How the socio-cultural practices of fishing obscure micro-disciplinary, verbal, and psychological abuse of migrant fishers in North East Scotland
How the socio-cultural practices of fishing obscure micro-disciplinary, verbal, and psychological abuse of migrant fishers in North East Scotland
In recent decades, part of the UK fishing industry has become increasingly reliant on migrant crew, to fill local crew shortages. With restricted immigration status and invisibility on vessels out at sea, crews are vulnerable to both extreme and mundane forms of control and exploitation. Although the UK is legally addressing the potential for trafficking and forced labour across the fishing industry, more needs to be done to address the potential for micro-disciplinary, psychological, and verbal abuse of non-European Economic Area (non-EEA) crew which remains difficult to evidence. This requires recognition of how non-EEA migrant fishers are made vulnerable by the intersection of socio-cultural practices of fishing with a visa system that anchors immigration status to named vessels, limits movements, and makes changing employers or raising complaints difficult. Taking the 2020 prosecution of a Scottish skipper for abusing Filipino crew as a discursive starting point, we explore how differences in local interpretation of fishing relationships, by skippers and non-EEA crew, reveal limited agreement over what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Drawing on fieldwork in North East Scotland, we argue that the white noise of coarse language, ‘alpha male’ behaviours, and narratives of risk and responsibility that dominate local fishing practice, when combined with scant appreciation of how non-EEA migrant experiences differ from other crew, can serve to obscure migrant crew’s experiences of maltreatment. Greater attention is consequently required to vernacularise migrant crew rights, by making them locally meaningful so that both skippers and crew adequately recognise their responsibility to safeguard non-EEA crew.
Abuse, Coastal transformations, Fishing, Labour rights, Migrant labour
19-34
Djohari, Natalie
90a32268-7e26-45f3-bd47-db9d5a3250ce
White, Carole
7a7cc58a-a3d8-4375-8fe7-35f066191809
10 November 2021
Djohari, Natalie
90a32268-7e26-45f3-bd47-db9d5a3250ce
White, Carole
7a7cc58a-a3d8-4375-8fe7-35f066191809
Djohari, Natalie and White, Carole
(2021)
How the socio-cultural practices of fishing obscure micro-disciplinary, verbal, and psychological abuse of migrant fishers in North East Scotland.
Maritime Studies, 21 (1), .
(doi:10.1007/s40152-021-00251-0).
Abstract
In recent decades, part of the UK fishing industry has become increasingly reliant on migrant crew, to fill local crew shortages. With restricted immigration status and invisibility on vessels out at sea, crews are vulnerable to both extreme and mundane forms of control and exploitation. Although the UK is legally addressing the potential for trafficking and forced labour across the fishing industry, more needs to be done to address the potential for micro-disciplinary, psychological, and verbal abuse of non-European Economic Area (non-EEA) crew which remains difficult to evidence. This requires recognition of how non-EEA migrant fishers are made vulnerable by the intersection of socio-cultural practices of fishing with a visa system that anchors immigration status to named vessels, limits movements, and makes changing employers or raising complaints difficult. Taking the 2020 prosecution of a Scottish skipper for abusing Filipino crew as a discursive starting point, we explore how differences in local interpretation of fishing relationships, by skippers and non-EEA crew, reveal limited agreement over what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Drawing on fieldwork in North East Scotland, we argue that the white noise of coarse language, ‘alpha male’ behaviours, and narratives of risk and responsibility that dominate local fishing practice, when combined with scant appreciation of how non-EEA migrant experiences differ from other crew, can serve to obscure migrant crew’s experiences of maltreatment. Greater attention is consequently required to vernacularise migrant crew rights, by making them locally meaningful so that both skippers and crew adequately recognise their responsibility to safeguard non-EEA crew.
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Accepted/In Press date: 3 November 2021
Published date: 10 November 2021
Additional Information:
Funding Information:
Funding for this research was provided by a grant (grant ref ES/R010404/1) from the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.
Keywords:
Abuse, Coastal transformations, Fishing, Labour rights, Migrant labour
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 471343
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/471343
ISSN: 1872-7859
PURE UUID: 7b0e9b9c-4f3f-4860-81f4-376ce5d090a6
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Date deposited: 03 Nov 2022 17:55
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 07:32
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Author:
Natalie Djohari
Author:
Carole White
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