Work, life and space on bulk carrier ships through the eyes of seafarers: An ethnographic study

Around 90% of world trade is carried out by international maritime transport, as it is cost-effective compared to other modes of transportation. The main elements of maritime transport are warehouses, ports, commercial cargo ships and seafarers working on these ships. Commercial cargo ships as living and working spaces are isolated, mobile, risky, noisy, male-dominated, and hierarchical spaces. Seafarers working on merchant ships forms transnational communities whose living and working standards are regulated according to international standards, which work on fixed-term contracts of several months. On the other hand, the living and working conditions of the seafarers depend on the type of ship they work for, age of the ship, whether the ship is operated as liner or tramp service, whether the maintenance processes are carried out timely and effectively, quality of the provisions, the company's personnel policy, and whether there are enough and experienced seafarers on board whether the seafarers have the opportunity to leave the ship in port cities, and the condition of accommodation places. In this research, it has been tried to explain how daily life is shaped on bulk carriers and how time, space and seafaring profession are interpreted by seafarers through focusing on the labour process. The ethnographic method was employed in this research, and the techniques of participatory observation and face-to-face interviews conducted with seafarers who are ashore and on board. A field research based on participatory observation was carried out in two phases on the bulk carrier M/V Striker (pseudonym); two months mostly spent at the repair shipyard in 2021 and two and a half months in 2023, on voyaging. Based on formal face-to-face in-depth interviews conducted, as well as observations during the field research, this thesis tries to examine some dynamics on board through the labour process, such as hierarchy, authority, power relations, solidarity and dispute, male-dominated space, wages, precarity and finally the determinants affect the psychology of the seafarers in bulk carriers (especially substandard ships). Keywords: Seafarers, International Maritime Transport, Working Onboard, Bulk Carrier, Cargo Vessels, Ethnography of Labor, Working Class, Social Anthropology