Maritime labour and subaltern geographies of internationalism: Black internationalist seafarers' organising in the interwar period

Abstract

This paper uses a focus on the relations between maritime labour and internationalism to explore the subaltern geographies of internationalism. It uses a discussion of a number of such seafarers involved in organisations such as the International of Seamen and Habour Workers Union and the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers to develop an engagement with the production of forms of black internationalism 'from below'. The paper traces the following key 'agentic spatial practices' that were constituted through the political networks of black internationalist seafarers' organising. Firstly, I argue that subaltern maritime actors were able to use their, albeit marginal, position in relation to flows and trade networks creatively to bring diverse relations of power into contestation. Secondly, there are important ways in which such networks were used to generate connections between differently placed groups and to circulate, often in contexts of government repression of 'seditious' literature and ideas. Thirdly, following the political trajectories shaped by maritime workers and activists opens up important possibilities for moving beyond understandings of internationalism as the product of elite groups brokering between different left traditions in particular nations. Fourthly, it engages with the structuring effect of the racism of elements of the 'white left' on the practices of maritime internationalist politics, and recognizes forms of subaltern agency shaped through contesting such racism.