Cosmopolitan Engagements

Focusing on the vessels exploiting the fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the first half of the nineteenth century, this chapter argues that while these waters were nominally under the control of the British Empire substantial concessions to the French and competition from American interests resulted in a much greater mobility of labour than is remembered. While colonial, imperial, and international interests worked to resolve disputes at the diplomatic level, working people used competing interests to create more favourable conditions for themselves. The chapter argues that this labouring agency helped to mark out the Gulf as an indeterminant space despite British imperial claims.

Agency (philosophy) · Colonialism · Competition (biology) · Diplomacy · Economic history · Economics · Economy · Empire · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law