Rootedness along the way: meaningful sociality in petroleum and mining mobile worker camps

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rotational shift work, long-distance commuting (LDC) and fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) have become increasingly prevalent forms of labour force provision in the resource extraction sector worldwide over the last few decades. This entails the workforce being on the move, with cycles of long shifts on site and extended periods back home. This article draws on ethnographic field work carried out in Arctic Russia and Subarctic Canada among petroleum and mining workers. It focusses on sociality processes in workers’ camps. I employ the notion of ‘meaningful sociality’ among camp inhabitants, which comes about when workers experience ‘rootedness along the way’. Both notions are basic elements of a long-term and satisfactory mobile and multilocal lifestyle. This article shows how the quality of rootedness, job satisfaction and wellbeing in such a labour setting are highly dependent on intersectional conditions of equality at interpersonal and politico-economic scales. Corporations are called upon to actively facilitate the necessary material and affective camp conditions to enable meaningful sociality and provide an equity-based atmosphere for people to become rooted along their way.