Paper short abstract:

Through the lens of 'Total Institutions', this paper aims to show how the complexity of seafarers' employment on board ships can resemble 'liminal' spaces. The cargo ship as a secluded space surrounded by the limitless sea, can often lead to conflicting experiences of 'imagined freedom'.

Paper long abstract:

The shipping industry has existed for hundreds of years, whereas ships have been the main means of distributing commodities worldwide. Cargo ships have been compared to 'total institutions' (TIs) and have been found to be similar to TI in some ways and different in others. The ship is considered a place of habitation and employment, where seafarers are isolated from the shore for extended periods of time. However, the ship is not a TI in its entirety, as some accounts of the concept stipulate how TIs are never completely cut off from the outside world. In this regard, the cargo ship can be seen as a 'moving world' or as Michel Foucault calls it, a 'heterotopia par excellence', strongly linked to the outside world.

In this backdrop, through the lens of 'Total Institutions', this paper aims to show how the complexity of seafarers' employment on board ships can resemble 'liminal' spaces.

The paper focuses on four main themes, including space, family, time and interaction. The findings show how the cargo ship as a secluded space surrounded by the limitless sea, can often lead to conflicting experiences of 'imagined freedom'; how seafarers' work-life balance constitutes a mixture of traditional and new family configurations; how time is experienced differently by seafarers working on board and how interactions are shaped by the different spheres on board.

The paper draws upon two Ethnographic projects involving interviews with over 100 seafarers as well as shipboard observations, exploring seafarers' experience of life and work at sea.