Return to search

Filipino seafarers and transnationalism

The study explores Filipino seafarers’ integration and cross-border practices using a transnational paradigm. As seafarers’ lives span the ship and the shore, a transnational framework entails looking at whether belongingness is manifested simultaneously and the extent to which this can be possible. The study’s multi-sited approach considers both the everyday realities in the community and on board the ship including the transnational linkages they maintain and deploy to remain part of both realms. The analyses show that seafarers’ repeated reincorporation and conformity in the community reflects how belongingness is largely constituted as aspirational at home. Integration on board, largely work-oriented and subject to a racialised hierarchy, favours less the social aspect of integration. The limited involvement in both contexts mutually reflects fringe belonging. Under conditions of high mobility, cross-border practices are constrained inasmuch as they are facilitated through access to communication technologies. The ties of reciprocity under extensive kin relations similarly accentuate the strain affecting connection at home. Such conflicting outcomes undermine the connectivity and continuity of social relations that is purportedly enhanced by linking across borders. Such ties are nonetheless employed as a strategy of counteracting labour insecurities despite the burden arising from such tenuous links. This thesis concludes that seafarers evince a form of transactional transnationalism such that they inhabit both worlds only if on board.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:585297
Date January 2013
CreatorsAcejo, Iris
PublisherCardiff University
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://orca.cf.ac.uk/52843/

Page generated in 0.0014 seconds