bonz 2016:167).

The Ship and Her Crew

The research field was the M/V “Polaris”1, a container ship operating in
worldwide trade. The shipping company owning and operating the vessel was
1 All names of ships, people and places have been anonymised to protect the research
participant’s right to privacy.

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based in a major German port city. The ship was registered in an open registry and
carried an international crew, accordingly. Open registries or flags of convenience
are a way shipowners evade strict regulation on a national level and are able to
hire their crews on a global labour market in order to reduce labour costs (Lobrigo
and Pawlik 2015:125). Nowadays, most vessels employed in international trade
fly those flags (Corres and Pallis 2008:249). Most seafarers originate from so
called labour supply countries of the global south as the Philippines or Indonesia
(Pia 2016:22).

Social organisation on a ship is to a high degree characterised by a strictly

hierarchical formal structure. Most crew members stand in a relationship of being
each others superiors and subordinates, there are usually only small peer groups of
the same rank within one crew (Sampson 2013:78; Lamvik 2002:62; Brumm
1967:23). The “tableau vivant” (Foucault 1977:148) has a horizontal and a
vertical dimension. Horizontally, the crew is organised in three departments: deck,
engine and catering. The first two departments are each led by a senior officer,
that is the first officer in case of the deck department and the chief engineer in
case of the engine department. The head of the catering department is the chief
cook who is not regarded an officer. This department was made up only of the
chief cook and his auxiliary, the steward. The other two departments each
encompassed a larger number of seafarers. All three departments are organised in
a vertical hierarchy.

In this vertical dimension, there are, first, the two status groups of officers and
ratings. The status group of the officers can be compared to what is known as the
middle management in work organisations ashore. Officer positions usually
require to hold an academic or college degree. The ratings correspond to what is
generally known as blue collar workers including foremen and master
craftspersons, who can mostly be trained on the job. Nowadays, however, it is
general practice that almost all seafarers hired on a global labour market hold a
degree in maritime transportation or marine engineering and formally fulfil the
requirement for working as officers.

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Regarding the further description of the vertical subdivision of the ship’s crew I
will focus on those roles that are held by the actors appearing in my field notes
discussed below. First, there is the master of captain who holds the overall
responsibility of the ship’s operations and is not part of one of the three
departments. Besides their function as an executive employee the captain is
formally delegated sovereign power of the flag state. On ships operated in an
open ship registry – the ship studied here flew the flag of Antigua and Barbuda –
the function of the captain as a representative of flag state sovereignty is
practically stripped of content as flag states have neither the interest in the
enforcement of their law on board nor the means to practically enforce such
intention. Accordingly, the law of the flag states has become to a great extent
meaningless for disciplinary power on board (Sampson 2013:79).

The chief engineer has the same status within shipboard hierarchy as the captain.
They lead all technical operations of the ship, i.e. they delegate the operation and
maintenance of the ship’s engines as well as maintenance and repair of all
technical systems on board to the members of the engine department. The second
and third engineer are the officers subordinated to the chief engineer. They usually
have the same formal training as the chief engineer and act as their deputies. The
engine ratings are the so called oilers, the electrician and the fitter.

The deck department is organised accordingly. The first officer or chief mate
shares their watch keeping duties – mostly “driving” the ship at sea and
supervising cargo operations in port – with the two deck officers, i.e. the second
mate and the third mate. The deck ratings usually work relatively autonomous as
long as they are not assigned auxiliary watch keeping duties on the bridge. During
day work, they are responsible for cleaning and maintenance tasks on the whole
ship. Their daily routine starts with the bosun – the foreman of the deck ratings –
reporting to the chief mate on bridge each morning to take orders and discuss the
work to be done during the day. They then distribute those work tasks among
themselves and the four deck ratings, who are usually assigned to gangs of two or
three. During my field research, I was also a member of this team. In case of deck

6
ratings, two ranks are distinguished: the entry level of “ordinary seafarer” (O/S)
and the more experienced position of “able seafarer” (A/B).

Since the bosun is the most experienced worker among the deck ratings, they
usually do the tasks that are technically most demanding. They also care for the
training of the junior ratings and cadets.

