SEAFARERS' “MARITIME CULTURE” AND THE “I‐KIRIBATI WAY OF LIFE”: THE FORMATION OF FLEXIBLE IDENTITIES? |
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| Authors: | Maria Borovnik |
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| Institution: | Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand |
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| Abstract: | This paper aims to examine how seafarers from the Pacific Republic of Kiribati cope with the experience of working with crews of different nationalities, and, further, how the exposure to different cultures during their journeys through international waters influences both their own identity as well as their perceptions of I‐Kiribati culture. Based on examples from open and semi‐structured interviews with seafarers working on German merchant ships and Japanese fishing vessels, the paper questions the application of concepts of “hybridity” in the case of these I‐Kiribati men in favour of the idea of “cultural flexibility”. It further considers to what degree seafarers strongly rooted in the clearly confined cultural values of Kiribati have adapted the values received through their training and employment by German or Japanese and Korean companies and officers. The paper adds to the framework of transnationalism by advancing the notion of emporion, in which the circular and transversal journeys of seafarers are viewed as a connecting space between land‐based areas; a space which provides a basis for an extended knowledge and understanding of different cultural outlooks as well as relations between nations. |
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| Keywords: | identity seafarers labour migration transnationalism globalisation cultural change Kiribati |
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