ILPC 2026

Unlike other labour markets, seafaring has for many years resisted what industrial sociologists call the feminisation of the labour force which could be seen in many types of work like the service sector, and the manufacturing sector, to name a few. Currently, it is estimated that only 2%, at best, of the global population of active seafarers are women. However, that does not make seafaring an uninteresting ground for the study of the complexities of gender identity and performance (that is, in the context of the lack of social interaction vis a vis women working and living alongside with them), specifically on the production of multiple masculinities as experienced by seafarers at sea and when they are ashore with their families. Based on fieldwork on four merchant vessels and interview of seafarers in UK ports and training centres in the Philippines, the presentation highlights the experiencing of multiple masculinities of Filipino seafarers at home and at sea. It will problematise on how the kind of work that seafarers do - socially isolated, dangerous - and their being away from their families for an extended period of time, occasion the experiencing and production of these masculinities which, quite interestingly, while conflicted and challenging in many respects, also help seafarers endure the rigors and hardships of life and work on-board and the feeling of ‘estrangement’ and ‘displacement’ from their own families when they come home for vacation. In a way what this presentation wants to show is that seafaring necessitates the performance of different types of masculinity as their work demands it and the social regime where they operate. Abilities to perform them allow them to integrate well with their living and working environment and provide them with an emotive and mental cushion, as it were, both at sea and ashore.