When the work force is recruited on global labour markets, the different status
groups are usually crewed with different nationalities. On the ship under study
here, the captain and the chief mate were from Poland, the chief engineer and
second engineer from Romania. All other crew were from the Philippines. As in
this case, the formal hierarchy is usually paralleled by the ethnic differentiation of
the ship’s crew with the higher ranks originating from European countries and the
ratings from labour supply countries of the Global South. The composition of the
crew therefore mirrors the power relations between nation states within the world
system (McKay 2011:8; Progoulaki and Roe 2011:10 ff. Lillie 2010:690; Jensen et
al. 2006:393; Gerstenberger and Welke 2004:81).

Not only is the hierarchy of the ship’s crew expressed in the formal organigram
and daily routines but it is also inscribed in the physical space of the ship.
Accommodation spaces are usually arranged in a way that the highest ranking
seafarers live in the upper part of the accommodation space, below the bridge. The
arrangement of living quarters is then echeloned by rank downwards with the
ratings living on the lower decks (Gerstenberger and Welke 2004:84). Within each
deck the rule is that the higher ranks live on the starboard side – the right side of
the ship – and the lower ranks on the port side. The separation of the status groups
of officers and ratings is especially salient in the segregated mess rooms, the
spaces where the seafarers have their meals. Each status group has their own mess
room. These mess rooms differ – as the living cabins – by size and outfit that
symbolise the status differences. As a consequence of the above mentioned
overlap between ethnic difference and formal hierarchy it is nowadays widely
established that the officers mess is used by the European seafarers independently

7
of their rank and the crew mess by the other seafarers, even if they are officers
according to rank (Gerstenberger and Welke 2004:82 f.).

Besides this segregation of the mess rooms I noticed that on this ship certain free
spaces had been established that allowed ratings to escape the disciplinary gaze of
the officers. At most times, this tacit agreement was respected by the officers. For
instance, there was an office room near the main deck, the so called tally office,
that was not used as such. The tally office was instead used by the ratings as a
retreat space where they spend their coffee breaks at ten in the morning and three
in the afternoon. When the chief mate, the chief engineer or the captain wanted to
speak to a seafarer during their break, they usually did not enter this space but
knocked on the door, opened it and put forward their concern while remaining
standing in the corridor.

Un-Doing Communitas
In the following I will present an extended excerpt from my field notes that
illustrates the issue of emotional mediation of power structures in a quite vivid
way. The scene describes the first evening of a series of important religious
holidays that were celebrated with three daily meals for three consecutive days.
The celebration constituted an exemption from the usual shipboard routine as the
spacial separation between the status group was suspended during this occasion.
Moreover, the preparation of the meals did not take place in the galley that was
the exclusive space of the cook and his steward. Instead, it was barbecued on
deck, with a number of crew members not belonging to the catering department
participating in this work.

“Tonight was the celebration. The table in the officers’ mess was not
set. When I stepped into the corridor again, I could see that the cook,
the steward and some other seafarers were standing around the grill. I
went outside to see what was going on. The mood seemed to be
perfect. Everybody laughed and four guys bustled around the grill. A
bank from the Tally Office had been placed outside. On top were
plates with different kinds of grilled meat and fish. On another table
the raw materials were piled up. One A/B took photos with a digital

