Maritime labour, transnational political trajectories and decolonization from below

The opposition to the 1935 British Shipping Assistance Act

Bibliographic Data

ID4263287
AuthorsDavid Featherstone (0000-0001-5196-2486, School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, East Quadrangle University of Glasgow Glasgow G12 8QQ, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume19
Issue4
Pages539-562
Publication date2019-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Networks (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1470-2266 • E-ISSN: 1471-0374
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/glob.12228
OpenAlexW2894430826
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited37

This article uses a discussion of struggles over attempts by the National Union of Seamen to exclude seafarers from the maritime labour market in the inter-war period to contribute to debates at the intersection of maritime spaces and transnational labour geographies (cf. Balachandran 2012; Høgsbjerg 2013). By focusing on struggles engendered by the British Shipping (Assistance) Act of 1935, I explore some of the transnational dynamics through which racialized forms of trade unionism were contested. I argue that the political trajectories, solidarities and organizing spaces constructed by the alliances formed to oppose the effects of the act shaped articulations of 'decolonization from below' (James 2015). In this way, engaging with the political trajectories and activities of activists from organizations like the Colonial Seamen's Association can reveal new ways of understanding the spatial politics of decolonization and new accounts of who or how such processes were articulated and contested. I conclude the article by arguing that engagement with these struggles can help assert the importance of forms of subaltern agency in shaping processes of decolonization

Colonialism · Decolonization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Subaltern · Australian History and Society · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Gender Studies · Labor Movements and Unions · Law

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