Ep 26: Abandoned Seafarers. With Miriam Matthiessen

De Verbranders

In this episode, we speak to Miriam Matthiessen, who takes us to the world of shipping, through the phenomenon of so-called Abandoned Seafarers. As it happens, because of the way in which the shipping industry is organized, ship owners sometimes have an incentive to abandon their ships, and the crew on it. Formally, a ship and its crew are considered abandoned when the ship owner does not pay wages, or fails to provide adequate supplies for two months, but in practice, abandonments carry on for many months, and even years. Miriam’s own entry point into this is her work for Abandoned Seafarer’s Map, which was created by Eliza Ader, and which Eliza and Miriam now maintain together with Jacob Bolton. This map uses databases by the International Labor Organization, the ILO, and the International Maritime Organization, the IMO, to show where and how often abandonments take place. These databases structure what the map does and does not show, but either way, by logging case after case, you’ll learn what kind of vessels typically get abandoned, and how nationality structures who gets abandoned, and how an abandonment then subsequently unfolds. In this episode, Miriam shares the lessons that she learned, while also bringing abandonments to live, by describing the situations seafarers may find themselves in, and the effects that abandonments may have on their extended families. Throughout the conversation, Miriam references the book Sweatshops at Sea, by Leon Fink, as well as the work of anthropologists Johanna Markkula on the labor of Filipino Seafarers, and that of economist Hercules Haralambides on container shipping, ports, and global logistics. She also references Jacob Bolton’s dissertation, parts of which he has now published in his article Supply Nets: The Logics of Seafarer Abandonment We end the episode with a conversation on the value of staying with an issue for a prolonged period of time, the need to create counter-hegemonic infrastructures that we can actually maintain, and the need to recognize such maintenance work as making possible the work of trying to change everything. We recorded this in April 2024. So, as we speak about the structural violence inflicted upon seafarers, and the total disregard of their lives, we are thinking of mass murdering of Palestinians by the same powers that be. And when we speak about wanting to change everything, this includes ending the illegal occupation, and the incarceration of Palestinians in open air prisons. Enjoy listening