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camera. I went back to my cabin and took my own camera to take
some pictures, too.
After a while, somebody said that it was time now. Suddenly,
everybody went into the crew mess where two tables were richly set.
Nobody sat down, most seafarers remained standing behind their
seats. First, I stood somewhere in the middle of the room feeling a bit
lost, then I also went to stand behind one of the chairs. Like
instinctively, I chose the table where the first officer and the second
engineer already stood, in order not to insult anybody and was a little
bit annoyed by this anticipatory obedience.
When the chief engineer entered the room, he first did not find a place
to sit. I quickly offered him my seat, hoping that I could shift to the
table of the ratings inconspiciously. But somebody noticed that there
was another free place in the corner. That was mine, then. When
everybody had arrived, we all took our seats simultaneously. At one
table, all the officers and the electrician were now seated, at the other
table the ratings including bosun and fitter. I sat in the corner, opposed
to the second mate and next to the grumpy second engineer. To me,
the whole situation felt a little bit tense. Since we had not introduced
ourselves yet, I asked the second mate for his name in order to start a
conversation and relax the atmosphere a little bit. “Geraldo”. Anyway,
we did not start a conversation. At this moment, the cook and the
steward started to dish up the food, beginning with the officers’ table.
[...]
After the food was dished up on the crew’s table, the ratings
immediately started eating. At our table, a bottle of red wine went
around. The second engineer offered me the bottle. For the sake of
kindness, I put my class near the bottle (I actually do not like wine).
He then filled it to about one quarter.
When everybody had wine in their glasses, the captain, who sat at the
head of the table, raised his glass. His face had an expression as if
something was wrong. After a few seconds he threw an annoyed
glance at the neighbouring table, where the ratings were already
eating. However, he did not care about this further and said, slightly
sighing: ‘Ok then, salud!’
Immediately, the ratings at their table stopped eating and raised their
glasses, too.
'Wish you all the best! … and to your families!'
The replies to the captain’s words got lost in the general murmur and
clangour of cutlery. We all started drinking and eating. I asked the
second engineer about his name, hoping that we would not have to
ignore each other anymore. He seemed a little bit disturbed and asked
back: ‘What name? Surname or first name?’ Now, I was a little

9
 disturbed and said that I did not know, that it was up to him. ‘Bartosz’.
Although his answer did not sound unfriendly, after this short
conversation was radio silence again.
During the following time the three Poles talked polish, the three
Filipinos Tagalog and the two Romanian engineers, who sat vis-à-vis
each other, remained almost silent. They exchanged maybe two or
three sentences during the whole evening. I sat there in silence, too.
Geraldo, the second officer, addressed my name: ‘Your name is not
German name?’ ‘Yes, I think it’s French.’ But a real conversation did
not arise between the two of us. Any conversation would have had to
be quite loud across the table and with the loud background music that
now was playing. I was also inhibited by the presence of the captain.
Somehow I am afraid of him, although he is not unfriendly. His style
of talking to me is, however, quite direct and monosyllabic. In the
meantime, I observed how the AB Derrick laid his arm around the
fitter. However, he withdrew it immediately. The gesture seemed
somehow insecure. [...]
Later, the captain asked loudly in the direction of the neighbouring
table of the ratings: ‘Where you have salt?’ Immediately, the bosun
jumped up, went into the galley, took the salt shaker from the
cupboard and put it on the table in front of the captain. Then, he went
back to his seat” (Field notes, M/V “Polaris”, day 5).
In the sessions of the peer intervision group, some participants repeatedly
mentioned with regard to other observations that the seafarers on the ship were
very anxiously seeking social closeness but were separated by the hierarchical
order. This motif runs like a common thread through the excerpt. It is simply the
fact that the celebration is an exceptional situation where the seafarers try to
suspend the rigid hierarchy which makes this theme so salient here. The
antagonism of the two status groups of officers and ratings as well as the divide
between individual persons are, contrary to everyone’s intention, reproduced
interactively.

For the interpretation of the interactional frame of this scene I will employ the
concept of communitas introduced by the anthropologist Victor Turner (1969).
According to Turner, societality always encompasses the two moments of social
structure and communitas. Both aspects are opposed to but at the same time a pre-
condition for each other. The first moment, social structure, is the arrangement of
hierarchically differentiated positions and institutions in which individual

10
relations are embedded. In our case, the hierarchical order of shipboard
organisation is such an arrangement. Structure is basically characterised by
antagonism and power differences. On the other side, there is the second moment
of communitas representing collaborative relations between individuals.
Following Turner, no society can be characterised by only one of these two
moments. The antagonism of social structure always requires the togetherness of
communitas and vice versa (Turner 1969:96). However, there may be ritual
situations in which the immediacy, concreteness and spontaneity of interpersonal
relations characterising communitas outweigh the social norms, institutions and
the abstract of social structure. Communitas is always present where social
structure is not. Thus, it consists in a – however always spatially and temporally
bounded – negation of social structure and of the power relations constituting the
former (Turner 1969:126 f.).

From that perspective, the orchestration of an exceptional situation by the

suspension of the spacial boundaries between officers and ratings as well as the
labour division between catering personnel and the colleagues of other
departments can be interpreted as an attempt to establish a ritual communitas.

