Social Structures
Author: Joanne McVeigh, Lecturer at the Department of Psychology and the ALL (Assisting Living & Learning) Institute, Maynooth University
June 25th marks the Day of the Seafarer, an international campaign aiming to increase governments’ support for seafarers during the pandemic, but to also more broadly ensure fair treatment and equitable employment conditions for seafarers. We often fail to appreciate our reliance on the world’s 1,647,500 merchant seafarers for the effective functioning of the global economy. However, international trade is underpinned by maritime transport, whereby approximately 80% of the volume of global trade and 70% of the value of global trade are transported by sea. In the book Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate, British author Rose George questioned: “Who looks behind a television now and sees the ship that brought it? Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination” (p. 2). Indeed, the importance of merchant shipping was brought into sharp focus by a container ship obstructing the Suez Canal in Egypt, through which more than 50 ships pass daily, constituting approximately 12% of world trade.
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