Sailing Through Life at Sea: The Physical and Emotional Aspects of Seafarers’ Welfare

The purpose of this study is to understand seafarers’ experience of life on-board ships and their transitions from ship to shore and vice versa. This paper addresses physical and emotional aspects of seafarers’ welfare on-board merchant ships. The theoretical framework used in this research is Goffman’s conceptualization of ‘total institutions’. The methodology involves two rounds of non-participant observation on-board merchant vessels, informal conversations and in-depth interviews. The findings of this research suggest that the ship could be characterized as a total institution in Goffman’s terms; however, there are additional sociological concepts to bear in mind in order to comprehend seafarers’ experiences. For instance, the ship as a contained space surrounded by the endless sea, in which the seafarers experience contradictory feelings of contained freedom and alternative family configurations that might characterize seafarers’ family life.