In the following, I will now come to a more close interpretation of the single
sequences of the above narrative. When we all enter the crew mess room to have
dinner, nobody takes a seat. We first all remain standing behind our chairs until
the captains enters the scene. On the one hand, this gesture emphasises the
commonality of the dinner. On the other hand, by the fact that the beginning of the
celebration is signalled by his arrival, the special position of the captain is
highlighted.

The boundary between (senior) officers and Europeans on the one side and the
junior officer and seafarers from the global south that was suspended symbolically
by the spacial merging of the meal is reproduced by the seating pattern. I do not
believe that this seating order was explicitly negotiated or even prescribed. Rather,
I assume that the others had similar feeling in the situation as I did. As a matter of
course and out of fear to insult the officers, I positioned myself at the table of their

11
group to which I am assigned in other contexts, too. Although I could reflect on
this compulsion during the situation and was annoyed by my own behaviour, I did
not have the heart to risk a putative provocation. I could do this only when I
realized that the chief engineer, too, did not find a place to sit and I could offer
him mine. However, this was thwarted by somebody pointing to another vacant
seat.

The next irritation that can be observed in the scene is the captain’s attempt to
open the celebration dinner with a toast. In the first instance, this attempt is
baffled by the fact that the ratings had already started eating. However, the captain
seems to feel entitled to enforce the celebration to proceed according to his
protocol and to create a ceremonial atmosphere. By his facial expression, he
shows his discontent about the fact that his concern is ignored or not understood.
However, he does not let himself be put off from following his conception. By not
letting himself be affected and continuing his protocol stoically he symbolically
emphasises his authority as the leader of the ship’s crew. When he just starts with
his toast, all crew members conform to him and listen.

By including the seafarers’ families in his toast, the content of his short speech
refers to life outside the ship. He thereby constructs a commonality between
himself and the other crew members. On board the ship, they are all isolated from
there private lives, most of the seafarers have families at home waiting for them
and are therefore all “sitting in the same boat”. It is important that the captain
here addresses a shared emotion in which the seafarers including himself
constitute a community of suffering. With regard to their homesickness and
loneliness on the ship they share a true collective identity that is independent from
their economic function and their position in the formal hierarchy. This common
emotional band could serve as a connection between those people. However, the
conjured community remains imaginary, or, in Victor Turners words: an
“ideologial communitas” (Turner 1969:132 f.). Moreover, it is instantly replaced
by another “imagined community” (Anderson 1991) when they all begin to
organise along their common mother tongues.

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The most obvious motive to gather along the lines of native languages in this
situation is that one spares the effort of using a foreign language while condoning
the restriction of potential interlocutors to the “own” group. However, it is very
likely that there is another reason to stick to the native language. The conversation
receives a less public character. This is especially plausible since the hierarchical
status group correspond to a high degree to the language communities. The
Filipinos, for example, use this fact to be able to converse among themselves and
exclude their higher ranking colleagues from the conversation. However, they also
exclude the Sri-Lankan fitter, who is a member of their status group but is the only
one not proficient in the Filipino linguae francae, by their strategy.

In contrast to this retreat some participants repeatedly attempt to break the

isolation by establishing a verbal or non-verbal level of communication across the
boundaries of language communities. However, these attempts all appear
somehow inhibited to the participant observer.

In this context the attempt of the second officer is first to mention who addresses
the origin of my name. By the necessity to use the English language, this
conversation necessarily has a more public character. This becomes obvious by
my irritation of being inhibited by the captain’s presence. I rationalise my fear
with regard to the loud music that would have hampered a less public dialogue.
Then, there is the non-verbal communication between the A/B and the fitter. The
observed shyness could be interpreted as an insecurity if this kind of bodily
closeness is appropriate regarding the foreign cultural background of the fitter.
However, the A/Bs used to have a very familiar relationship with the fitter, as I
learned during the course of my fieldwork. Therefore, it is plausible to assume
that they are also inhibited by the presence of authority figures.

