The internationalization of shipboard space and communities: A historiographical study of Norwegian-owned shipping, 1939–2014

Abstract

This article examines how researchers from the humanities and social sciences have perceived and projected the changing identities of seafarers, ships and localities in ‘Norwegian-owned’ merchant vessels, 1939–2014. Down to the late 1960s, these researchers regarded Norwegian ships and seamen as a part of Norway in international waters, with the national flag flying at the stern. But the shipping crises of the 1970s and 1980s encouraged shipowners to ‘flag out’ their ships in foreign countries, and to resort to manning companies in Hong Kong and the Philippines to recruit seafarers from low-cost countries. This gave the ship and her crew a multinational identity, with Norwegian officers and Filipino or Chinese ratings. Even the researchers’ point of view changed. During the shipping crises, they advocated building up the Norwegian fleet so that it could compete with foreign fleets. Now their aim was not only to understand the ship as a hierarchical work place, but to contend that a more democratic working community on board would foster more efficient and satisfied employees willing to accept a new manning scale with fewer people working harder to compete with low-cost seafarers. But although the Norwegian-owned fleet in Norwegian and foreign registers never had been larger than in 2014, the researchers and the Norwegian Ship Owners’ Association understood that Norwegian shipping was becoming increasingly dependent on new markets, shipbuilding and labour in the Far East. At the same time, the researchers themselves moved to universities in China and the Philippines to undertake ‘action research’ with Asian cadets.