2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
The maritime sector between global and local: indigenous labour, entrepreneurship, and imperial statehood in the African Indian Ocean, 1880s-1930s
| Project/Area Number |
16K02999
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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| Keywords | Maritime labour / European shipping firms / East Africa / Western Indian Ocean / Labour markets / Globalization / Ethnicity |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The project investigated how seamen, especially engine crews from the African Indian Ocean operated on the labour market for European steamships. The following article has been submitted to an international academic journal: ‘Hidden Seamen from East Africa: Somali Firemen, Europe’s Steamship Labour, and Ethnicity, 1880s-1930s’. Between the late nineteenth century and the Second World War the global commerce of British, French, and German shipping firms relied heavily on so-called coloured seamen. The article focuses on the little-known story of Somali seamen from Northeast Africa on European steamships. As a particular ethnic category in the labour market Somalis were subject to stigmatization. Somali seamen, however, also became associated with the specific segment of maritime labour for the engine rooms of tramp ships. In this sector Somali firemen operated as individuals rather than bound by their ethnic origin in the globalizing maritime labour market of the time on ships between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The research is based on materials from the following archives, among others: The National Archives (Kew), Caird Library (Greenwich), Glamorgan Archives (Cardiff), Maritime History Archive (Newfoundland), French Lines (Le Havre), German Federal Archives (Berlin-Lichterfelde), and municipal archives at Hamburg and Bremen.
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