Especially worth mentioning is the final scene from the excerpt in which the
captain lets the bosun act as his servant. Probably he does only have the intention
to get the information where he can find salt as he is not familiar in the crew mess.
Since the two members of the catering department are busy at the time he directs
his question towards the ratings’ table. The bosun, in turn, seems to understand the

13
captain’s question as an order. His reaction on the one hand appears quite
naturally as he does not hesitate. On the other hand, the situation seems somehow
oppressive. Despite his quick and unerring action, the bosun appears insecure or
even timid in a way I could also observe in other instances when seafarers had to
follow the captain’s orders – especially when the content of those orders was
unusual with regard to the usual routine.

In Pierre Bourdieu’s terms the scene can be interpreted as both, the captain and the
bosun, being effected by their habitus that is closely connected to their social
position regarding the hierarchical order and their ethnic belonging. The concept
of habitus refers to the internalisation of social structure that is “durably inscribed
in the body and in belief“ (Bourdieu 1990:58) “below the level of consciousness”
(Bourdieu 1984:466) and that in turn structures the conditions of individual
action. The captain exercises “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu 2001:33 ff.) insofar
as his question elicits an act of subjugation by the bosun. The latter cannot but
understand the captain’s question as an order. The captain, too, is according to this
model caught in his habitus as he unintendedly transmits the respective clues
leading to the bosun’s reaction through his habitual tone. The interactants could,
of course, make the effort to act alternatively. However, this would lead to
disturbances of the situation and insecurities which they avoid by behaving
according to their habitus.

Another occurrence that illustrates the transgression of hierarchy structures into

the realm of private interaction happened at the evening before a holiday when
another party was held. After dinner, one AB and I went into the Tally Office, the
unofficial recreation room, to smoke a cigarette together.

I joined Derrick to go in the tally office to have a smoke. Shortly after

we arrived there, the captain joined us to have a smoke, too. He asked
if there was an ashtray. He then began searching the office. He said
that we had so many of them. He opened the door to the corridor and
coincidentally met the steward who was on his way from the crew
mess. He told him in the usual tone to bring an ashtray. Two minutes
later, it was there. He put it on the table and said to Derrick: “Then
you put some rubber!” While saying this, he pushed the ashtray back

14
 and forth on the table top to demonstrate that it could slide due to the
ship’s motions. Then he took a seat on the last remaining chair in the
tally office. Derrick and I remained standing as there were no more
chairs. Derrick hastily finished his cigarette and left. I started a
conversation about the weather in the sea area we were passing right
now (Field notes, M/V “Polaris”, day 21).
Contrary to the established practice, the captain in this scene intrudes the free
space of the ratings that was otherwise respected as taboo by the senior officers.
That also reflects the attempt to overcome the spatial boundary between the status
group in the context of the party. However, he does not behave like a guest there
but instantly shows an extraordinarily dominant behaviour by taking the only
available chair while the two ratings have to remain standing up. As we are
inhibited by the presence of the captain, we do not, like usually, take a seat on the
other furniture. We do not dare to behave like it is otherwise normal inside this
space. We are afraid that the captain could reprimand us for sitting, for example,
on the desk. The uneasiness of the situation is also illustrated by the fact that the
A/B quickly finishes his cigarette and then instantly leaves.

When he recognizes that there is no ashtray in the room, the captain calls the
steward and orders him to bring one. After the steward had executed the order, the
captain gave us instruction how to use the ashtray.

Richard Sennett (1993) describes different modalities of authority of which one he

names paternalistic authority. The paternalist leader lives the quasi-familial role
of the “father” expressed in this metaphor by patronising their subordinates. In
return, they demand recognition, loyalty and passivity from the latter. The
metaphoric appeal to the institution of the family in this case has the function to
legitimise the leader’s authority (Sennett 1993:50 ff.).

This idea is reasonable for the interpretation of the presented scene. Probably, the
captain himself realizes how unsettling his behaviour is affecting the other
participants of the situation and feels shame and uncertainty himself about this as
he is in a space that is usually reserved for the others. By means of his invasive
way to do “good” to the legitimate inhabitants of the space by arranging an

15
ashtray for them, he unconsciously defends against these irritations. At the same
time, he legitimises his presence in the recreation room by staging himself as a
paternalist superior. Since he does this by means of giving orders which are
instantly executed by the addressed steward, he simultaneously demonstrates the
power associated with his organisational role. The fraternisation by sharing the
common space first turns into patronising and then into a show of force. The
A/B’s reaction to this interaction is to flee from the scene and leaving the space to
the captain. I myself – as a white academic researcher – feel caught between the
lines and seek refuge in starting small talk about the weather; a topic that is
innocuously uncontroversial and actually works to relax the situation for me
(Coupland and Jaworski 2003:85 f.).

At least some of the seafarers were consciously aware of the problem of hierarchy
transgressing into the private realm. A couple of days earlier, the following
example took place during a party on the occasion of my birthday. I had gone
down to the crew mess with an A/B to get more beer from the fridge. On this
occasion, he scrutinized the presence of the captain at the party:

“When we were on deck, he asked me if I thought it to be a good idea

to have the captain at the party. I meant that, though I had not
explicitly invited him, I had announced that everybody would be
welcome. I said that I hoped this would be Ok for everybody. ‘Of
course. It’s your party’” (Field notes, M/V “Polaris”, day 16).
In this example, my role insecurity becomes obvious. I am caught in a loyalty
conflict in which I cannot satisfy the needs of the ratings for privacy and at the
same time behave towards the captain in a way I regard appropriate. I, too, felt
uneasy with the presence of the captain. This disturbance again enables access to
deeper, “experience near” (Geertz 1977:481) insights in the emotional mediation
of power relation in the seafarers everyday life that come to light due to my role
insecurity. Also the AB does not really have the heart to speak his mind: when I
try to justify myself, he does not judge my actions but relativises his complaint by
the trope: “It’s your party.”

16
However, the fact that the attempts to overcome the social boundaries between the
status groups continuously fail due to the deep identification of the actors with
power structures does not mean that seafarers are unable to find a somehow better
way to cope with the phenomenon. Although an awareness of the mutual
uncertainty cannot overcome the tensions contained in such encounters, it can
contribute to a more constructive handling of the same. There are superiors who
indeed reflect the power distance that is necessarily inherent in the interaction
with formally subordinates. The following excerpt shows an instance of such
handling of the situation by the chief engineer of the ship. It is still the same
evening as in the previous example. The seafarers including the chief engineer –
the captain had already retreated to sleep – sat together in the recreation room and
sang karaoke.

“After the captain had left, the karaoke was proceeding more actively.
In the beginning, however, only by the members of the deck crew. The
chief again and again invited ‘his guys’ to join the singing. He said:
‘Why nobody from the engine?’ I said to him that he as the head of the
engine department should provide a good example and start, but he
ignored my suggestion. Instead, he went on egging ‘his boys’ to join.
At some point the third engineer took the mic and sang a song. The
chief stood up and announced that he would go to sleep now. ‘The
boys are not relaxed when I am here.’ I wished him a good night and
thanked him for coming” (Field notes, M/V “Polaris”, day 16).
At first, the chief engineer tries to fraternise with the members of his department
by encouraging them to take up a competition with the other departments.
However, he recognises exactly the mood that later was mentioned in the peer
intervision group: the seafarers seek closeness but are divided by the hierarchy.
His solution to the problem is isolating himself from social life to let the other
their fun. In retrospect, I perceive this scene as a little bit tragic. Now I know how
much mutual respect characterised the relationship between this chief and his
subordinates. On the day I disembarked from the ship – the chief engineer was
supposed to sign off together with me to go home for vacation – he wanted to say
goodbye to his colleagues from the engine room. When he asked the steward

17
where all the engine crew was, the latter replied: ‘They are all in their cabin and
crying, because you go home’ (Field notes, M/V “Polaris”, day 46).

Conclusion
In the interpretation of the above presented field notes I could show how the
seafarers try to create a private space for compensation in which the social
antagonisms which otherwise determine their everyday life are suspended for a
limited time. Especially the senior officers seem to pursue this concern as could
be seen for instance in case of the toast of the captain where he uses his authority
to try to enforce a communitas according to his imagination. Not only this
example shows that the attempts to overcome the antagonisms arising from the
social structure of the ship time and again fail due to the fact that the mental and
emotional entanglement with power relations cannot simply be suspended by
decision. However, subjective strategies of agency emerged with regard to a
emotionally reflexive handling of the problem. Although these did not finally
bring a solution – this would not be possible due to the objective antagonisms
contained in the social structure of the field – but could help to mitigate the related
tensions.

18
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